Fragile Heterosexuality

Previous research demonstrates that membership of majority groups is often perceived as more fragile than membership of minority groups. Four studies (N1=90, N2=247, N3=500, N4=1176) investigated whether this was the case for heterosexual identity, relative to gay identity. Support for fragile heterosexuality was found using various methods: sexual orientation perceptions of a target who engaged in incongruent behaviour, free-responses concerning behaviours required to change someone’s mind about a target’s sexual orientation, agreement with statements about men/women’s sexual orientation and agreement with gender neutral statements about sexual orientation. Neither participant nor target gender eliminated or reversed this effect. Additionally, we investigated multiple explanations (moderators) of the perceived difference in fragility between heterosexual identity and gay identity and found that higher estimates of the gay/lesbian population decreased the difference between the (higher) perceived fragility of heterosexual identity and the (lower) perceived fragility of gay identity.