National Gay Research Articles

Making Men in Gay Fraternities

This article examines gay men’s efforts to break into the exclusive traditional fraternity institution by adopting the hegemonic model on their own terms. The authors examined to what extent members of a national gay fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi challenged or modified the entrenched fraternity culture that was hostile to homosexuals and whether they resisted or reproduced hegemonic masculinity in their efforts to redefine the meaning of college fraternities. This research examines gay fraternities in relation to two dimensions of hegemonic masculinity. The authors explore how members of gay fraternities negotiated their stigmatized status among other men—that is, within the internal dimension of hegemonic masculinity. They explore the external dimension of hegemonic masculinity by analyzing how gay brothers, as men, related to all women (gay or straight). The authors further examine the connection between these two hegemonic dimensions and provide evidence showing how these two dimensions are coupled or disjointed.

Sexuality and gender in postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia

* About the Editors * Contributors * Foreword * Acknowledgments * Introduction. Sexuality and Gender in Times of (Aleksandar Stulhofer and Theo Sandfort) * Changing the Gender Order * Changing Social Regulation of Sexuality * Sexualities in Postcommunism * The Contributions * PART I: POSTCOMMUNIST CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY * Chapter 1. Gender Inequalities in the Nationalist, Nontransitional Context of Serbia, Emphasizing Vojvodina, During the 1990s (Tatjana Duric-Kuzmanovic) * Introduction * A Gendered Approach to Theories of Development and * General Economic and Social Conditions in Serbia During the 1990s * Gender Oppression in Serbia: From Socialism to State-Directed Nondevelopment * Current Developments and Future Trends in the Labor Market for Women During in Serbia, Emphasizing Vojvodina * Summary: Toward Affirmative Action * Chapter 2. Hierarchies of Difference: National Identity, Gay and Lesbian Rights, and the Church in Postcommunist Romania (Voichita Nachescu) * Gender and Romanian Communism * Brief History * The Actors of the Debate * The Debate * Conclusion * Chapter 3. From Sworn Virgins to Transvestite Prostitutes: Performing Gender and Sexuality in Two Films from Yugoslavia (Kevin Moss) * Chapter 4. The Spatiality of Identities and Sexualities: Is Transition a Challenging Point at All? (Biljana KaSic) * Introductory Notes: Facing the Question * Facing the Approach and Problem That Sexuality Matters * Facing and War(s): Stereotypes, Trends, and Media Signifiers of Sexualities * Facing Female Sexuality Within the Pornography of War(s) * Instead of a Conclusion: Facing Obstacles, Gaps, and Potentials Within/Crossing Transition * PART II. SEXUAL POLITICS AND SEXUAL IDENTITIES * Chapter 5. Sexual Culture and Politics in Contemporary Russia (Igor S. Kon) * Post-Soviet Sexuality * Attitudes Toward Sex Education * The Antisexual Crusade * Chapter 6. Serbian Sexual Response: Gender and Sexuality in Serbia During the 1990s (Tea Nikolic) * Excitement (The Awakening of the Nation) * Plateau (Turbo Folk) * Orgasm (Pornography) * Resolution * Chapter 7. The Sexual Status of Lesbian Women in Slovenia in the 1990s (Tatjana Greif) * Introduction * Historical Background * The Lesbian Movement in Slovenia * The Current Legal Situation Concerning Lesbian Women * Lesbians Within Education, the Health System, and the Military * The Social Situation Concerning Lesbian Women * Conclusion * Chapter 8. Sexualities in Belarus: Some Major Patterns of Sexual Behavior and Their Cultural Background (Alexei Lalo and Nikolai Schitov) * Introduction * Gender Roles and Images * Sexualities and Witch Hunts * Post-Soviet Sexual Discourses and Western Influences * Issues of Domestic Violence: The Controversial Role of Physicians * Sex-Related Prejudice and Sex Crimes: The Orthodox Church and Homophobia * Conclusion * Chapter 9. The New Visibility: Representing Sexual Minorities in the Popular Culture of Post-Soviet Russia (Brian James Baer) * PART III. THE RISE OF SEX MARKETS * Chapter 10. Supplying Women for the Sex Industry: Trafficking from the Russian Federation (Donna Hughes) * Introduction * Collapse and Criminalization of the State and Economy * Economic Inequality for Women * Regional Variation in Unemployment * Traffickers Recruiting Women for Work Abroad * Public and Private Violence

ONE national gay and lesbian archives

ONE national gay and lesbian archives

Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School ... A Very Bad Idea

Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School ... A Very Bad Idea

Where in the World Are the Lesbians?

