On the heels of this week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling that the federal law barring sex discrimination in employment indeed applies to LGBTQ employees—an historic victory for LGBTQ people—boutique tech PR firm Bospar revealed new Pride survey data which found that 80 percent of Americans believe gay, lesbian and bisexual people should be equal to heterosexuals, and 78 percent think transgender Americans should be equal to non-trans people. This trend was reflected across party lines, with majorities of Democrats and Republicans saying LGBTQ people should be equal to cis-gender heterosexuals.
Americans say they don’t care about the sexuality or gender expression of their coworkers
The research, conducted by market research firm Propeller Insights, found that 81 percent of Americans said they didn’t care about their coworkers’ sexuality and 80 percent said they didn’t care about their coworkers’ gender expression. Those are up over 20 percentage points from last year, when 60 percent of the populace said they were non-issues.
About a third of Americans (30 percent) are disappointed that Pride is going to be virtual without parades due to concerns about COVID-19. Nearly one in four Americans (23 percent) said they would participate in a virtual Pride event.
Workplace acceptance of LGBTQ People Surged 20% in 2020; now at 80%.
A majority of Americans (59 percent) said that LGBTQIA people were important in their lives this year
The #1 most influential person was a tie between comedienne Ellen DeGeneres and CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper. Drag Queen RuPaul came in third. Overall, a majority of Americans (51 percent) said they had a friend from the LGBTQIA community.
When asked to define the struggle for equal rights for LGBTQIA people, the #1 answer with 48 percent of the population was “while things are better than ever before, there is still work to be done.” The second most popular answer was “they won their rights, and we can now move on.” One in five Americans (20 percent) admitted they were tired of hearing about the LGBTQIA community. Some Americans (4 percent) predicted things would get worse for the LGBTQIA community and 8 percent said things were worse. In fact, when asked about police unfairly targeting minority groups, Americans said that LGBTQ people were targets.
“Growing up as a gay man in Texas, I remember seeing signs that read ‘no homo cops’ and radio stations playing fictitious commercials for ‘Swish Beer,’ so I never thought this day would come,” said Curtis Sparrer, a Bospar Principal, in a news release. “What I found so remarkable in our research is that acceptance is up in all age groups and across political parties. I partly attribute that to more LGBTQ people being out than ever before. In fact, in the group of Americans who are 65 and older, a majority of them know someone who is LGBTQ and believe these people should be equal to them.”
