Helping Young People Stay Afloat: A Qualitative Study of Community Resources and Supports for LGBTQ Adolescents in the United States and Canada

LGBTQ youth are at increased risk of poor health outcomes. This qualitative study gathered data from LGBTQ adolescents regarding their communities and describes the resources they draw on for support. We conducted 66 go-along interviews with diverse LGBTQ adolescents (mean age = 16.6) in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and British Columbia in 2014–2015, in which interviewers accompanied participants in their communities to better understand those contexts. Their responses were systematically organized and coded for common themes, reflecting levels of the social ecological model. Participants described resources at each level, emphasizing organizational, community, and social factors such as LGBTQ youth organizations and events, media presence, and visibility of LGBTQ adults. Numerous resources were identified, and representative themes were highly consistent across locations, genders, orientations, racial/ethnic groups, and city size. Findings suggest new avenues for research with LGBTQ youth and many opportunities for communities to create and expand resources and supports for this population.     

Bury Your Gays and Social Media Fan Response: Television,LGBTQ Representation,and Communitarian Ethics

Although visibility has increased, there are still television tropes used that can have potentially harmful effects on LGBTQ persons seeking identification through television characters. This essay explores the representation of women-loving women (WLW) on television and how fans respond via social media with regard to their identity and representation. Specifically, by examining the fan culture through a communitarian ethics lens (with an emphasis on duty and mutuality), fans are explored before and after a lesbian character’s death and how their responses created a social movement regarding the current television environment’s treatment of WLW characters. Media anthropology and virtual ethnographic observations on Twitter and Tumblr were used to answer how fans were responding to WLW representation via social media and how they engaged with communitarian ethics. Implications and criticisms are discussed.     

Is It Facebook Official? Coming Out and Passing Strategies of Young Adult Gay Men on Social Media

The rapid proliferation of social media, mobile applications, and Internet technologies has shifted a wide variety of social interaction from physical spaces to an online environment. Drawing from 42 semistructured, in-depth interviews with gay college-aged men between the ages of 18 and 27, this article explores these changing patterns of social interaction among gay men. I discuss three strategies of identity management college-aged gay men use to disclose or conceal their sexual identity to others. The first group of men, “Out and Proud,” uses Facebook as a way to celebrate and reaffirm their sexual identity, in addition to actively coming out to others on the social media Web site. The second group, “Out and Discreet,” uses Facebook to indirectly come out to some of their friends while hiding this information from others. The men in the last group I identify, “Facebook Closeted,” actively manage their online profiles to ensure their sexual identity is not exposed. Facebook is both transformative and risky for college-aged gay men, as it represents a new platform for them to come out as gay to friends and family, as well as other areas of their lives where they must actively manage the presentation of their sexual identity.     

LGBTQ+ Young Adults on the Street and on Campus: Identity as a Product of Social Context

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) young adults face unique identity-related experiences based on their immersion in distinctive social contexts. The predominant framework of performing separate analyses on samples of LGBTQ+ young people by their primary social status obfuscates more holistic understandings of the role of social context. Using 46 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ college students and LGBTQ+ homeless young adults, we ask: How are LGBTQ+ young adults’ capacities for “doing” their gender and sexual identities shaped by their distinctive social contexts? In developing their identities, both groups of LGBTQ+ young adults navigated their social environments to seek out resources and support. Most college students described their educational contexts as conducive to helping them develop their identities, or “undo” rigid norms of gender and sexuality. Homeless young adults’ social environments, meanwhile, imposed complex barriers to self-expression that reinforced more normative expectations of “doing” gender and sexual identities.     

