Genograms Redrawn

Abstract

One of the challenges faced by GLBT families is defining and representing family relationships in a way that is not constrained by heterosexist notions of family. This study explores the usefulness of asking lesbian couples to depict family relationships by adapting the genogram (family tree) techniques used in family therapy. Six lesbian couples were asked to construct their own family tree and to comment on the process. Genograms were found to be useful but needed to be redrawn, for example, with tiers and circles rather than traditional symbols. Drawing and redrawing genograms highlighted the importance of acceptance and affirmation versus homophobia and heterosexism in defining family relationships for the lesbian couples interviewed.     

COLAGE

Abstract

COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) is a national, non-profit organization run by and for children who have one or more gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender (GLBT) parents. Our mission is to engage, connect, and empower people to make the world a better place for children of GLBT parents and families. This article chronicles COLAGE's work within the context of the larger GLBT-family movement. A review is made of the emotional and socio-political challenges that children of GLBT parents face, as well as the benefits and unique perspectives gained from growing up in a family outside of the social norm. Finally, COLAGE is conceptualized in terms of its prominence as a community based intervention for building networks, empowering youth, and ensuring society recognizes, validates, and celebrates all families.     

Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual,and Transgender (GLBT) Elders

Abstract

Current gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) individuals age 65 years and older grew up before the Gay Rights movement. They have learned over many years to hide their identities in order to avoid discrimination and ridicule. Unfortunately, this secrecy has led to the near invisibility of the elder GLBT population and to poor health and service access. This paper reviews what we know about GLBT elders, describes some of the unique strengths they bring to the aging process, and outlines some of the challenges they face. Micro, mezzo, and macro practice implications are suggested.     

Life Course Social Science Perspectives on the GLBT Family

Abstract

The life course perspective in the social sciences focuses on the place of generation-cohorts in understanding social life. Emphasizing shared understanding of self and society among a group of persons born in some adjacent birth years (often a decade) and the impact of the experience of certain events (a reminiscence bump) taking place across the early adult years, this approach to the study of social life and social change emphasizes social timing and role changes in understanding the course of life. The life course perspective is used in this discussion in understanding sexual minority families including both families in which an offspring self-defines as GLBT across the years of young adulthood, and families in which a parent self-identifies as GLBT, and which includes offspring of one or both partners. Issues in family formation and morale of family members are explored from this life course perspective emphasizing time, social change and the role of the state as factors influencing sexual minority families.     

The Importance of GLBT Think Tanks to Our Agenda of Equality and Liberation

SUMMARY

The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) movement should support research, policy analysis, and strategy development to advance greater understanding and equality of GLBT people. Most public policy frameworks affect GLBT people in particular ways, but we have not yet developed analyses of these frameworks, let alone articulated perspectives in critical policy debates affecting us. This article illustrates how the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force works on identifying the concerns of GLBT people through research and policy analysis to provide the basis for more effective and proactive organizing.     

Confiding in the GLBT Community About Problems in Marriage and Long-Term Committed Relationships: A Comparative Analysis

ABSTRACT

This study is the first to examine confiding about problems in marital and long-term committed relationships among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) individuals. Areas explored include the prevalence of confiding relationships, the kinds of problems brought to confidant, and types of stress confidants experience in this role. Prevalence data were presented both for a national sample of 301 GLBT individuals and compared with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 American adults. Findings showed a high prevalence of being a confidant among GLBT respondents, greater than in the general population, and a lower prevalence of confiding in others about problems in their relationships. Of particular interest was the finding of a high degree of support that GLBT individuals provide to heterosexual relationships through the role of confidant. Relationship problems discussed with GLBT confidants were similar to confidants in the general population, as was the level of stress reported by confidants.     

Connection and Community

Abstract

More and more GLBT people are choosing parenthood, many of them finding connection through organizations like the Family Pride Coalition and other local parenting groups. While some live in communities where resources are more plentiful, others still struggle to find other families like theirs. Groups like Family Pride have largely grown out of the desire of GLBT parents to find others like themselves and to provide a place for their children to experience families similar to their own. This article reviews the history of the Family Pride Coalition and shares the personal memories and motivations of pioneering GLBT parents/activists who have made a difference.     

Guiding the Acquisition of Therapist Ally Identity

Abstract

This paper suggests the appropriateness of adopting an ally identity for therapists who work with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) stepfamilies. Using results from in-depth interviews, we demonstrate how research can assist those who wish to acquire knowledge regarding this marginalized group. Such scholarship can be helpful when therapists are acting as allies within therapeutic encounters, in interactions with colleagues, and in public discourse.     

Grassroots Meet Homophobia

SUMMARY

This case study highlights the challenges and successes of a small grassroots effort to change the learning environment for GLBT youth in a local public school district located within the conservative social climate of a small city in Colorado. Strategies included tailoring the social action agenda to the unique characteristics of the conservative community; finding allies in the school district; recruiting volunteer professional talent; and reframing social justice issues to focus on the educational value that every child is entitled to a physically and psychologically safe and supportive learning environment in order to achieve full academic potential.     

Developmental,Familial, and Peer Deterrents to Adoption Placement

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the developmental, familial and peer deterrents that form barriers to adoption placement among teen mothers in a residential facility. An Eriksonian developmental model is used to explore developmental issues of identity, projective identification, and industry among teens. The findings suggest that family “cutoffs” and “re-admissions” also serve as deterrents to adoption placement. Additionally, peer pressure from residents of the facility form barriers to adoption placement. Teen mothers express how they were deterred from adoption placement and constrained into child-rearing as pregnancy resolution strategies. This qualitative study gives family therapy interventions as suggestions to facilitate adoption placement through addressing the constraints teen mothers face.     

