Five-Year Cohort Study of White British Male Student-Athletes’ Attitudes Toward Gay Men

While sport has traditionally been a hostile environment for gay men, attitudes toward homosexuality among youth in the West have changed significantly in recent years. This research uses Herek's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale, Revised Version (ATLG-R) to investigate attitudes toward homosexuality among 243 undergraduate male students in the UK. Overall, results revealed no significant differences in student attitudes toward gay men in the first three years of data collection, but significantly more positive attitudes onward from the fourth. Overall, incoming attitudinal dispositions of homophobia among young male student-athletes were minimal. Anderson's notion of inclusive masculinities is used to explain these findings, with the results supporting existing literature concerning positive attitudes toward homosexuality among young, sporting men in the UK.