“She Finally Smiles … for Real”: Reducing Depressive Symptoms and Bolstering Resilience Through a Camp Intervention for LGBTQ Youth

ABSTRACT

While summer camps are a recognized evidence-based strategy for building social and emotional skills among youth (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2009), no known studies have evaluated the effects of camp programming for LGBTQ youth in the United States. This pilot study evaluates a novel program (Brave Trails) for LGBTQ youth ages 12 to 20, using a pre-post camper survey (N = 56) and a post-camp parent survey (N = 54). Results show campers experienced increases in identity affirmation and hope and a reduction in depressive symptoms. Regression analyses found changes in identity affirmation predicted reductions in depressive symptoms and increases in resilience. Additionally, campers’ experience of key camp programming features predicted changes in depressive symptoms. Findings from the parent survey were consistent with camper survey results. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Suicidal and Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Youth in an Online Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, Queer,and Questioning Social Network

LGBTQ youth have a great burden for suicidal ideation/behavior compared to their non-LGBTQ peers. While scholars have explored risk factors for suicidal behaviors, little is known about protective factors among LGBTQ youth, let alone within group differences in terms of help-seeking. Data were collected from 203 TrevorSpace (e.g., a social network for LGBTQ youth) users via online survey to examine suicidal and help-seeking behaviors among LGBTQ individuals. Among participants who reported suicidal ideation/behavior, a large proportion did not seek help (73.1% of gay men, 33.3% of bisexual men, 42.9% of bisexual women, 14.3% of lesbian women, 41.2% of queer individuals) when they considered or attempted suicide. Among those who sought support, reaching out to a friend was most common. However, family support was associated with fewer suicidal behaviors. Our findings underscore the need to examine the effectiveness of specific sources of help and the impact of exposure to social connectedness.     

Complicating the Coming Out Narrative: Becoming Oneself in a Heterosexist and Cissexist World

Traditional stage models of LGBTQ identity development have conceptualized coming out as a linear process from “closeted” to “out” that all queer/trans individuals must follow if they are to be considered healthy and well adjusted. These stage models have been critiqued for their rigidity and absence of a dynamic understanding of the coming out process. In this article we explore the findings from a qualitative photovoice study with 15 LGBTQ youths in a small urban center in Ontario that supports these critiques. We explore the efficacy of the photovoice technique in investigating questions of sexual and gender identity. This article identifies some contextual factors that are important in understanding coming out as a social (rather than internal) process; it also identifies some of the ways in which these youths’ experiences challenge normative understandings of the “good, out queer.”     

Hashtags and hip-hop: exploring the online performances of hip-hop identified youth using Instagram

Despite hip-hop’s popularity, little attention has been paid to its effects on youth gender performances on social media. This study has analyzed how youth who identify with three popular hip-hop songs interpreted the songs’ messages and performed their gender on the social media application Instagram (IG). Posts (N=450) from IG users were examined using modified consensual qualitative research procedures. Ten categories emerged that illustrate the range of gender performances which youth engaged in, each of which occurred within one of four domains: (a) mixed messages (self-love and visibility; relationships); (b) reified messages (party life; provocations; conspicuous consumption); (c) challenged messages (growth; making new meaning; teamwork); and (d) neutral messages (humor; other). The findings from this study illustrate the influential role of hip-hop music on youth gender performance in a natural context (IG). IG posts often mirrored, and in turn contributed to, the narrow range of acceptable gender performances in hip-hop, suggesting the need for youth media literacy skill development.     

Authorship and professional digital presence in feminist blogs

This research traces the shift from stand-alone, personal blogging toward professionalized use of social media. To exemplify this process, we draw attention to the transition from pseudonymous to identifiable authorship in feminist blogging. This transition toward professional digital presence is important for two major reasons: first, it reveals how oppositional politics is part of the commercial circuits and neoliberal market logics of identity management; second, it underscores the ways in which online harassment of feminist bloggers can harm their public identities and negatively impact their larger professional self-making. Further, we suggest that feminist bloggers perform a dual role of social media influencers and web-based public intellectuals as they affectively participate in the political sphere through systematic production of oppositional knowledge and counter-discourses. The paper concludes with a reflection on the significance of professionalized feminist blogging as a site of creative, intellectual, and relational labor.     

