Report: Americans More Likely to Reject LGBTQ Family Members Than Other Countries

It’s natural that LGBTQ people strive for acceptance when they come out to their LGBTQ family members, but a new study examining the rates of familial support in countries across the world shows that the U.S. scores poorly when compared to some other, European countries, with American acceptance scoring second-to-last.

The report comes from the U.K.-based research and analytics firm YouGov, which surveyed eight countries—Spain, Britain, Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the U.S.—on the LGBTQ population and attitudes toward LGBTQ people. The U.S. ranked near bottom, only with France ranking lower, falling in dead last.

One question asked how respondents would react if a “child, sibling, or close family member” came out, and just two-thirds of U.S. respondents said they would be supportive if the family member was lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The support was even lower when the question asked about a loved one coming out as trans or nonbinary: Just 57 percent of American respondents said they would be supportive of a trans or nonbinary relative. Twenty-two percent said they would not support a family member being trans or nonbinary, and 21 percent said they were unsure.

The findings follow another recent poll that shows the widespread acceptance of LGBTQ people in Spain: A 2019 Pew poll found 89 percent of Spaniards believed “society should accept homosexuality,” and a Eurobarometer poll from the same year found 83 percent supported trans people being able to legally correct their gender.

Italy was also one of the higher-scoring countries, with 82 percent expressing support for lesbian, gay, and bisexual family members and 78 percent for trans or nonbinary relatives, even though the country still doesn’t allow same-gender adoptions and only just legalized same-gender civil unions in 2016.

Despite the country’s rise in transphobia from leaders and public figures, the U.K. scored higher than the U.S., with 85 percent of Britons saying they would support an LGB family member and 71 percent saying they would support a trans or nonbinary relative.

The results across the board showed more acceptance for a family member coming out as a lesbian, gay, or bisexual than if they came out as trans or nonbinary.

The results in relation to the U.S. may not come as a huge surprise, either, due to the record amount of anti-trans bills that have been introduced through state legislatures around the country, with many noting that the bills are less about actual issues we need to address on a government level and more about regulating the conversations around trans people in the country.