Why do straight girls seem to be more tolerant of LGBT people than straight men?

Sometimes straight women fear this too,when I was in school I lost a friend because she no longer wanted to hang out with me after I came out. Also, there was a time when I was hanging out with a group of friends whilst in the closet and they were having a conversation about lesbians:

Friend#1: So I was talking to *insert name here*

2nd Friend: Wait, isn't *insert name here* a *suddenly drops her voice into a whisper* lesbian?

Friend#1: Yeah but-

2nd Friend: OMG you shouldn't be talking to lesbians, *insert friend#1's name here*! ( Me: casually internally laughing because they'd been speaking to me for years and had no idea ).

Friend#1: Why not? She's not a perv like the other girls say. I've talked to her and she's nice.

2nd Friend: You shouldn't talk to her because you might lead her on. People might get the wrong impression!

Friend#1: Well it's not as if I'm flirting with her or anything, we just chat.

My friend group back then also weren't great because they used to remark some rather backward statements about bisexual men as well. Then another time I was sat in the changing rooms and happened to overhear two other girls in a conversation:

Girl#1: I can't believe she said I looked like a lesbian!

2nd girl: Don't listen to her Hun, she's just jealous. You aren't ugly or fat at all!



I've experienced homophobia from both men and women, but often for different reasons. When it comes to women, in my experience it tends to be because they worry I might start hitting on them or they worry about being seen as a lesbian by association. Times where men have acted homophobic towards me the cause has usually been that they had a crush on me and don't take the rejection well.

Men who bring up how much they hate gay men regularly are often suspicious, I knew a guy who had a tendency to randomly bring it up even when the conversation he was having had nothing to do with gay males. In fact, one time his friends called him out on this.

That guy: You know, I think gay sex is disgusting. How can two men do that to each other? I mean, how does it even work? Personally I have no idea, which is understandable because I think attractive females are way better than men. Do you ever wonder about that though? Gay men are so weird.

His friend: Dude, what the Hell? We weren't even talking about that. I have to question why you were thinking about gay sex in the first place considering we were on about places we could visit in the town. Why was your mind even on that?

Another friend of his: Yeah, I gotta say, it is kind of odd that you'd randomly bring that up, mate. Is there something you're not telling us?

That guy: *sat in silence trying to think of a reply* Well I mean, I, um, hmm, ugh...

Eventually he came up with a response but it seemed to take a while.