OK, kiddo! Here are all the fantastically amazing posts tagged with Studies
Vancouver’s Gay Housing Discrimination Problem
Housing discrimination has always been a little difficult to measure. Yet, even in a city as diverse and vibrant as Vancouver, it’s reported to happen. While it’s illegal to deny a gay couple housing simply because of their sexual orientation anywhere in Canada, proving this kind of discrimination is not easy; landlords don’t normally admit to such prejudice. (At least, not the cowardly ones.)
This is what makes a recent experiment conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia so interesting.
Two professors and 34 students designed an experiment around some housing application letters. The letters were all identical except for a small detail. Some letters indicated a heterosexual couple was interested in the property, while others indicated a gay male couple, a single parent, or a lesbian couple. The letters were then sent to 1,700 different landlords in the Vancouver area.
The results are unfortunate.
Letters that were from the gay male partners were 25% more likely to be rejected than letters from the straight couples—more than any other group. The next-most discriminated group, single parents, were 15% more likely to be rejected.
The results, naturally, depended on the neighbourhood in which the property was located. Vancouver’s West End, for example, which has traditionally been an area favoured by gays, had a much higher acceptance rate of all family types than elsewhere in the city.
Now, considering that Vancouver is a pretty a diverse city, it probably exhibits less discrimination than elsewhere in Canada. In this sense, 25% is a pretty worrying statistic, wouldn’t you say?
The results of the study have been published in the August edition of the academic journal Social Problems.
- Gay renters face discrimination [The Vancouver Sun]
- No welcome mat for gays, single parents: Study [The Province]
World Becoming More Gay-Friendly
For anyone who feels like equal rights have been regressing, here’s a bit of encouraging news. According to a report from the University of Chicago, the world is steadily becoming more and more gay-friendly.
Virtually every country studied has reported a greater acceptance of people with different sexual orientations over previous polling periods, with only four exceptions: Russia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Latvia. Encouragingly, the growth of acceptance in other countries outpaced the decline in these four.
The top five countries in terms of GLBT acceptance (which doesn’t include Canada, sadly) are the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Belgium. The bottom half of the list was unsurprisingly largely East Asian and Latin American countries, along with Cyprus, South Africa, and Turkey.
South Africa, incidentally, recognizes full marriage equality, which proves that popular acceptance isn’t a prerequisite to offering equal rights. So, even if you’re experiencing some local setbacks in equal rights thanks to alarmist politicians and widespread misinformation, keep your chin up! The trend line is still on your side, and will be for as long as you keep fighting for it!
- More countries accepting homosexuality: study [Vancouver Sun]
Study Finds Homophobia Rampant In Schools
A new study being released today by the University of Winnipeg has found that homophobia has become a normal part of school life in Canada, with a direct impact on student safety.
Homophobic harassment and comments, sometimes even uttered by teachers, is commonplace. 64% of GLBT students actually report feeling unsafe at school. 21% have even reported being physically harassed or assaulted because of their sexual orientation.
The study also revealed a bit of hope, though. Both verbal and physical harassment were found to be significantly reduced in schools that have explicit anti-homophobia policies compared to those that did not. A clear majority of straight students, 58%, also reported homophobic comments to be upsetting, meaning that most students you meet will be an ally.
Anti-homophobia policies are finding organized opposition from church groups, as was seen in Burnaby this week, but academic research like this certainly outshines any imaginative misinformation and demonstrates a clear need for programs to make schools safer.
So, to all you guys having a rough time in school, hang in there! Things are getting better!
Gay Blood Ban Continues With No Researchers
Canadian Blood Services continues to ban blood donations from gay males, permanently barring all men who have had sex with another man—even once—since 1977. It’s a dumb policy, and one that helps propagate the myth that all gay men are sexually promiscuous and inherently dangerous to the blood supply.
That could change, though; many other countries implement a questionnaire that bases their bans on risky sexual practices, such as having multiple partners and unprotected sex, rather than simple sexual orientation. It makes a lot of sense, particularly since it would also catch tainted blood from heterosexuals—a group which currently has barely any restrictions in Canada. But so far CBS isn’t budging, citing a need for research.
That research, incidentally, should be underway—but it’s not. CBS set aside $500,000 in research grants two years ago to help fund studies into implementing a different policy, but not one scientist has applied for the funding yet.
So, what’s the deal, medical researchers? I know it’s competitive to find funding for scientific research, so it can’t be that you guys don’t want it. Surely this is just a matter of poor advertising for the grant.
Of course, if no one else wants the money, I have my M.Sc.
It’s in a completely unrelated field of science, mind you, but I’m sure I could wing it. Any science not based in math is just improvisation anyway. So, yeah, call me?
- Canadian Blood Services continuing gay ban [Toronto SUN]
- Scientists ignore grant to research blood donations by gay men [Montreal Gazette]
Acceptance Of Gay Families Inching Forward
A new survey out of Indiana University suggests that 68 percent of Americans now consider gay couples with children to be families. This is an increase from 2003, where only 54 percent of respondents said so.
Encouraging as that is, there’s still a large group—30 percent—who indicated that pets count as family, but not same-sex couples. No word on how many of them have actually tried to declare Mister Snugglekins III as a dependent for tax purposes, but these kooks sure have a crazy idea of what makes a family. Of course, they’re also largely the same group of people that like to define themselves as “pro-family,” (as opposed to the more accurate “anti-gay”) even though—by their definition—it’s legal to have some members of your family put down if they get too expensive to care for.
In the meantime, I guess a third of Americans had better update their wills to include Sir Wigglepuss, or they’ll have some costly family legal battles to deal with later.
A big thank you to Slap reader Matt for the story!