The Last Closet: LGBTQ+ Studies and Social Class

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the intersection of queerness and social class as it impinges on the field of LGBTQ+ studies. Specifically, it considers some of the disciplinary aims of queer critique in relation to the challenges facing first-generation queer scholars; in so doing, it suggests how forms of difference operate in relation to the personal over time. As a discipline committed to intersectional frameworks, LGBTQ+ studies (and its ongoing evolution) might thus usefully foreground overlapping understandings of outsiderness: namely, how queerness might be experienced as a form of class, and how class might be experienced as a form of queerness.     

Shaping LGBTQ Identities: Western Media Representations and LGBTQ People’s Perceptions in Rural Spain

A growing academic discussion has focused on how, in a globalized world, LGBTQ identities are shaped and influenced by different and international actors, such as the media. This article analyzes how LGBTQ people from a rural region of a Western country—Spain—feel toward their representations on TV series from English-speaking countries. Employing a qualitative approach, this research aims to depict whether the academic conceptualizations to analyze these identity conformation processes are accurate. In addition, it explores how dominating media representations are being adapted in a region that, although within the West, can serve a context of a very different nature. The results found that a major rejection of the TV series representations among participants can suggest both an inaccuracy of the conceptualizations used by some scholars to understand LGBTQ flows and a problematic LGBTQ representation in media products that goes beyond regions and spaces.     

Medicalization and Teen Girls' Bodies in the Gardasil Cervical Cancer Vaccine Campaign

To explore the impacts of health advertising campaigns on media consumers' perceptions of their health and bodies, I applied the concept of medicalization to a current health media campaign about a cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil. Literature about medicalization, women's reception of body images, and girl-centered communication studies framed the study. Thirty-nine teens from various backgrounds, aged between fourteen and seventeen years old, were interviewed in six states. Individual and dyad interviews and focus groups helped obtain thick, rich details. A grounded theory approach allowed previously unexplored themes to emerge. Findings suggest that girls believe that media messages about their sexual health—such as the Gardasil TV commercial—instruct them as to health topics they should be concerned about, the social rules that girls should follow—particularly in how, when, and with whom they can discuss sexual health—and how the practice of sex intersects with morality in personal and peer identity formation. Among other implications, this study suggests how campaign designers can re-situate health communication with teen girls. The study also suggests the importance of seeing medicalization effects within an intersectional framework of race, class, and parenthood status.     

Supporting transgender children: new legal, social, and medical approaches

The author, a lawyer who advocates for transgender children and youth, explores how clinical approaches to transgender children and youth are keeping pace with social and legal changes affecting these young people and with recent evidence suggesting that children are harmed by family and societal rejection as well as by attempts to change their gender identity or gender expression. The author urges providers and legal advocates to work with policymakers and the families of transgender children and youth to create a future in which these young people can reach their full potential and be embraced as fully equal, respected, and participating members of society.     

Intersectionality in the Lives of LGBTQ Youth: Identifying as LGBTQ and Finding Community in Small Cities and Rural Towns

This article presents an analysis of the views of younger bisexual and lesbian women and transgender youth living in a western Canadian small city on their sexual and gender identities. Data were collected through focus groups and interviews and analyzed thematically through an intersectional lens. The purposive sample was composed of 13 youth who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) and whose average age was 19.8 years. The analytical themes of (1) living in a small town, (2) identifying and being identified, and (3) talking intersectionality indicate that the sexual identities and gender identities and expressions of LGBTQ youth change across time and context and are impacted by often overlooked factors including faith, Indigenous ancestry, disability, and class. Further, the size and character of the community significantly impacts LGBTQ youth identity development and expression. This research demonstrates the uniqueness of individual youth’s experiences—opposing notions of milestone events as singularly important in queer youth identity development.     

