<p>And did your attitudes change with time? When did it change, if ever, and what made it change? “Anti-homosexual” includes saying “■■■■■■” and using “gay” negatively, even in jest, to go along with friends who dislike homosexuality and homosexuals/queers.</p>
<p>I used to use the term “■■■■■■” not pejoratively specifically meant against gays, but against guys who had tastes I thought were lame or girly. Then one time I said it in front of a housemate, though not about him, and I could see him visibly tense up. I asked and found out he was gay. I felt badly and never used the term after that.</p>
<p>Why to you ask?</p>
<p>I’m trying to see how smart people back then (when homosexuality was still considered unacceptable by the vast majority) felt about homosexuality. When were you in college, BedHead?</p>
<p>I was never antihomosexual, and always had a bad opinion of people who were. My mom, who was born in 1915, told me when I was young that guys who disliked and made fun of homosexuals had problems with their own masculinity.</p>
<p>When I was single, I was sorry when hot guys were gay. My reaction was due to my lost opportunity, not to negative feelings about gays.</p>
<p>Although I had a good friend in college and a college roommate who were lesbians, they were both closeted, and I didn’t knowingly meet my first lesbian until I was in my early 30s and someone came out at a place where I was working. Never made fun of lesbians or had a bad opinion of them.</p>
<p>I currently have a very diverse group of friends including gays, lesbians and transgendered people.</p>
<p>I was never anti-homosexual and in fact counted Bruce Vilanch one of my friends freshman year in college. He was way out of the closet in 1965. While we were not roommates we were floor mates in Stradley Hall that year.</p>
<p>In HS I didn’t know any (that I knew of, I mean), and in college (Conservatory) there were so many I thought it was a shame so many cute and nice guys were out of the pool, but no, never anti-homosexual.</p>
<p>In HS it is true that rude guys routinely used certain words as blanket insults, but they also used racially charged insults and I wasn’t about that either.</p>
<p>I was very much a product of my time and place (semi-rural south) and was definitely anti-homosexual. Not running around rolling gay people or anything, but definitely made the derogatory comments.</p>
<p>I started changing in college where I met more people. And it all changed when my best friend, and one of the best persons I’ve ever known, came out to me.</p>
<p>Never anti-gay; I had gay friends in high school (class of '75; yeah, I’m old. 
). I’ve never understood homophobia.</p>
<p>I was never anti gay since my cousin is one and I grew up knowing, without ever being told(our family never talked about it)…one day the lightbulb went on and I realized she was gay. I think for men it is different, and we call it youthful inexperience. Many young people are not anti-gay, they just have the fear that homosexuals will hit on them so they send very loud messages out of that fear. As they mature they realize that their fear in unjust and they stop their behavior.</p>
<p>As I have stated many people will change, but you must also realize to many people their life is very rooted in their religious beliefs. They use thiis belief to defend their verbal attacks. You cannot say they are stupid or intellectually inferior, they are just ignorant and there is a large difference between the two. Just as you have your beliefs, they do too and both sides will be entrenched in the opinion they are correct.<br>
That might be hard to read, but honest opinion usually is going to hurt if the answer is not what you want to hear</p>
<p>^^ HS class of 75? You are a youngster, owlice!
