Sarah was a butch: sexual identity, gender practices, and Sarah's place as mother in the Jewish National Pantheon

Three fields of discourse regarding a masculine-like woman connect at a point that the queer field calls intersex, medical practice calls a sexual disorder, and rabbinic literature terms aylonit. The queer discursive field focuses on the freedom to choose an identity, but not the freedom from choosing one. The medical field focuses on sexual practice as the source of determining "normal" sexuality. In the discursive field of Jewish law there are no demands, because the Halakhic authority determines gender identity on behalf of the individual, maintaining ambiguity.     

Sexual Minority Women's Gender Identity and Expression: Challenges and Supports

Sexual minority women were divided into four groups to study their gender identities (butch and femme), and gender expression (traditionally gendered and non-traditionally gendered women who do not identify as butch or femme). Experiences of heterosexist events (discrimination, harassment, threats of violence, victimization, negative emotions associated with these events), mental health (self esteem, stress, depression), and supports for a sexual minority identity (social support, outness, internalized homophobia) were examined across these groups. Findings suggested that butch-identified women experienced more heterosexist events than femme women or women with non-traditional gender expressions. There were no differences in mental health variables.     

Sexual Arousal and Sexual Fantasy: The Influence of Gender,and the Measurement of Antecedents and Emotional Consequences in Macau and the United States

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Cross-cultural research was conducted to elucidate the relative influences of culture and gender on human sexuality. Methods: 353 male and female undergraduate students from universities in the United States and Macau completed self-report measures assessing sexual fantasy and arousal. Results: Males reported significantly more frequent sexual fantasy/arousal than females. Additionally, significant differences in the age of initial sexual arousal were found. Males from the United States reported the earliest age of initial arousal, followed by males from Macau, females from the United States, and females from Macau. Males from each region reported a significantly younger age of initial sexual fantasy than females within the same region. The Macau group reported significantly less frequent sexual arousal than the U.S. group. Conclusions: Sexual fantasy and arousal are susceptible to cultural and gender-based influences, whose strength varies by outcome measures.     

Elder Transgender Lesbians: Exploring the Intersection of Age,Lesbian Sexual Identity,and Transgender Identity

This study is the first to examine the experiences and needs of an international sample of current, English-speaking, lesbian, transgender-identified (trans-lesbian) adults around a number of later life and end-of-life perceptions, preparations, and concerns. I analyzed a subset (n = 276) of the cross-sectional data collected from the online Trans MetLife Survey on Later-Life Preparedness and Perceptions in Transgender-Identified Individuals (N = 1,963). I assessed perceptions and fears around aging, preparation for later life, and end-of-life as well as numerous demographic and psycho-social variables. Despite the overall feeling that they have aged successfully, the respondent trans-lesbian population harbors significant fears about later life. I found that this population, while better-prepared than the overall respondent trans-identified population, is still ill-prepared for the major legalities and events that occur in the later to end-of-life time periods.     

Sexual Orientation,Gender, and Gender Identity Microaggressions: Toward an Intersectional Framework for Social Work Research

ABSTRACT

Professional ethics compel social workers to address all forms of discrimination and oppression. Microaggressions can contribute to health disparities for marginalized groups; yet, little is known about the frequency, mechanisms, and impact of microaggressions on sexual minorities, cisgender women, and gender minorities—particularly for those with intersecting marginalized identities. This article extends microaggression literature by exploring interrelated constructs of sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity microaggressions, and offering recommendations for future research using an intersectional lens to foster an integrated and complex understanding of microaggressions. Implications of an intersectional microaggression framework for social work education and practice are discussed.     

