Undergraduate and Graduate Students’ Descriptions of the Complete Acceptance of Homosexuality

Abstract

Based on the idea that researchers may better understand attitudes regarding homosexuality by focusing on acceptance rather than heterosexism, we utilized an online survey to ask 437 undergraduate and graduate students at a medium-sized, Midwestern, public university to what extent they would agree that a list of 24 statements matched their views of what the complete acceptance of homosexuality in the United States would look like. The findings indicated that participants generally endorsed a range of statements, though the level of support and the number of endorsed items varied. The relationships between the items participants endorsed, and either their sexual orientation, experiences with gay men and lesbians, or levels of heterosexism, are also discussed, as are implications and suggestions for future research.