- Who’s a family? New study tracks shifting US views [Associated Press]
Study: Gay Men Better At Facial Recognition
A study out of York University has found that gay men are faster and more accurate when recognizing faces than their heterosexual counterparts.
Say, let’s try this out now:
(You can submit your time via email. I’ll wait.)
Researchers attribute the results to differences between the brains of gay and straight men. Gay men, they say, like women, use both sides of their brains for performing these sorts of tasks, whereas straight men only use the right half.
This study adds one more biological trait to the growing list of physiological differences between gay and straight men discovered in recent years. Gay men, for example, are statistically more likely to be left-handed, to have counter-clockwise hair whorls, and have longer index fingers than ring fingers (like me).
With more and more biological links are being discovered every year, I wonder when, exactly, the anti-gay lobby will finally abandon their kooky claims that being gay is just some sort of lifestyle choice. I suppose the Vegas odds on 2:30pm aren’t very good.
- Gay men better at recognizing faces: study [Toronto SUN]
Gay Men Make Up Most Victims of Hate-Motivated Violence
There has been a noticeable jump in the number of reported hate crimes in Canada in 2008, and gay men top the charts as victims of hate-motivated violence, according to a police services report.
The rise in hate crimes is most likely due to better reporting of hate-motivated incidents, which is a very good thing, but these numbers are still way too high. The number of hate crimes logged by police, for example, has risen 35 percent since the year before to a grand total of 1,036. That’s over a thousand victims selected simply because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation with no other motivating factors.
Most disturbingly, 75 percent of all hate crimes involving physical violence (as opposed to vandalism and other non-violent incidents) were motivated solely by the sexual orientation of the victim. Of these, 85 percent of the victims were gay men. This means the gay community, and particularly gay men, are at a hugely disproportionate risk of violence.
This has got to change, and it starts by challenging all casual homophobia before it has a chance to escalate to this level of hate.
- Gay men targets of violence as hate crimes jump [Toronto Star]
Academic Studies Weirdly Excluding Gays
A statistically significant percentage of medical studies in the United States have been excluding gay participants for no logical reason, a new survey has found.
The survey was started when one researcher, Brian Egleston, noticed that a clinical trial about cancer patients deferred all gay couples from participating. That study turned out to be just one of about 15% to exclude gay participants without any obvious link to the subject matter. Results of the survey have now been published in last Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
It’s definitely odd for such a disciplined field of academics to arbitrarily exclude subjects for research as generic as a cancer study. Unless they know something I don’t. Say… Are—are we gays immune to cancer? ‘Cause if we are, I’m totally starting a new, gay-only, asbestos fashion line.
Cyberbullies Target GLBT Youth
A new study out of Iowa State University suggests that gay and lesbian teenagers are among the hardest hit by cyberbullying, a phenomenon unique to today’s youth. With the popularity of social networking, bullies have found new venues to harass and ostracize their peers, often without the threat of adult intervention.
The numbers aren’t terrifically encouraging. 54% of gay youth and friends of gay youth reported being cyberbullied within the thirty days prior to the researchers’ survey. The next highest group was females, at 21%.
Less encouraging still, victims of cyberbullying reported feeling helpless, with 55% saying that their parents couldn’t do anything to stop it, and 57% saying they don’t believe school officials could help either.
To help ameliorate the situation, I’ve decided to make an actual cybernetic bully, programmed to protect gay youth against its human counterparts. Any investors?
- Cyberbullying hits LGBT youth especially hard [CNET News]
Gay Youth At Greater Risk Of Bullying
Gay teens are nearly twice as likely to be bullied as straight ones, according to a new study conducted out of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is based on a survey of 7,559 teens and young adults. While the number of out teens in the sample was relatively small, the results still re-confirm that GLBT youth are at a higher risk of being bullied, likely because bullies tend to target anyone perceived as being different.
Bullying is a huge problem—a problem with lasting, negative effects, and one that will not disappear on its own. Schools must train their staff to recognize and put a stop to it, or the problem will only continue.
High School Still Dangerous For Gay Teens
A professor researching harassment of gay teens is calling high school “the land that time forgot,” a place where aggressive anti-gay sentiment pervades student life.
Catherine Taylor, a professor of education and communications at the University of Winnipeg, regrets to have discovered that virtually all gay teens are verbally harassed, with a startling number even being physically abused. Worse, homophobia so ingrained in school culture that very few students step up to condemn the abuse.
This is the same study, incidentally, that was forbidden from being conducted inside several Catholic school boards in Canada. The study is currently in its second phase, and is seeking funding for its third and final phase to take place early next year.
- Gay teens ‘terrorized’ in Canada’s schools: prof [Ottawa Citizen]
Psychologist Assocation Re-Condemns “Ex-Gay” Therapy
The American Psychological Association has finished a two-year review of their 1997 policy denouncing reparative, conversion therapy for gays. The final verdict: “There is no evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work.”
This latest investigation, launched in 2007, reviewed over 80 studies on the subject of gay conversion therapies published between 1960 to present. The 183-page conclusion, which was released on Wednesday, states that “contrary to claims of sexual orientation change advocates and practitioners, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation.”
The APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973, and has warned that any attempt to change sexual orientation can be harmful to the healthy development of individuals. With this latest report, the APA also condemns non-professionals who portray homosexuality as a developmental disorder, saying that they should instead “increase family and school support and reduce rejection of sexual minority youth.”
While the report is all well and good, this exhaustive review really just reinforces what medical professionals have already known for years: gay conversion therapies don’t work because there’s nothing to cure. Whether you’re gay, lesbian, straight, or anything in-between, you’re every bit as worthy of love as anyone else!
A tip o’ the hat to the always indispensable Wayne Besen over at Truth Wins Out for the story!