Spatial Syntagma and Identity of a Place: Sensing,Relating to,and Knowing a Place

Place is a complex and multi-dimensional system capable of embracing different uses, interpretations, and even various definitions. As a notion, place is composed of a series of narratives, characteristics, relations, and socio-spatial values that altogether can be regarded as the spatial syntagma of a place. The livelihood of a place is much dependent on its interrelated socio-spatiality, whereby people are not only part of a place but are mutually related to it; to shaping its happenings and forming its identities. In this study, the major focus is toward understanding place and people's environmental knowledge of place. Through this theoretical approach, this article aims to explore the concept of spatial syntagma on the basis of three major aspects of “sensing a place,” “relating to place,” and “knowing a place.” Moreover, this study aims to emphasize the notion of a place as a socio-behavioral network (or system) and verify characteristics, qualities, and the spirituality of a place.     

Resolving Identity Conflict: Gay,Lesbian, and Queer Individuals with a Christian Upbringing

Gay, lesbian, and queer individuals with a Christian upbringing often experience conflict between religion and sexual identity. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to understand how gay, lesbian, and queer-identified individuals with a Christian upbringing resolve conflict between sexual identity and religious beliefs. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 15 participants led to 3 conclusions. First, resolving the discord between sexual identity and religious beliefs is a five-stage process of internal conflict resolution. Second, personal and contextual factors affect every aspect of the resolution process. Finally, faith development and sexual identity development are intertwined and fluid constructions.     

Missing from the Conversation: Sexual Risk Factors Across Young People by Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

Abstract

Objectives: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer/questioning (LGBQ), and transgender/nonbinary (trans/NB) youth experience health disparities. Much research combines gender identity with sexual orientation or siloes them, ignoring intersections. Methods: Logistic regressions with representative data from 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (n?=?15,970) explores sexual risk. Results: Findings indicate LGBQ and trans/NB youth have differential levels of sexual risk (drugs during sexual interactions, not using condoms) compared to cisgender heterosexual peers. Other identities, mental health, and bullying are also related. Conclusions: There is a need for culturally responsive bullying prevention, mental health support, education, and sexual health services for marginalized populations.     

Power,Gender, and Public Relations: Sexual Harassment as a Threat to the Practice

As women increasingly take their place as public relations managers, their ability to work successfully in a harassment-free environment will have an impact on the overall stature and practice of the field. We used data from a national survey and 6 focus groups to explore the effects of sexual harassment.     

Life Maps: Tracking Individual Gender and Sexual Identity Construction in the Contexts of Cultures,Relationships, and Desires

The categories and language currently available to designate gender identity and sexual identity constitute over-simplifications, which do not adequately signify the complex interplays between gender and sexual orientation. It is also often difficult to recount honestly, in a way that is visible to the self and intimate others, our understandings of the complex interplays and frequent fluidity of our individual processes of gender identity development, sexual identity development, and forms of preferred erotic/sexual behavior. This essay proposes, in preliminary form, a theoretical and diagrammatic method, called a “life map,” for a context-rich illustration of an individual’s meandering journey of gender and sexual identity development. Using two illustrative lives, the essay includes cultural contexts for development as well as the gender and sexual identity locations of relationally intimate others. In addition, it suggests a framework for core types of desired erotic behaviors and provides examples of variations in such desires in relational and identity contexts.     

National Minority, National Mentality, and Communal Ethnicity: Changes in Ethnic Identity of Former Soviet Union Jewish Emigrants on the Israeli Kibbutz

In this paper we examine and compare the ethnic identity of the Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the process of change in ethnic identity among the new immigrants from the FSU. This analysis considers the role of the kibbutz as the first experience of Jewish community in their lives, as well as the location of the first phase of their process of absorption and resocialization into new and unfamiliar surroundings. The data are drawn through a longitudinal research design, with a pre‐ and post‐analysis of changes in the ethnicity of migrants studied from their arrival on the Israeli kibbutz until the completion of the five‐month kibbutz programme. We found that pre‐migration Soviet Jews defined their ethnicity as a discriminated national minority with a weak symbolic ethnicity content. The ambivalent nature of the ethnicity of Jews while in the FSU was expressed in the fact that although a majority were deculturized from traditional dimensions of Jewish life, they nevertheless felt they belonged to a specific ethnic group. Post‐migration ethnicity was found to be remarkably altered; the former ambivalence was dissolved. On the macro‐level, membership in the economically and politically successful Russian‐speaking group of Israeli society is a source of self esteem, rather than a sign of shameful otherness. On the micro‐level of ethnicity, the encounter in the initial phase of absorption in Israel, within the kibbutz Jewish community, often demands a re‐examination of their private concept of Jewishness, serving as a first step in resolving their ambivalent ethnic identity. Consequently, their new ethnic identity may now well have weaker boundaries, but a more positive (non‐alienating) content than that left behind.     

