The Story of sexual identity: narrative perspectives on the gay and lesbian life course

The meaning of homosexual identity as shaped by the adult life course is poorly described in the lives of gay men. In particular, the transition from young adulthood to middle age raises questions of how homosexual identity is redefined as gay men alter their participation in gay sexual culture, experience change in sexual desire and activity, and revise broader psychosocial identity as influenced by psychological and socialization processes related to aging. In addition, the HIV epidemic and historical change in social tolerance of homosexuality have shaped the experience of sexual identity among the generation of currently middle-aged gay men in the United States. A perspective that integrates sociocultural, historical, and psychosocial factors is thus needed to understand thesubjective meaning of homosexual identity as it is experienced in midlife. In this paper I have described exploratory research on the meaning of homosexual identity in the life trajectories of middle-aged men. Such meanings reflect available social and cultural pathways for change in midlife homosexual identity, as well as individual psychological attributes and idiosyncrasies of life history. These findings have heuristic value in further refinement of models of homosexual identity maintenance and support a more inclusive view of the life course that considers the effects of sexual orientation on adult identity.

Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men in England and the United States Allan Bérbubé. Coming Out Under Fire, The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two (New York: The Free Press, 1990). Hall Carpenter Archives, Gay Men's Oral History Group. Walking After Midnight, Gay Men's Life Stories (London and New York: Routledge, 1989). Hall Carpenter Archives, Lesbian Oral History Group. Inventing Ourselves , Lesbian Life Stories (London and New York: Routledge, 1989). H. F. McMains As gay studies begin to flourish, the sodal history of gay women and men seems confined by the lack of traditional sources. Lesbians and gay men have not generally left documents which aUow historians to examine their experiences. Historical research in the wie es eigentlich gewesen tradition has been difficult to pursue. Literary topics are more accessible, and gay studies have tended to develop from such academic departments as English and phUosophy. Theory often predominates, and there is energetic debate between proponents of biological-essentiatist and social-constructivist models. Studies of historical attitudes—ranging from John BosweU to B. R. Burg—depend on a titerary record created by enemies and persecutors. It is, therefore, interesting that aU three of these books— two oral histories, from the Hall Carpenter Archives (London) and a monograph by AUan Bérubé—come from outside the current academic debate over theory. The HaU Carpenter Archives functioned in London during the mid1980s . Its Oral History Projed's purpose was to coUect statements "of a cross-range of ordinary lesbians and gay men ... to emphasize the Ufe stories of older people and people who have been marginalized within the historical accounts so far: people with disabilities, working-class people, and people from ethnic or cultural minority backgrounds." Volunteers conduded about sixty interviews, and half have been edited into these two volumes. The two coUections include several interesting tife stories. The most successful interviews are with older subjects who remember World War II. Perhaps age has made them confident and aware of the world beyond themselves. Myrtle Solomon mentions in passing that she drove a mobüe canteen in London and worked in a fadory during the war but says more © 1991 Journal of Women's History, Vol 2 No. 3 (Winter) 140 Journal of Women's History Winter about her pacifist involvements afterward. Dudley Cave was a prisoner of war in the Pacific. And Frank Oliver was with the Entertainments National Service Assodation but had no political interests (aU he says is that "We had 'Winnie/ who fortunately brought us through to victory"). There are minor tidbits of information but no evocative memories of gay women and men in a particular time and place. And, regrettably, interviewers seem not to have probed their subjects' experiences. Interviews with younger subjects predominate. Many interviewees dedare their working-class origins, but the editors do not make a case for representing a larger group of persons at history's margins. AU subjects resided in Greater London and may have been connected to the Archives project. Persons not born in London migrated there at a young age and are not, therefore, a cross-section of gay Britons. About one-third were Commonwealth born, but interviewers did not explore this significant migration that is remaking English urban society. As a group, younger subjects are self-absorbed. The late artist David Ruffell did refer to American cultural influences, as do a few other subjects at lesser length. Younger subjeds are less willing to accept restrictions, and they often join gay-activist groups; they give no indication of seeking political position. Individual life stories are interesting, but there are problems with the ensemble. These books have a working-class bias that itself ignores other gay women and men, and the editors faü to define "ordinary." The emphasis seems to be on gay working-class persons who happen to be ordinary rather than on ordinary Britons who happen to be gay. English history and literature have excluded aU gay Britons, except for some royal tittle-tattle and the novels of Tobias SmoUett, for example. It is, thus, unclear how these interviews with ordinary Londoners of the 1980s are to supply the deficiency in "the historical accounts...

