A new study reports that more than half of gay actors in Hollywood feel filmmakers are biased against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender entertainers. A survey from the Williams Institute, a gay-issues thinktank at UCLA, found that more than half of respondents had heard either directors or producers making anti-gay remarks about actors.

Roughly one third of respondents said they witnessed LGBT actors treated disrespectfully on set, and one in eight heterosexual actors had seen gay colleagues being treated poorly. About 20 percent of gay male respondents and 13 percent of lesbian actors said they experienced discrimination in their work first-hand.

"We found that LGBT performers may have substantial barriers to overcome in their search for jobs," the authors of the study, UCLA researchers MV Lee Badgett and Jody L Herman, said.

Despite these findings, 72 percent of gay or lesbian performers who did disclose their sexuality said it did not affect their careers and would not hesitate to ask others to share that information with employers as well.

Other interesting findings in the study revolved around actors being "out" with their employers or coworkers. While 53 percent LGBT actors said they were "out" with mostly everyone in their lives, only 36 percent said they had revealed their sexual orientation to agents and only 13 percent had told industry executives.

The report was supported by the Screen Actors Guild producers industry of advancement and cooperative fund and conducted during the fall of 2012. The study was compiled from interviews with 5,700 members of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The results were formerly presented Thursday evening at union meetings in New York and Los Angeles.

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