Relationship Dissolution as a Life Stage Transition: Effects on Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors

In this paper, with the use of linear regressions to investigate how relationship dissolution affects sexual attitudes and behaviors, the authors address the stereotype that newly single people seek multiple sexual partners. Although the newly single people surveyed did obtain new sexual partners, the rate at which they acquired new partners did not support the stereotype. Specifically, men with custody of their children seemed oriented toward finding a steady partner. Additionally, men and women with low incomes reported relatively high rates of partner acquisition after relationship dissolution. The high rates reported by disadvantaged groups may be more directly related to familial instability accompanying poverty than to cultural characteristics associated with income or race. We argue that a life stage model with categorical stages in a rigid, anachronistic progression provides insufficient means to gain an understanding of newly single people.     

Diversification as a New Disciplinary Power: Gender and Sexual Subjectivity in Postmodernity

Nowadays, the power of gender and sexuality works not only to reinforce and reconstruct the essentialized norms but also, in direct opposition, to deconstruct these norms. The new disciplinary power and its discourse encourages people to have diverse and fluid self/body images. This article aims to discuss the new characteristics of gender and sexual self-image, body, discourse, and social images in postmodern society through a comparison with Foucault's arguments. This article also briefly mentions how these phenomena have spread through society and questions whether recent social movements really go beyond the style of the former one, which is based on sharing the same identity.     

The Effects of Sexual Orientation,Gender Identity,and Gender Role on the Mental Health of Women in Taiwan's T-Po Lesbian Community

SUMMARY

We obtained via the Internet a convenience sample of Taiwanese heterosexual (n = 287) and sexual minority females (n = 260). A significantly greater percentage of sexual minorities (lesbian and bisexual females) than heterosexuals reported they had used tobacco or alcohol. Relative to heterosexuals, sexual minorities were significantly more likely to report a serious suicide attempt. Overall, gender identity (masculine, feminine, and androgynous) and gender role (butch, femme, and pure or undifferentiated) were poor discriminators of lesbian mental health. Differences between sexual minorities and heterosexuals were more robust than were the variations in gender identities and gender roles among lesbian and bisexual women. We discuss the implications of these findings for further clinical research.     

Standing OUT/Fitting IN: Identity,Appearance, and Authenticity in Gay and Lesbian Communities

Sexuality scholars have noted the historical connection between appearance and gay or lesbian identity. However, as the social landscape for lesbian women and gay men has shifted over the past forty years, little research has documented how such changes influence gay and lesbian individuals' appearance choices as they form, manage, and maintain their identities. To explore the impact of this “post‐closet” ( Seidman 2002 ) era on the identities and appearances of lesbians and gays, in‐depth interviews were conducted with twenty individuals, aged eighteen to thirty. Findings suggest that while most people use appearance to attain a sense of authenticity after “coming out,” achieving a feeling of authenticity in gay and lesbian spaces presents unique challenges as individuals come under scrutiny by the community.     

Queers,Bodies and Postmodern Sexualities: A Note on Revisiting the “Sexual” in Symbolic Interactionism

This article reflects on the linkage between developments in symbolic interactionist theory over the past thirty years and the sociological study of the social construction of sexualities. After some personal reflections on the development of the theory, four main themes are highlighted: the links to postmodernism and queer theory; the paths to new research styles; some internal problems with the theory; and the need to reinstall the importance of the body. The article concludes that symbolic interactionism remains a major approach to the study of sexuality.