The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course. Phillip Hammack and Bertram Cohler (Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press. 2009. 474 pp. ISBN 9780195326789. $49.95 (Cloth). The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course, by editors Phillip Hammack and Bertram Cohler, explores the role of sociocultural and political contexts embedded in various historical periods and how these affect the life trajectories of gay and lesbian individuals and families. Further, the volume offers several chapters that examine how context informs the ways in which gays and lesbians have and are creating, shaping, and reshaping the stories of their sexual identities, illuminating the meaning behind them in an eloquent and in many instances emotionally intimate way. The editors open the volume with their conceptualization of the co-constructional processes of sexual identity development, drawing from multiple disciplines including history, psychology, sociology, and queer studies. To further conceptually ground the volume they are among the first (cf. Savin-Williams, 2005) to move away from more static early models of sexual identity development (e.g., Cass, 1979) by merging narrative and life-course perspectives. The resulting theoretical framework highlights the fluid and dynamic sexual identities of gays and lesbians and the influential role of context in their development over the life course. The editors, and many of the chapter authors, assert that the meaning of one's sexual identity is more than simply being gay or lesbian, alternative to the idea of a master narrative. The meaning of gay or lesbian varies by person and context, although some elements can be shared, especially within a generation that shares an experience, thereby creating a narrative generation. For example, those gay men of dating age during the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s are a recognized generation defined by a specific historical event. As a result of this shared experience, they share a similar discourse about dating in the age of AIDS. However, this is not to suggest that everyone shares the same discourse. Another example includes an individual's coming out story that is situated in the era of the emergence of AIDS. In fact, several chapters examine new or existing data and literature by contextualizing the life stories of gays and lesbians using a generation narrative in a way that could not be more timely. The current sociocultural and political context affecting the lives of gay and lesbian individuals, couples, and families in the United States and abroad differs vastly between and within countries and is highlighted in several chapters throughout the volume. In the United States alone, some basic rights (e.g., protections from discrimination in housing and the work place) are afforded to gay and lesbian individuals in some states, whereas in others it remains legal to deny housing to someone because of their perceived sexual identity. Similarly, in some states gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry are allowed the same state-level rights and privileges of marriage as heterosexual couples, whereas in other states they can register to receive some marital-like rights via domestic partnerships statutes. Still, in most states no rights or privileges are afforded these couples. Further, in most states and to a small extent at the federal level, the rights, privileges, and constraints for these individuals and families are contested and changing rapidly (for better or worse; e.g., the repeal of Proposition 8 in California). In fact, it has become commonplace to encounter some form of media (e.g., Internet) that discusses the latest developments in gay and lesbian rights, and it is widely accepted that discrimination continues to pervade the fabric of the American tapestry. Certainly, each decade or historical period in American history has differentially influenced the constraints and access to myriad rights, privileges, and safe communities for gay and lesbians. …

Perspectives on gender, gender expression, sexuality identity, and sexual orientation differ within and between generations given the great extent to which these concepts are embedded within social, cultural, and historical context. Across contexts, questions of authenticity are critical. This research compares generational perspectives about authenticity, gender and gender-related constructs, and sexuality. Through semi-structured interviews with a nonprobability, purposive sample of heterosexual and LGBTQ younger (aged 18–22) and older (aged 65+) adults, how a sense of authenticity is experienced and the degree to which individuals experience authenticity around sexual and gender identities are compared. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method of analysis, and results indicate that while younger adult respondents held expansive terminology and knowledge related to sexual and gender identities, older adult participants lacked such fluidity, and that lack was an inhibiting factor in older adults being able to name and embody their authentic sexual selves. In conclusion, both position in one’s life course (age) and one’s generational cohort (historical, cultural, and social context) influence how individuals experience authenticity around gender and sexual identities.

Changing language, changes lives: Learning the lexicon of LGBTQ+ health equity.

