Progressive, but promiscuous and confused: perceptions of sexual minority identity labels in a nationally representative sample

Selecting and sharing a sexual identity label can be a significant and stressful process for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. We previously found that using explicit (e.g. Mark is gay) and implicit (e.g. Mark is attracted to men) sexual identity labels mostly led to positive perceptions (e.g. more proud, likeable, resilient), in a sample of university students who were predominantly young, liberal women. We sought to extend these findings and determine whether a sample from the United States would rate characters identified as LGB more negatively. To this end, a nationally representative sample (N= 510) was recruited via Prolific and, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: explicit, implicit, or no labels. Participants read short biographical vignettes with one set of labels and provided ratings of the characters on positive, negative, and neutral traits. As hypothesised, explicit and implicit labels for LGB characters generally led to higher ratings on negative traits (e.g. confused, perverted, and promiscuous), but also increased ratings on one positive trait (progressive). Taken together with our previous findings, individuals described with sexual minority identity labels are likely to be perceived more positively in liberal-leaning environments, such as universities, but more negatively in the general population.

Automated summary

Selecting and sharing a sexual identity label is a significant and stressful process for LGB individuals. Previous research has shown that using sexual identity labels tends to have positive effects in liberal-leaning environments, but may lead to more negative perceptions in the general population.