In 2001 I became, as far as I can tell, the first person hired at a Catholic university specifically because of my work in LGBTQ studies. I am blessed, as it were, with a departmental colleague who publishes widely in postcolonial queer studies, a colleague in another department who teaches queer U.S. history every two years, and many supportive friends on the faculty. Still, I am the most public face of LGBTQ studies on campus, and if a new queer studies course is added to the curriculum, I am likely to be the one who develops it. Over the years I have come to realize that my role is not unusual, Catholic university or not. I was in a similar position at a large state university for seven years and have several friends and acquaintances across the country at a variety of institutions in similar spots. Most of us are not lucky enough to work among even a small clustering of others teaching in our field, even if we do have colleagues who assign queer theory in their courses or publish on queer topics. Of necessity this makes us chameleons, generalists. As an interdisciplinary scholar with an interdisciplinary doctorate, I feel suited to the role. Nevertheless, as an Americanist I was cautious when the coordinator of women's and gender studies asked me to develop an LGBTQ course to fulfill the university's "global" core requirement and year-long curriculum "globalization" initiative. But when I asked myself and my coordinator, "If not me, who?" the answer was, clearly, "No one." A scholar in a comparatively new field, hired as an interdisciplinary curricular innovator, I have [End Page 28] more flexibility than she, a noted Asianist working in a traditional discipline. She saw the need and opportunity for the course because of her campus experience and scholarly expertise; she asked me to develop it because of my institutional position. I would hazard a guess that no campus, especially an undergraduate university, has experts in all of the areas and disciplines with which it makes sense to pair queer studies in the curriculum. One of us would have had to stretch to develop a course in Asian LGBTQ studies; my position makes it easy for me, in fact requires it of me.1 So, rather than limiting my queer course offerings to my area of specialization (late-twentieth-century U.S. lesbian writers), rather than leaving the "global" core curriculum straight, and rather than steering my own research clear of one of the hottest things going in LGBTQ studies, I dove in. Relying on my colleague's advice when I felt out of my depth, I developed the now-regular course offering called Asian Gay and Lesbian Cultures. The primary consequence of my lack of expertise in Asian studies is my reliance on sources published in English, a limitation I share with almost all of my students. (This restriction shapes the course's focus on India, China, Japan, and their diasporas, about which there is more published in English than about the rest of queer Asia.) I quickly came up against a second daunting limitation, inherent in the available source material itself, which I have come to think of as the Woman Problem in Queer Studies. Why, I wonder, do we keep reinventing the wheel? How come every time "queer studies" looks in a new direction it seems to reproduce the same "male homosexual studies"? Like academia in general, the field that gave us Gender Trouble has gender trouble of its own. "Lesbian studies," born from a combination of the women's and gay liberation movements, was in part a reaction against a male-dominated, nascent "gay studies" in the early 1970s. Sexism drove many lesbians from gay organizations—the Gay Activist Alliance, the National Gay Task Force, the Gay Liberation Front—just as it had driven women from many Left organizations to the women...

Characteristics of Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men on the Internet Who Complete and Drop Out of an Internet-Based Sexual Behavior Survey

To identify biases and threats to validity of Internet survey data collection on HIV-related risk behaviors, we studied 1,546 Latino men who have sex with men on the Internet recruited through banner impressions on a leading national gay Internet site. The study could be completed in English or Spanish. Of those commencing, 33.6% dropped out before completing the 450-field questionnaire. None of the linguistic variables (level of use of Spanish or English) predicted dropout. However, dropouts were more likely to identify as Puerto Rican or Black, to reject the $20 compensation or offer it to a charity, to not have met men for sex on the Internet, to identify as bisexual or heterosexual, and to use Web sites or personal ads for contact and to use the Internet less at home than those who completed the study. Men in seroconcordant monogamous relationships and those who had not met a man for sex on the Internet were also more likely to drop out. These data suggest that there are no linguistic and few demographic and Internet use variables that are associated with dropout. Issues of compensation and respondent characteristics that make it likely that there will be a large number of inapplicable data fields in the questionnaire appear to be significant predictors of dropout. Although there were many data missing, the dropouts did not appear to be at greater HIV-associated risk than the completers. The fact that there appear to be few systematic demographic or Internet use biases in dropouts suggests that the completers do not represent a seriously skewed sample of those Latinos who commence the Internet survey.