Part 1: Understanding the Developmental Needs of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys. 1. Coming Out and Identity Development Needs in Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys Joseph Manera and Denis Frank. 2. The Role of Friendships in the Lives of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys Michael M. Kocet. Part 2: Cultural Issues with Sexual Minority Men, Adolescents, and Boys. 3. Cultural Considerations: Helping Gay Men, Teens, and Boys Integrate a Racial and Sexual Identity Richmond Wynn, Joel Filmore, and Derrick A. Paladino. 4. Addressing Spirituality When Counseling Gay Boys, Adolescents, and Men Samuel Sanabria and Joffrey Suprina. Part 3: Developing Integral Partnerships in the Treatment of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys. 5. Assessment and Treatment of the Medical Needs of Gay Men, Adolescents and Boys James Leone, Elizabeth Mullin, and Shan Mohammed. 6. The Mental Health and Counseling Needs of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys Larry D. Burlew, Nichole Pulliam, and Kathleen Grant. 7. The Impact of Substance Abuse and Addiction in the Lives of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys Michael P. Chaney and Michael Brubaker. 8. Recognizing the Needs of Sexual Minority Boys and Adolescents in Schools Melissa M. Luke and Kristopher M. Goodrich. 9. The Role of Career & Leisure Needs in the Lives of Gay Men, Adolescents, and Boys Jane Goodman and Paul Battle. Part 4: Counseling Special Populations: Sexual and Gender Minority Boys, Adolescents, and Men. 10. Non-Gay Men and Boys: Working With Men, Teens, and Boys Who Identify as Bisexual Jason Patton, Jeff Lubsen, and Stacee Reicherzer. 11. Counseling in the Periphery of Queer Discourse: Transgender Children, Adolescence, Women, and Men Stacee Reicherzer, Andrew S. Garland-Forshee, and Jason Patton.

One emerging avenue for the exploration of adolescents' sexual orientation identity development is the Internet, since it allows for varying degrees of anonymity and exploration. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the role of the Internet in facilitating the sexual orientation identity development process of gay and bisexual male adolescents. Qualitative interviews were conducted with an ethnically diverse sample of 63 gay/bisexual male adolescents (ages 15-23). Participants reported using a range of Internet applications as they explored and came to accept their sexual orientation identity, with the intended purpose and degree of anonymity desired determining which applications were used. Youth reported that the Internet provided a range of functions with regard to the exploration and acceptance of their sexual orientation identity, including (1) increasing self-awareness of sexual orientation identity, (2) learning about gay/bisexual community life, (3) communicating with other gay/bisexual people, (4) meeting other gay/bisexual people, (5) finding comfort and acceptance with sexual orientation, and (6) facilitating the coming out process. Future research and practice may explore the Internet as a platform for promoting the healthy development of gay and bisexual male adolescents by providing a developmentally and culturally appropriate venue for the exploration and subsequent commitment to an integrated sexual orientation identity.

A variety of models have been proposed to understand the process of coming to terms with a sexual minority identity. What has not been so clearly explored is how an individual's satisfaction with his or her sexual identity develops over the life course. This article explores satisfaction with sexual identity in a large cohort (N = 2,269) of self-identified lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, and considers satisfaction not only from a chronos (life span) but also from a chairos (stage of development) framework. Data show a clear relationship between age group and increased satisfaction with a sexual minority identity. Resilience may be an important contributor to increased satisfaction.

ABSTRACTBisexual and gay men are at increased risk of suicide ideation. Characterizing this risk requires self-disclosure of sexual identities; however, many will conceal their identity when interviewed. The authors investigated the impact of the resulting information bias within the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Expected probabilities of disclosure were derived from a community-based survey of bisexual and gay men, stratified by sexual identity and other social characteristics. Forty percent of bisexual men and 86% of gay men were willing to disclose to CCHS interviewers. The odds of suicide ideation were higher for bisexual (odds ratio [OR] = 4.91) and gay (OR = 3.63) men compared to heterosexual men. After bias analysis these disparities remained significant but were attenuated, with greater attenuation for bisexual (adjusted OR = 3.53) than for gay (adjusted OR = 3.52) men. The authors recommend that researchers continue exploring bias in estimated sexual minority health disparities, and that population surveys be more inclusive of bisexual-identified individuals.