I’ve had lots of gay friends- some whe were open about it in HS/college, some who were not. I have always been very comfortable with their sexuality. It was a non-issue. I remember a classmate saying once that she was disappointed when she found out some guy she liked was gay. She said “what a waste”. I found that offensive. It isn’t a “waste”, especially to those he loves and who love him. Her comment struck me a s shallow.</p>
<p>Once, in grad school, a bunch of us were going ot go to see the SE regional Drag queen contest. My BF refused to go. I wondered which was more bothersome to him- if guys were interested in him, or if they weren’t! We went, He didn’t. It was a fun time!</p>
<p>A little off topic, but I find it ineresting that society seems to be more acceptable to lesbians in gay relationships than men. At least that is how I have seen it.</p>
<p>Also class of '75. Never was anti-homosexual. I remember my aunt confusing homosexuality with pedophilia when I was a teenager. I tried to clarify the difference, but to no avail.</p>
<p>Class of '76. Never anti-gay, always had gay friends.</p>
<p>Get real annoyed when I hear younger folk using the term “gay” (as in “that’s sooo gay”) in a generically negative way. And i tell them so.</p>
<p>I grew up catholic and remember wondering what on earth the church had against gays. I think that’s the main reason people are against it. Until they mature enough to form their own opinions. I can’t imagine a god that would have anything against love with whoever a person chose.</p>
<p>No, to the OP’s question. for the simple reason that 2 events coincided – one of which I see by the trends above also converts people of previous bias: My even learning what homosexuality was coincided with meeting the kind partner of a relative. I had no opportunity to form a negative general bias before encountering a particular person.</p>
<p>Slightly OT though, Is it just me or are other people noticing people suddenly coming out on Facebook, first thing, when enrolling in college. These are all females I’m thinking of. Saw absolutely no indications of this pre-college; would never have guessed about a single one of these. Suddenly all these people have declared themselves lesbians and “engaged to” so-and-so (or, alternatively, “in a relationship”). Again, these are people I know very, very well, in some cases for 13 years.</p>
<p>Also OT, when my gf’s mom came out, announced when h daughter announced her engagement to he husband. The family was in shock. Her Mom is now in a committed relationship with another woman, but I remember thinking how horrible her 25 yrs of marriage must have been. I could not imagine having to have sex to keep up the appearance for appearance sake. It just made me cringe in pain for her (not as oh homosexuality is gross, but oh how that would have made me want to cry everytime I had sex with someone I didn’t want to have sex with)</p>
<p>Never knew any, even in college, but developed friendships with several once I moved to the city. We’ve moved to an area that I consider to be provincial, and a few years ago realised that the kids were picking up homophobia from their peers.(who get it from their parents) It actually got to be a problem for my son when he’d speak out, defending gays so between that and other issues with the whole “good ole boy” scene we transferred our kids to a more progressive, tolerant school.</p>
<p>I grew up in a family where my parents, and grandparents, had gay friends, and so it wasn’t an issue. When I was in 7th grade, my family moved and I was not happy about having to change schools. On my first day, my homeroom teacher asked a boy in the class to ‘show me around’. We became best friends from that day on. It was never discussed, even through high school, but it was obvious to all in our circle of friends that he was gay. We didn’t care, and, honestly, neither did most other kids in our large h/s. He was a very popular kid in our year. Sadly, the worst treatment he received came from his religious parents who abandoned him when he was in college, and finally came out to them. </p>
<p>Having been involved in the arts/theatre community for such a long time, I have many close friends who happen to be gay. All four of my Ds have close gay friends, both male and female. It has been, as it was for me, just a normal part of their lives and not a big issue. Three of them had gay teachers in h/s, and the three college aged ones have certainly had gay profs in college. None of us sit idly by when people make hateful comments or slurs.</p>
<p>I certainly never considered myself anti-gay, but use of the word “■■■■■■” as an all-purpose insult was ubiquitous in my world from 5th-9th grades, approximately. Pretty much everyone stopped using it as we realized that it could refer to actual people we knew (or, in some people’s cases, to themselves).</p>
<p>There was exactly one out gay man in my all-male high school while I was there. (I was class of '74, he was in '75.) As you might imagine, however, by the time we were juniors in college, several of my high school classmates had come out, some who surprised me and others who didn’t.</p>
<p>It is a pretty interesting question to me whether it is rare or common to change the attitudes with which we are raised, especially with regard to today’s young people from conservative religious backgrounds who end up at much more liberal colleges.</p>
<p>hs class of '74; raised in an extremely conservative area of the country by parents who absolutely never tolerated anti-homosexal language: a common slang word was “queer” which was only uttered once under their roof. I vividly remember asking in my early teens whether homosexuality was normal because they were so very frightening in their response, which made it clear that even asking the question was inappropriate and insulting. I suspect, thinking back on comments overheard as a child, that there was a closeted relative in the generation proceeding them. A few years ago, a great-aunt in her 90’s, absolutely out of the blue, asked me if one of my sons “didn’t like girls” and while I was still recovering from my astonishment at the question, patted my knee and looked me straight in the eye and firmly said, “you know, that is quite all right.”</p>