The queer youth cultural competency (QYCC) scale: Measuring competency in direct-care behavioral health workers

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youths are disproportionately represented in behavioral health treatment settings, and face disparities in outcomes when compared to their non-SGM peers. These youths need workers who are culturally competent in addressing their specific needs. This article presents a scale to measure the SGM-related cultural competence of direct care workers. The scale, named the Queer Youth Cultural Competency (QYCC) scale, fills a gap in the measurement literature and enables social workers to more robustly address the cultural competency of service providers as it relates to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youths receiving behavioral health treatment.     

A Be/Coming-Out Model: Assessing Factors of Resilience and Ambiguity

Sexual orientation, “coming out,” and the impacts of external stressors, resiliency, and losses remains an area not well understood. Being a sexual minority can result in ambiguous losses that potentially complicate established or formative resilience. These types of losses are largely overlooked and little research exists on how these loss(es) impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) populations (Boss, 2006 Boss, P. (2006). Loss, trauma and resilience: Therapeutic work with ambiguous loss. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co. [Google Scholar]). This article presents a “Be/Coming-Out” model to better assess and understand three interactive life dimensions: self-perceptions, social relationships, and society structures. The model depicts the ongoing and multilayered interactions, highlighting areas of resiliency and ambiguity, including potential risk factors and barriers to formation of resiliency behaviors. Discussion focuses on be/coming out as a lifelong process and applying the model as a tool in assessing individuals and couples levels of resiliency, as well as potential ambiguous losses related to sexual minority identity.     

Coming Out of the Family Closet: Stories of Adult Women with LGBTQ Parent(s)

Research about children of LGBTQ parent(s) tends to be politically interested and evaluative, assessing the degree to which children with LGBTQ parent(s) are being raised well. As a consequence, much of that research glosses over the distinct experiences of children with LGBTQ parent(s) and how they tell their own stories. This article attends to that shortcoming by detailing how some children with LGBTQ parent(s) construct their identities. We draw upon data from interviews with 26 adult-children, specifically young, white women who were born to, or adopted by, heterosexual parent(s) who later divorced and began living as LGBTQ. We analyze the children’s interviews as coming out narratives, detailing how many tell a story of coming out as a process of growing up and negotiating specific family closets. We then discuss how these are gendered and racialized narratives of coming out, reflecting the way racism and sexism intersect with homophobia and the stories told about experiencing it. We also suggest that these are stories of a particular generation of adult-children, reflecting specific families and the homophobia of the times. We end by suggesting how future generations of adult-children with LGBTQ parent(s) will likely narrate their identities differently.

“A Whole Bunch of Love the Sinner Hate the Sin”: LGBTQ Microaggressions Experienced in Religious and Spiritual Context

ABSTRACT

Research on microaggressions experienced by LGBTQ people has focused largely on a general understanding of this concept; however, no research exists that focuses exclusively on microaggressions that LGBTQ people face across religious and spiritual communities. The present study addressed this gap in the literature by using a qualitative method to allow LGBTQ people (N= 90) to directly report microaggressions that they have experienced within their religious and spiritual communities. Thematic analysis revealed three predominant themes: (1) LGBTQ identities as inauthentic; (2) religious/spiritual tolerance of LGBTQ Identities, and (3) LGBTQ and religious/spiritual identities as incompatible. Implications and future directions discussed.     

Perspectives of LGBTQ Older Adults on Aging in Place: A Qualitative Investigation

This qualitative study conducted by a community-research partnership used multiple types of data collection to examine variables relevant for LGBTQ older adults who wished to age in place in their urban Denver neighborhood. Focus groups, interviews, and a town hall meeting were used to identify barriers and supports to aging in place. Participants (N = 73) identified primarily as lesbian or gay, aged 50–69, and lived with a partner. Ageism, heterosexism, and cisgenderism emerged as cross-cutting themes that negatively impact access to health care, housing, social support, home assistance, and legal services. Resilience from weathering a lifetime of discrimination was identified as a strength to handle aging challenges. Recommendations for establishing an aging in place model included establishing welcoming communities and resource centers and increasing cultural competence of service providers. This study provides a unique contribution to understanding the psychosocial, medical, and legal barriers for successfully aging in place.     

Gendered Economy: Sociality and the Lesbian Consumer Market in China1

The gay consumer market is often treated as a homogeneous entity, and Anglophone scholarship has given scant attention to lesbian consumers. This paper examines gendered distinctions within the Chinese gay market by asking how the lesbian consumer market is organized differently from its gay male counterpart and why some types of businesses thriving in the gay male market are likely to fail in the lesbian market. Based on interviews with entrepreneurs and business professionals, supplemented with ethnographic and media data, this study indicates that certain types of commerce existing in the gay male consumer market do not dovetail with lesbians' preferred ways of socializing associated with women's risk perception. Unlike previous scholarship that simply characterized the lesbian market as “underdeveloped,” this research demonstrates that opportunities for the lesbian and gay male markets exist in different types of trade and business. Although the concept of the pink economy is theoretically grounded in sexual orientation, China's pink market demonstrates how gender plays a key role in shaping the lesbian consumer market.     

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.     

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.     

A Queer Theorist’s Critique of Online Domestic Violence Advocacy: Critically Responding to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Web Site

Since the foundations of the contemporary anti-violence movement in the 1960s and 1970s, advocates have sought to establish a critical understanding of domestic violence that we can use to direct our efforts for social change. Yet many advocates and advocacy organizations continue to rely on a problematic narrative of sameness that marginalizes and erases diverse victims’ experiences and needs. In this article, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Web site to identify outcomes of this narrative for the inclusivity of advocacy efforts. I argue that despite the organization’s numerous claims to represent diverse victims’ experiences, Web site content reveals that its purportedly general account of domestic violence normalizes the experiences of a small group of victims—namely, heterosexual, cisgender women. Further, the Web site’s content greatly limits the potential for thinking about and discussing violence across difference. I conclude with recommendations for changes in advocacy practices.