GLAAD’s 2019 Accelerating Acceptance Report asked 1 970 Americans over the age of 18 about how they view LGBTQ people, reported the Huffington Post.
Participants were asked, among other things, how they felt about same-sex couples holding hands in public, learning that a family member or a doctor identifies as LGBTQ or that their child has been placed in a class taught by an LGBTQ teacher.
Conducted in January 2019 by The Harris Poll, a New York-based research firm, the survey found that for the 18 to 34 demographic the percentage had fallen from 53 percent to 45 percent.
As GLAAD representatives pointed out, 2019 marks the second year in a row that LGBTQ acceptance among Americans aged 18 to 34 has decreased. In 2017, the acceptance figure was at 63 percent. Young women were the least comfortable, down from 64 percent last year to 52 percent in the newly published report.
Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema told USA Today: “These numbers are very alarming and signal a looming social crisis in discrimination.” He warned that “nothing should be taken for granted”.
In a statement, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis linked the two-year decline to “mdivisive rhetoric both in politics and in culture”.
She added: “Last year, when we saw an erosion in LGBTQ acceptance, GLAAD doubled down on our formula for making positive culture change.”
But GLAAD has reportedly documented more than 40 incidents of anti-LGBTQ “hate violence” since the start of 2019. She said that religious liberty laws that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ customers, have had an impact.