In relation to the commonly-used sexual identity labels ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’, bisexual is often the most invisible category. This invisibility and lack of recognition of the needs of bisexuals across the life course is important to address in the practice of social workers. Taking a life course approach, bisexuality is particularly illustrative of the complex and changing relationships between sexuality and sexual identities. As we shall discuss, it can also make bisexual identities across the life course more visible even if people don’t use the identity label of bisexual. Social work has a key role to play in tackling inequalities and their impact in people’s lives. In this chapter, we highlight why bisexuality is an urgent matter for social workers to engage with and outline recent empirical evidence that bisexual people are at higher risk of poverty and poor mental health across the life course than lesbians and gay men (Fredriksen-Goldsen, Shiu et al. 2017). This chapter begins with a brief discussion of existing theoretical perspectives on bisexuality. We then introduce empirical research focusing on the lives of bisexual people (albeit it is sparse in contrast to bodies of empirical work addressing the lives of lesbians and gay men). In particular, we focus on what is known about the life course effects of bisexuality and finally we outline the implications for social work practice.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewThe Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and the Emergences of Sexuality. Benjamin Kahan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. Pp. xiv+242.Dustin FriedmanDustin FriedmanAmerican University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn this brief but ambitious book, Benjamin Kahan gives readers a slow-motion history of what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick named the “Great Paradigm Shift,” when a world of a “thousand aberrant sexualities” (to use Foucault’s phrase) transformed into one where everyone gets sorted into the homosexual/heterosexual binary.1 He describes his method as a “historical etiology” that looks back to dubious narratives of sexual causality to tell the story of modern erotic subjectivity’s emergence. Kahan’s point is that the “minor perverts” of his title did not simply disappear all at once, as Sedgwick’s mocking phrase implies. Instead, he draws on a diverse archive of nineteenth- and twentieth-century sexological and literary texts to demonstrate that various sexual etiologies had surprisingly long afterlives, and that an understanding of sexual identity as congenital, interior to the psyche, and defined by the gender of the desired object has had a stunningly briefer moment of cultural dominance than typically assumed.Kahan’s discussion is organized into an introduction that explains his etiological methodology and situates it among competing historical approaches, five short chapters each addressing a different etiology, and a remarkable final chapter reframing his thesis as a sort of Unified Field Theory for the history of the sexuality. Chapter 1 focuses on situational homosexuality in two contemporaneous lesbian-themed plays, the largely forgotten Winter Bound (1929) by Thomas Dickinson and Lillian Hellman’s much more famous The Children’s Hour (1934). While the notion that sexual practices can be affected by one’s external circumstances—snowed-in at a farmhouse, attending a girls’ school—might seem to challenge the homo/hetero binary, Kahan argues that situational homosexuality actually “help[s] solidify sexual identity” by defining such acts as aberrations that do not affect one’s true identity, now understood to be an unchanging psychological quality that is not necessarily affected by one’s physical activities (35). The second chapter discusses another form of externally determined sexuality that he calls “anthropologis sexualis,” the notion that sexual behavior is influenced by climate. He analyzes the feverish homoeroticism of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1912) in relation to contemporary sexological texts to discuss how anthropologis sexualis marks a transition from the permeable body of humoral theory, which is radically open to its environment, to the self-contained and stable body of modern germ theory. This change facilitated the transition from a universalizing notion of sexual perversity (anyone could be spurred to indulge in aberrant sexual practices, given their location on the globe) to the minoritizing notion of identity (external circumstances have no bearing on one’s internal sexual self).In his third chapter, Kahan looks at the unlikely trio of Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein’s Gothic novel The Mysteries of New Orleans (1854–55), the Victorian bestseller Trilby (1894), and the American novelist Paschal Beverly Randolph’s nineteenth-century writings on “sex magic.” He uses these texts to discuss “magia sexualis,” the belief that magical acts such as “occultism, sorcery, supernaturalism, and witchcraft” can conjure sexual acts into being. By positing that the sexual motive was both outside the self, caused by magic, and inside the self, as the result of the magical act, magia sexualis aided the cultural transition from a premodern understanding of sex as part of the external “deployment of alliance (marriage, kinship, inheritance)” to the modern understanding of sex as the psychologically internal “deployment of sexuality (sensations, pleasures, and impressions)” (69). Chapter 4 is notable for its extended focus on one work, Sherwood Anderson’s short-story collection Winesburg, Ohio (1919), as it addressed the sexual implications of the Fordist transformation of the American economy. Anderson’s narratives of small-town life registered anxieties that the system of mass production would standardize sexual object choices in the process of regulating the private lives of workers for maximum productivity and efficiency, thereby flattening the irregularities of desire that thrived in local enclaves. “Weak etiologies” (or “etiolated etiologies”) are the subject of chapter 5, by which Kahan means theories of causality that resist the “clear ordering of cause and effect” embraced by many sexologists that produced the modern notion that “congenital desire leads to sexual object choice” (102). By contrast, weak etiologies of sexuality offer “coexisting possibilities” rather than “truth claims,” occupying the “paradoxical space between choice and compulsion, between voluntarity and involuntarity, and between active and unconscious action” often used to describe substance addiction (101–2)—a parallelism he draws out through readings of two narratives of alcoholism, Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano (1947) and Charles R. Jackson’s The Lost Weekend (1944).The final chapter is a tour de force that proficiently synthesizes over three decades of work in the history of sexuality and demonstrates how Kahan’s etiological approach resolves unrationalized contradictions in the field, specifically those regarding the historical location of the Great Paradigm Shift and modern sexual identity’s intersections with race, social class, and gender. These ambitions are supported by immense erudition and scholarly chops. In his account, “the ingredients of homosexuality” all exist by the early modern period—the era some scholars have identified as the origin of modern sexuality—but don’t get “baked together” until notions of congenital sexual identity are formulated at the turn of the twentieth century, the era more commonly identified as the start of our contemporary sexual regime (124). The rise of congenitality, he argues, is also the moment when sexual identity becomes disarticulated from other identity categories. Perhaps the most striking conclusion he proffers is that models of acquired sexuality persisted much longer into the twentieth century than previously suspected. According to Kahan, the homo/hetero binary was indisputably dominant only from the 1960s through the end of the twentieth century and is now in the process of transforming into the fissiparous understandings of sexual and gender identity that are beginning to take hold today.Other than the introduction and conclusion, Kahan writes short chapters that move quickly and fluidly among theoretical reflections, historical contextualization, and literary close readings, allowing him to make startling and illuminating juxtapositions between texts. He combines this argumentative swiftness with a deep and varied archive of materials that lend richness and nuance to his discussions. This is indicated by his extensive and discursive footnotes, which take up nearly sixty-five pages. Perhaps more than in other academic studies, these footnotes are worth a read on their own, indicating the vast amount of material he has synthesized and typified in the highly readable and efficient main discussion. Kahan’s prose style is quite strong: he combines long, complex sentences with shorter, colloquial statements that balance conceptual sophistication with clarity of expression. One qualm I had with this volume, though, was the uncertain role literary history plays in his methodology. In a section of the introduction titled “Sexological Modernism,” Kahan states that the blurry boundary that existed between sexological and literary writing at the turn of the twentieth century means that “we should understand modernist literary works as ‘vernacular sexology’ that dispute, amend, shape, contribute to, and work through more institutionalized modes of sexology” (20). While one of the study’s strengths is its historical and national diversity, it is often not clear how the writings he discusses fit into, challenge, or inspire a reassessment of the modernist paradigm. Indeed, references to modernism are made only in passing after the introduction, as literary texts are discussed largely in relation to sexological models of etiology rather than in specifically literary contexts. While this is not precisely a problem, given that Kahan frames his project as a contribution to the histories of sexuality and science rather than literary studies per se, I was still left wondering how modernist aesthetics might have affected the development of sexual etiologies and vice versa. Consequently, this volume will likely appeal more to those working in sexuality studies rather than students of modernism more generally.With that said, this volume is vital to anyone who works on the history of sexuality and/or queer studies. The new paradigm Kahan gives us for understanding the relevance of supposedly superannuated sexual etiologies opens up an exciting new archive for scholars to explore. The last chapter alone should be required reading for anyone seeking to make sense of the competing historical frameworks that have been offered for the genealogy of “our” sexual identity categories, and its bold rewriting of twentieth-century sexuality should have an immediate effect on research and teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. This is a necessary, field-changing book that should be read by anyone interested in sexuality in any academic field or historical period. Notes 1. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 44; Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 44. 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Advances in production and distribution of sexually explicit media (SEM) online have resulted in widespread use among men. Limited research has compared contexts of use and behaviors viewed in Internet SEM by sexual identity. The current study examined differences in recent SEM use (past 6months) by sexual identity among an ethnically diverse sample of 821 men who completed an online survey in 2015. Both gay and bisexual men reported significantly more frequent use of Internet SEM compared to heterosexual men. Although most participants reported viewing SEM at home (on a computer, tablet, or smartphone), significantly more gay men reported SEM use at a sex party or commercial sex venue than either heterosexual or bisexual men. Sexual identity predicted viewing of high-risk and protective behaviors in separate logistic regression models. Specifically, compared to heterosexual men, gay and bisexual men had increased odds of viewing condomless anal sex (gay OR 5.20, 95% CI 3.35-8.09; bisexual OR 3.99, 95% CI 2.24-7.10) and anal sex with a condom (gay OR 3.93, 95% CI 2.64-5.83; bisexual OR 4.59, 95% CI 2.78-7.57). Compared to gay men, heterosexual and bisexual men had increased odds of viewing condomless vaginal sex (heterosexual OR 27.08, 95% CI 15.25-48.07; bisexual OR 5.59, 95% CI 3.81-8.21) and vaginal sex with a condom (heterosexual OR 7.90, 95% CI 5.19-12.03; bisexual OR 4.97, 95% CI 3.32-7.44). There was also evidence of identity discrepant SEM viewing as 20.7% of heterosexual-identified men reported viewing male same-sex behavior and 55.0% of gay-identified men reported viewing heterosexual behavior. Findings suggest the importance of assessing SEM use across media types and contexts and have implications for research to address the potential influence of SEM on sexual behavior (e.g., investigate associations between viewing condomless vaginal sex and engaging in high-risk encounters with female partners).

