RESULTS OVERVIEW FROM A GLOBAL SURVEY ON PERCEIVED GAY-RELATED PUBLIC OPINION AND GAY WELL-BEING 2015 PLEASE CITE AS: Richard Lemke, Tobias Tornow & PlanetRomeo.com (2015). Gay Happiness Monitor --- Results overview from a global survey on perceived gay-related public opinion and gay well-being. Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg University. Copyright: Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged. IMPRINT Contact: Richard Lemke, Department of Communication (Institut für Publizistik), Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz, 55099 Germany, [email protected]. Research Team at JGU Mainz: Richard Lemke, Tobias Tornow, Simon Merz, Franziska Schneider Data in this report is the result of a survey study that has been conducted by the aforementioned in collaboration with PlanetRomeo.com. Layout and Visualizations: Tanja Ebner Images, Figures and Tables: Except where otherwise specified, all images, figures and tables in this report are created by the authors and can be reproduced, provided the source is acknowledged (see citation above). All third party images that have been used in this report are marked as such and are either public domain or released under creative commons CC BY-ND 2.0, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 or CC BY-SA 2.0 license (If copyright claims still exist, please contact the authors). Disclaimer: Although data analysis has been done with multiple steps of double-checking, this version of the report might still contain calculation errors. JGU Mainz cannot be responsible for any damages resulting from potential statistical errors in this report. CONTENT INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 2 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW ............................................................................. 6 PERCEIVED GAY-RELATED PUBLIC OPINION ................................................. 9 LIFE SATISFACTION ......................................................................................... 17 PARTNERSHIP................................................................................................... 23 SELF-ACCEPTANCE ......................................................................................... 28 COMING OUT ..................................................................................................... 34 MOVING BEHAVIOR .......................................................................................... 40 DISCRIMINATION .............................................................................................. 46 ABUSE ................................................................................................................ 51 BULLYING .......................................................................................................... 55 PERCEPTION OF CHANGE .............................................................................. 60 CONDENSED RESULTS: THE GAY HAPPINESS INDEX ................................ 64 CONSTRUCTION OF THE INDEX ................................................................. 68 PROSPECTS: IMPROVING THE SITUATION ................................................... 70 APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE .......................................................................... 75 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Between December 2014 and Feb- It was only few weeks ago that the ruary 2015, PlanetRomeo.com online questionnaire to the survey asked all members of their communi- closed and we at Johannes Guten- ty to take part in an online survey. berg University started the data The aim of the survey was to inves- analysis. Our aim, together with Pla- tigate gay, bisexual and trans*1 netRomeo.com, was to provide re- men’s perception of gay-related pub- sults from the survey as soon as lic opinions as well as their individual possible to give an up to date im- experiences of public behavior, anti- pression on the global situation of gay statements, discrimination, vio- gay, bisexual and trans* men. We lence and much more. Over 115,000 know how much everybody who men took part in the survey. In con- deals with human rights and gay sequence, it is one of the largest rights in particular needs valid data surveys on the well-being of gay on the life of gay, bisexual and trans* men that has ever been conducted. men in their respective societies. Notably the issue of perceived gay- The report intends to create a brief related public opinion has never but detailed presentation of results been investigated before with such a given the short period of time since big intercultural sample. the questionnaire closed. However, despite the greatest care, this report The survey was a collaboration be- might still contain mistakes. If you tween PlanetRomeo.com and a re- should come across any, we would search team at the Department of be happy to receive a short pointer Communication at the Johannes ([email protected]). Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany (JGU). This report will pre- It is not the aim of this report to ver- sent countrywise results of the most bally describe, discuss and interpret relevant questions that were asked the distributions of answers in each in the survey. and every country. This would have needed more time for analysis and would also involve the risk that some data is no longer up to date. The 1 With trans* men we refer to all those members of report will instead present figures on our sample who did not chose to describe them- selves as either “male” or “female”, but as “trans*”. the countrywise distribution of an- We do not know if their self-classification as “trans*” is associated with a (trans*)male or swers in all countries concerned. It (trans*)female gender identity. However, as the will thus provide the option to view sample has been recruited from users of Planet- Romeo.com, a platform addressed at gay, bisexual individual countries as well as com- and trans* men, as well as for improved readabil- pare multiple ones. So in this brief ity, we refer to them as “gay, bisexual and trans* men” in this report. 2 INTRODUCTION first report we basically let the num- care, as single answers might bers speak and leave it up to you as cause big differences in some the reader to decide which country distributions. Furthermore, with or countries you are particularly in- only a few participants from a terested in and to take the results country, they are likely not to be from the figures. representative of all gay, bisexu- al and trans* men in that country. In the future, of course, deeper in- We decided, however, to still in- vestigations of different topics will be clude those countries in this re- conducted based on the results of port and define only a minimum this survey. This will be particularly of 10 participants for a country to true for the groups of participants be included in the report. This is who do not identify as gay or bisex- due to the fact that for some ual men but as trans* men or who countries among those with very choose other identities. They are few participants almost nothing also included into the present results so far is known about the situa- but only represent 3 % of the partici- tion of gay, bisexual and trans* pants. So the specific perceptions men in them. Hence, we decided and experiences of trans* men might that an impression based on only not be visible in this entire sample few responses might be better and will thus be analysed separately than no impression whatsoever. in a further report. In the same way, In order to still provide the reader we will also conduct a separate with all necessary information to analysis for bisexual men. draw his or her conclusions on the present data’s relevance and Some notes on the data presentation representativeness, the total in this report: number of participants per coun- try is always marked when pre- The number of participants per senting percentages and figures. country had a substantial vari- This will enable the reader to de- ance in this survey, reflecting cide if outliers might be resulting both the distribution of PlanetRo- from a small – and maybe not meo.com members as well as, representative – sample in that presumably, the reality in these particular country. respective countries. In the pre- sent sample, some countries For many topics presented in this have more than 1000 partici- report, we chose bar charts to pants, others have less than 100, both present the data for one and some even less than 50 or country and to compare all coun- 20. Of course, average values tries under consideration. To based on such small samples easily compare countries, we de- always have to be treated with cided to choose the same scale 3 INTRODUCTION in all figures regarding a certain the perceived gay-related public topic. This sometimes leads to opinion in that country. The rea- excessive whitespace if multiple sons for this are twofold. First, countries have radically different the perceived public opinion re- distributions. For example, if one garding a group of society is a country has a value of 300 and good overall indicator for the en- this is the maximum among all vironment this group lives in – countries, the scale of the figure better than actual laws, for ex- will reach until 300. Other coun- ample. Second, social research tries, which might have only low- has shown the importance of er values – maybe 10 or 20 – will perceived public opinion on indi- thus have only very small bars in vidual well-being. Therefore, the respective figure. However, comparing perceived gay-related we