Lesbian and Bisexual Women's Sexual Fantasies, Psychological Adjustment, and Close Relationship Functioning

SUMMARY This study focused on the impact of relationship functioning, relationship satisfaction, psychological adjustment, and the thematic content of sexual fantasies endorsed by lesbian and bisexual couples during masturbation and sexual relations. The sample consisted of 129 women (85 lesbian, 44 bisexual) who were part of a same-sex couple (average relationship duration of 5–10 years). Participants (94% The authors would like to acknowledge Wendy E. Stock, PhD, of Alliant International University, San Francisco Bay Campus, who provided assistance during the preliminary phases of this research endeavor. Portions of this data set have been presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Western Region Meeting as well as the American Psychological Association Convention. Euro-Americans) were recruited through advertisements placed in national gay and lesbian periodicals. Relationship functioning significantly predicted the thematic content of sexual fantasies. However, psychological adjust...

ONE national gay and lesbian archives

ONE national gay and lesbian archives

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.

One Community's Path to Greater Social Justice

SUMMARY Across the nation, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities are facing the challenge of advancing civil rights on the local and state levels. One community successfully met that challenge with the passage of the Fairness Ordinance in Lexington-Fayette County, Kentucky, in 1999. Although the opposition characterized the Fairness Alliance as a “million dollar operation out of Washington,” the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) recognized the work of the Alliance as a model of local grassroots organizing with its Creating Change Award. This case study examines that campaign and the strategies the Fairness Alliance used, including effective lobbying and coalition building between the LGBT community and business, civic, political, community, and religious leaders.

Clinical Issues in Working With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients.

This article discusses some of the key clinical issues for therapists to consider when working with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients. After a discussion of the biases that can influence psychotherapy, guidelines are given for conducting LGB-affirmative therapy that avoids these biases. Issues that therapists need to be familiar with in working with LGB clients include LGB identity development; couple relationships and parenting; LGB individuals as members of families; the unique stressors faced by individuals who are underrepresented in the LGB research literature (e.g., older LGB individuals, ethnic minorities, religious LGB individuals, bisexual individuals); and legal and workplace issues. An examination of the published literature is offered with particular emphasis given to the available empirical research. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) women and men utilize therapy at rates higher than the general population (Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Liddle, 1996; Morgan, 1992; National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation, 1988), and nearly all therapists report seeing at least one LGB client in their practices (Garnets, Hancock, Cochran, Goodchilds, & Peplau, 1991). Yet, the mental health professions have historically demonstrated heterocentric and homophobic beliefs, prejudices, and practices against LGB individuals, placing the burden of distress on the client and his or her possession of an illness (Goldfried, 2001). Indeed, some professionals continue to promote cures for homosexuality (Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002). Even when homosexuality is not viewed as pathological, mental health professionals need to consider the distress that antihomosexual bias can cause LGB individuals. Disregarding such factors may lead to erroneous and unfortunate attributions of the sources of distress in an LGB person who is seeking therapy. There is a dearth of systematic research on the unique therapy experiences of LGB individuals. Although theoretical work on the nature, etiology, and consequences of LGB identities abounds, little exists in the way of empirical studies on these issues. Thus, it comes as no surprise that when working with LGB clients, we as therapists are often inadequately equipped in our training to handle issues that are unique to LGB individuals (Phillips & Fischer, 1998). As a consequence, LGB clients have a right not only to be skeptical of our competence in handling their LGB-related issues but also to expect that we gain proficiency in handling any such issues that may arise in the therapeutic context. Although guidelines for conducting psychotherapy with LGB clients exist (American Psychological Association, 2000), there is a need for work that explicates these guidelines with the intent of making them more useful for clinicians. Important issues in the lives of LGB clients include LGB identity development, romantic relationships, family relationships, and parenting. There are a number of additional issues and considerations that are important to consider when working with certain members of this population (e.g., specific issues of concern to bisexual, ethnic minority, and older LGB individuals). The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of many of the issues we need to know about as therapists when working with LGB clients. As will be seen, some of these issues are based on clinical impressions and some on research findings. We first consider the ways that heterocentrism and homophobia affect LGB individuals and some of the potential therapeutic biases that may arise when working with LGB clients. Toward the goal of encouraging an LGB-affirmative approach to therapy, several of the specific issues confronting our LGB clients are then discussed.