ObjectiveTo explore how incremental California legal changes toward the implementation of same‐sex marriage influenced self‐reported mental and physical health among adult Californians in legal same‐sex marriages and partnerships.MethodsWe analyzed California Health Interview Survey data from 2005 to 2015 to assess the relationship between self‐reported mental and physical health and legal same‐sex marital/partnership status. Physical health was measured using a single self‐report question, mental health using the six‐item Kessler distress scale. Independent variables were sexual identity and legal marital/partner status. Bivariate analyses compared mental and physical health before and after the 2008 California Supreme Court decision affirming marriages as a basic civil or human right. Multivariate analyses tested relationships between marital/partnered status, sexual identity by year after adjusting for sociodemographics.ResultsReports of poor and fair health decreased, reports of very good health increased, and psychological distress scores decreased for legally coupled gay men and lesbians but increased slightly for single lesbians and gay men. Household income increased among espoused lesbians and gay men and decreased among unmarried counterparts.ConclusionsEspoused gay and lesbian respondents were more likely to be employed and to have college educations than unmarried counterparts, perhaps a continuing influence of 2005 California legislation requiring private employers to provide health insurance benefits to employees' same‐sex partners. Our findings suggest that physical and mental health improved for lesbians and gay men once same‐sex marriage became legal throughout California.ImplicationsThese findings demonstrate a need for survey questions to elicit information about marital status and the sex/gender of a respondent's spouse inclusive of sexual and gender identities.

