Study: Lesbians more accepted than gay men around the world

Maria Laura Bettinsoli, the study’s lead author, said she and her colleagues were surprised “at the consistency of the relationship between gender norm endorsement and sexual prejudice.”

“Even though there were some non-Western countries that did not conform to the pattern, the majority of countries did,” she said in a statement.

Indeed, in countries including China and India, the survey found that strong gender norms are actually associated with greater tolerance of homosexuality — that is, people with the strongest beliefs in how men and women should behave were more likely to tolerate homosexuality, the opposite of the West, including the Americas and Western Europe.