Beyond Homonegativity: Understanding Hong Kong People’s Attitudes About Social Acceptance of Gay/Lesbian People, Sexual Orientation Discrimination Protection, and Same-Sex Marriage

ABSTRACT

This study examined attitudes about social acceptance, discrimination protection, and marriage equality for gay/lesbian people with a representative sample of 1,008 Hong Kong Chinese adults via a telephone survey. Despite majority endorsement of homosexuality (52.29% positive vs. 34.12% negative) and discrimination protection (50.72% favorable vs. 14.64% opposed), attitudes toward same-sex marriage diverged (32.79% favorable vs. 39.41% opposed). There was a sharp distinction in accepting gay/lesbian people as co-workers (83.57%) and friends (76.92%) versus relatives (40.19%). Having more homosexual/bisexual friends or co-workers contributed to greater endorsement of social acceptance and discrimination protection but not same-sex marriage. Age, religion, political orientation, and homonegativity consistently predicted attitudes toward social acceptance, discrimination protection, and same-sex marriage, whereas gender-role beliefs, conformity to norms, and cultural orientations had varying impacts. This article informs theory and advocacy by disentangling homonegativity from attitudes about gay/lesbian issues and highlighting the centrality of family-kinship and relative-outsider delineation in Chinese societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese values
• homophobia
• social acceptance
• discrimination protection
• same-sex marriage
• Hong Kong

Funding

This work was funded by the School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.