L.A. and “Lily Law”: A Talk with David Hanna

As the movie capital of the world for many decades, Hollywood has achieved an almost legendary status the world over. As a geographical location within southern California, however, it is also home to the many people who work within its film industry. The following interview with David Hanna (1917-1993) explores just what day-to-day life was like for the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) population who called Hollywood home during the Golden Age of the movie studio system: 1935 to the early 1950s. As a reporter on several Hollywood papers and a movie publicist, Hanna had a journalist's eye view of the legal and social problems confronting a group of people whose sexual orientation relegated them to a largely pariah status. As a gay man, he had a first-hand knowledge of the strategies of survival developed by Hollywood's GLBT population during those years. The article lays the groundwork for a more systematic study of GLBT Hollywood. In that regard, its introduction contains a short discussion of the methodological problems confronting researchers into that history.     

Teaching Family Policy

Abstract

Preparing students to engage in family policy education and advocacy is a challenge and opportunity for departments that teach family studies and family policy courses. Students not only need to know theoretical implications of family policy and how research enhances the theory, but also understand the policy process and how research-based information about family can inform policymaking. These students also need to acquire advocacy skills in order to work effectively in different policy arenas. This article illustrates how university family policy educators can structure curricula to provide students with both knowledge and skills vital to effective participation in family policy formation, analysis and critique.     

Healing an Invisible Minority

Abstract

Up to two million gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons have been in a mixed-orientation marriage as have an unknown number of transgender people. Not all partners come out while married. When they do, their heterosexual spouses and children are affected. Straight spouses face complex issues related to sexuality, marriage, parenting, identity, integrity, and belief systems. Children cope according to their age and developmental stage. Since most of the attention is focused on the GLBT persons, their partners are generally overlooked. The Straight Spouse Network (SSN) provides peer support and research-based information to help them cope, heal, and grow in strength, integrity, and understanding, thereby becoming models for their children. Many become advocates for social justice. Counseling by trained therapists knowledgeable about mixed-orientation marriages can assist them and their families to resolve their issues more effectively.     

Exercising Agency,Becoming a Single Mother

Abstract

Single motherhood is on the rise and an increasing number of single mothers are never married. This has contributed to the crisis rhetoric surrounding the decline of the traditional family. A plethora of research has been conducted with a variety of subgroups of single mothers, but virtually no research has examined the lives of never married, single mothers, who are neither poor nor middle class, but economically fall in between. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with this subgroup, the article examines their decision-making processes. The findings of this study reveal various factors that helped the women make decisions showing how the process is more complex than previously suggested in the literature. Interestingly, the women articulate a comfort zone of single motherhood that is unparallel to other groups of single mothers. Concepts of agency, autonomy, pride, and self-reliance are crucial to understanding their process of decision making.     

Size doesn't matter: The fallacy of class-differential fertility in social mobility analysis

One of the key methodological and conceptual constraints in social mobility analysis has been how to differentiate between the 'core' pattern connecting social origins and destinations, and the effect of different distributions of origins and destinations across nations and time points. Conventional sociological wisdom has held that class differentials in family size (and occupational change) impose a significant constraint on the marginal distributions in a mobility table. Due to the logic of the random sampling process, middle class fathers with smaller families are under-represented in mobility tables. It is therefore necessary to approach mobility via the randomly sampled social destinations, rather than as a process moving chronologically from origins to destinations. However, a re-working of the Nuffield Mobility Study data-set is used to show that class differentials in fertility have virtually no effect. The explanation of this surprising finding is shown to lie in class size and the actual distribution of large and small families. The finding implies that if occupational change is left as the only process modifying marginal distributions, it deserves greater attention.     

Beliefs underlying stress reduction and depression help-seeking among college students: An elicitation study

Objective: This study illustrates how a theory-based approach can identify college students’ beliefs about stress reduction activities and help-seeking for depression. These beliefs are the basis for intervention design. Participants: A sample of 53 undergraduate students at a public university in the Midwest participated in this research during March 2016. Methods: An open-ended belief elicitation survey was administered online. Beliefs were identified through qualitative thematic analyses. Results: Exercise was students’ most preferred stress reduction activity. Beliefs about exercise emphasized physical benefits yet also not having time for exercise. Beliefs about help-seeking for depression emphasized treatment efficacy, support from others, stigma, and time constraints. Conclusions: Whereas beliefs about positive outcomes inform educational and motivational messages, beliefs about time constraints underscore the need to also consider structural factors that can help students find time to attend to their well-being.     

Psychosocial aspects of vasectomy in Latin America

Abstract

This paper examines some of the reasons for the paucity of vasectomy programs in Latin America and some considerations which should be taken into account before such programs are implemented. Social constraints, the structure of the Latin American family, and the “machismo” cult are discussed. The authors conclude that if the processes of self‐selection, screening and counseling are employed, vasectomy programs can be just as successful in Latin America as in other parts of the world.     

Long-Term Care Policy Reform in Japan

Summary

The implementation of Japan's Long-Term Care Insurance Scheme in April 2000 was the culmination of some 30 years of policy deliberation on aged care. Understanding the policy debate surrounding the Long-Term Care Insurance scheme and its financing arrangements requires an appreciation of rapid demographic and social change, especially in family structures and attitudes to caring for aged parents; but the pressures that population aging and economic downturn are placing on Japan's pension and health insurance systems also must be recognized. Even more generally, the delicate balance of political interests in Japan's central governing body, the Diet, has shaped the implementation of Long-Term Care Insurance as a forerunner to other reforms in social security and health insurance.