Status Homophily,Sexual Identity,and Lesbian Social Ties

The literature on friendship and social networks finds that individuals form social ties with people who are like them—a much studied concept called homophily. However, few studies have explicitly examined sexual identity as a point of homophily. Scholars from multiple disciplines have long argued that sexuality influences the organization of our social worlds, yet most studies of friendship and social networks under-examine or overlook the influence of sexual identity. This study addresses that gap by looking at status homophily among lesbian social ties to examine the influence of sexual identity, as well as gender, race, class, and family, on their personal networks. Using survey data from 544 U.S. lesbian respondents, the findings make visible some of the factors and forces that shape social ties for lesbians. The results point to the importance of sexuality as an organizing element of social life, and suggest that studies that examine social networks or friendships more often make sexual identity, gender, and intersecting social locations a central focus.     

Race relations and racism in the LGBTQ community of Toronto: perceptions of gay and queer social service providers of color

This article explores race relations and racism within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community of Toronto, Ontario, from the perspective of seven gay/queer social service providers of color. Social constructions of race, race relations, and racism were placed at the centre of analysis. Employing interpretive phenomenological analysis, findings indicated that intergroup and broader systemic racism infiltrates the LGBTQ community, rendering invisible the lived experiences of many LGBTQ people of color. The study contributes to a growing body of research concerning our understanding of factors underpinning social discrimination in a contemporary Canadian LGBTQ context.     

Assessing Politicized Sexual Orientation Identity: Validating the Queer Consciousness Scale

Building on psychological theories of motivation for collective action, we introduce a new individual difference measure of queer consciousness, defined as a politicized collective identity around sexual orientation. The Queer Consciousness Scale (QCS) consists of 12 items measuring five aspects of a politicized queer identity: sense of common fate, power discontent, system blame, collective orientation, and cognitive centrality. In four samples of adult women and men of varied sexual orientations, the QCS showed good test-retest and Cronbach’s reliability and excellent known-groups and predictive validity. Specifically, the QCS was positively correlated with identification as a member of the LGBTQ community, political liberalism, personal political salience, and LGBTQ activism and negatively correlated with right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. QCS mediated relationships between several individual difference variables and gay rights activism and can be used with both LGBTQ people and allies.     

LGBTQ Women,Appearance Negotiations,and Workplace Dress Codes

The purpose of this study was to explore LGBTQ women’s experiences with unwritten or formal dress codes at work. I asked: What are LGBTQ women’s experiences in the workplace with appearance management, and what are LGBTQ women’s experiences navigating the written and unwritten dress codes in the workplace? To answer the research question, interviews were conducted with 24 self-identifying LGBTQ women. Six key themes emerged from the data. Themes included (1) expressed sexual identity in appearance, (2) unwritten dress codes in work environments did not always allow for expression of sexual identity in appearance, (3) motivations for pressure or desire to conceal expression of sexual identity in appearance at work, (4) negotiations of revealing or concealing sexual identity in appearance in the workplace impacted levels of comfort and confidence, (5) verbal and nonverbal negative experiences related to appearance at work, and (6) received compliments about appearance at work.     

我国公民与外来人口社会距离的实证研究

公民与外来人口的社会距离反映了外来人口社会适应与融合的情况,以往研究以本地居民与外来人口的社会距离为切入点,忽视了在本地工作的外地人与外地人之间的社会距离。本研究弥补了这一缺陷。实证研究表明,户籍对于外来人口的社会距离存在一定影响,但在控制了地域身份后,户籍对于外来人口社会距离的影响消失,这说明户籍的影响正在消除,但以本地-外地为划分的地域身份正在接替户籍的作用,二元结构并没有破除。同时,中国人特殊的信任结构并没有在社会变迁和经济的冲击下改变,依然存在着对自己人的特殊信任和对外人的普遍信任两种情况,前者拉大了与外来人口的社会距离,后者则缩短了这一距离。结果还显示,心理感受对于公民与外来人口的社会距离有着非常重要的作用,这也表明心理意愿是公民交往的社会基础。