t’s important to remember that although we have been exploring the gay, lesbian, and bisexual experiences in the United States, in different parts of the world GLB adolescents may have very different experiences. Here we take a look at adolescents in a variety of places around the globe.
English (male): Between the ages of 13 and 151 closed myself off from the outside world. I would rarely go out and would never dare to go places where other people of my own age would be. The only thing I knew was that homosexuality was bad. (Plummer, 1989, p. 204)
East Indian (female): My family holds Western culture somehow responsible for offbeat youth. They think my being a lesbian is my being young, and confused, and rebellious. They feel it has something to do with trying to fit into white culture. . . . They’re waiting for me to stop rebelling and go heterosexual, go out on dates, and come home early. (Tremble et al., 1989, p. 260)
Mexican (male): I thought myself very bad, and many times I was at the point of suicide. I don’t know if I really might have killed myself, but many times I thought about it and believed it was the only alternative. That caused me many problems with my friends. I felt they thought me to be different, homosexual, and really sick. It made me separate from them. I felt myself inferior and thought I was the only one these things happened to. (Carrier, 1989, p. 238)
Chinese (male): I am longing to love others and to be loved. I have met some other homosexuals, but I have doubt about this type of love. With all the pressure I was afraid to reveal myself and ruined everything. As a result, we departed without showing each other homosexual love. As I am growing older my homosexual desire increases. This is too troubling and depressing for anyone. I thought about death many times. When you are young you cannot fall in love and when you are old you will be alone. Thinking of this makes the future absolutely hopeless. (Ruan & Tsai, 1988, p. 194)
Canadian (female): I feel like I am the terrific person I am today because I’m a lesbian. I decided I was gay when I was very young. After making that decision, which was the hardest thing I could ever face, I feel like I can do anything. (Schneider, 1989, p. 123)
Scottish (male): I don’t like being gay. I wouldn’t choose to be gay, and I don’t like the gay scene. It’s too superficial. I’ve got high moral standards. Lust is a sin but love isn’t. In the gay scene people use other people and throw them away again. (Burbidge & Walters, 1981, p. 41)
Asian American (gender not identified): I wish I could tell my parents—they are the only ones who do not know about my gay identity, but I am sure they would reject me. There is no frame of reference to understand homosexuality in Asian American culture. (Chan, 1989, p. 19)
the cultures in the sample have an accepting or only mildly disapproving view of homosexual behavior, and less than half punished homosexuals for their sexual activities.
Remember too, that the relationship between sexual orientation and gender-related traits is moderated by culture. A culture that has more traditional gender roles tends to have larger homosexual-heterosexual differences in gender-related traits than cultures with less traditional gender roles (Lippa & Tan, 2001). With this in mind, research has found that, in the United States, Hispanic and Asian gays and lesbians show the largest homosexual-heterosexual differences and are more likely to cross gender boundaries (e. g., gay men tend to act more feminine, and lesbian women tend to act more masculine). Cultural factors play a very important role in moderating these gender-related differences. We will now explore a variety of cultures.