Date Thesis Awarded
12-2023
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Sociology
Advisor
Thomas J. Linneman
Committee Members
Judith Hand
Jerry Watkins
Abstract
This thesis relies on data collected from in-depth interviews with six gay men and six lesbians, aged 60 and over, to learn about how non/conformity to learned gender roles affects experiences of internalized homophobia. It focuses on learned ideas about gender in childhood, childhood gender expression, and learned ideas about homosexuality to connect the internalization of gender ideologies to the internalization of homophobia. It shows how gay men’s experiences with homophobic bullying in childhood simultaneously reinforce normative expressions of gender and internalize homophobia and how lesbian’s relative lack of gender role reinforcement underscores a latent homophobia of inability to conceive of female homosexuality. Finally, the development of individualized conceptions of gender that are affirming of individuals’ gender expression and sexuality points to a process of resolving dominant gender ideologies that may fit into the process of resolving internalized homophobia. Further research, across cohorts, into the relationship between these two processes is suggested.
Recommended Citation
Mustard, Bjorn, "Gay and Gray with Something to Say: Internalizing Gender and Internalized Homophobia in Lesbians and Gay Men 60 and Over" (2023). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 2071.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/2071