It has long been established that social conditions are reflected in the way identities and practices are encoded, resulting in a plethora of distinct and describable linguistic features (Gumperz, 1982; LePage and Tabouret-Keller, 1985; Mühlhäusler and Harre, 1990; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992, 1999; Hall and Bucholtz, 1995). As a critical component of gay male interaction, linguistic practices are particularly revealing about the changing nature of homosexual subcultures and the relationship between language and sexuality. One way of introducing the differences between the social identities and activities through which male sexual relations and identities have been constituted is to review the changes in the vernacular terms used by gay men to refer to themselves and to their experiences, as well as to reconstruct how gay men have used different linguistic tactics to negotiate their position in society (cf. Leap, 1996; Harvey, 1997). This is precisely the aim of this chapter. The key research question I will be addressing is 'how do a sample of British and American gay men negotiate and construct their sexual identities through their knowledge and use of gay slang?' While I do not intend to provide a comprehensive account of the use of slang by gay men, it is hoped that the research presented in this chapter will give some preliminary insights into how British and American gay men use slang as a means of ordering their experiences and constructing their sexual identities.

The authors examined associations between psychosocial variables (coping self-efficacy, social support, and cognitive depression) and subjective health status among a large national sample (N = 3,670) of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive persons with different sexual identities. After controlling for ethnicity, heterosexual men reported fewer symptoms than did either bisexual or gay men and heterosexual women reported fewer symptoms than did bisexual women. Heterosexual and bisexual women reported greater symptom intrusiveness than did heterosexual or gay men. Coping self-efficacy and cognitive depression independently explained symptom reports and symptom intrusiveness for heterosexual, gay, and bisexual men. Coping self-efficacy and cognitive depression explained symptom intrusiveness among heterosexual women. Cognitive depression significantly contributed to the number of symptom reports for heterosexual and bisexual women and to symptom intrusiveness for lesbian and bisexual women. Individuals likely experience HIV differently on the basis of sociocultural realities associated with sexual identity. Further, symptom intrusiveness may be a more sensitive measure of subjective health status for these groups.