Social Movement Policy Success: Decriminalizing State Sodomy Laws, 1969–1998

This study provides an event history analysis of the factors contributing to a social movement's ability to influence pubic policy. More specifically, the study presents a quantitative, historical examination of the influence of national, state, and local gay and lesbian movements on the decriminalization of state sodomy laws, an important goal of the movement, from 1969 to 1998. Drawing from political opportunity models, resource mobilization theory, and theories of cultural opportunity, the study explores the importance of political conditions, social movement characteristics, and the larger cultural context on the ability of the gay and lesbian movement to achieve its goals. The analyses demonstrate that all three factors have some influence on the likelihood of sodomy law decriminalization, but most importantly, political opportunity and movement characteristics work together to bring about success. During periods of political opportunity, the size and tactics of the lesbian and gay movement influenced the likelihood of success.

Men's use of sexual health services

Context and objectivePrevious research on users of sexual health services has focused primarily on women. However, a focus on men also is needed to address sexual ill-health. This paper uses...

Healthy Altitude: Valuing Health at the Summit

My partner of 20 years and I had been looking forward to the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Health Summit 2002. Good news about the past Boulder (Gay Men’s) Summits presented a good recommendation, and I especially appreciated the opening of the 2002 program to leadership and participation of other communities (LBTI). I registered early, and sent out word to friends and colleagues (hoping to boost participation, since the South, and particularly the rural South, is not usually well represented in such meetings, though we represent, and understand, the region that has elected the last several presidents). I was coming to the Summit to explore what this unique gathering of sexual minority communities and individuals would share about themselves and their health values. I was bringing a workshop to learn more explicitly about our diverse values for happiness and health, well-being and wholeness. I am keen on knowing my own and others’ values. Trained in the disciplines of philosophy and ethics, I have a habit, and desire, for exploring meaning and values in human affairs; working with physicians and attorneys, I am practiced in listening for standards and principles that express diverse professional values; and as a child from the South, I have, I imagine, some ‘gene’ for paying attention to stories—individual and mythic—that surround events and suggest their meaning, to ourselves and others. So, this is a brief story of the Summit from one point of view. This story is about coming to the Summit to see what values it would gather together, by gathering into one place the diversity of LGBTI and

My Roots as an Activist

ABSTRACT Caitlin Ryan describes her early activist experiences, highlighting her work coordinating the 2nd National Gay Health Conference in 1979, publishing the first national lesbian and gay health directory, organizing the National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation, and initiating and serving as co-investigator of the National Lesbian Health Care Survey. She describes the challenges of funding these and other projects, and of integrating lesbian activism into her life. An early AIDS activist, Ryan was the first director of AID Atlanta, a member of the Federation of AIDS Related Organizations, a founder of the National Association of People with AIDS, and a convener of the minority AIDS working group that became the National Minority AIDS Council. Drawing on her extensive experience, Ryan discusses the challenges facing lesbian research today. She believes that research and training infrastructure are sorely needed, particularly funding for policy and applied research to address longstanding gaps in understanding our rapidly evolving communities. Noting that our diversity and our evolving needs require more varied funding approaches that do not fit the narrow scope or “disease model” focus of government agencies, she urges lesbian activists to advocate for these issues.

Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s

Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. By Pete Daniel. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Pp. 392. Acknowledgments, introduction, illustration, index. $45.00, cloth; $19.95, paper.) Pete Daniel's Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s is a strange, compelling, and finally deeply divided book, a bizarre mix, beneath its ordered, reassuring prose, of sober scholarship, fiery critique, and nostalgic celebration. How could it be otherwise, being a book about the American South with B. B. King and Elvis Presley on the cover? Daniel's title and his introduction make his primary thesis clear enough: lost opportunities littered the southern landscape (p. 3) in the two decades after World War Two. Failed by its leaders-a timorous clergy (p. 2), indecisive white liberals (p. 2), bureaucrats (p. 39) at every level whose policies drove eleven million black and white southern farmers from the land, and craven politicians were chained to segregation and racial prejudice (pp. 1-2)-the region missed its chance for peaceful and harmonious progress. The South's best contributions, instead, came from its most despised people, the poor blacks and whites who, even as they were dispossessed from the lands and the land-based occupations of their fathers and mothers and forced into industrial jobs in southern and northern cities, carried their low culture with them and successfully impressed it on the nation's consciousness. Daniel opens his story in 1945, in the exhilarating promise of postwar peace and prosperity, and closes it with the brutal violence unleashed on black and white civil rights workers during 1964's Freedom Summer. The heart of this book is the period between, the story of how it mostly went wrong. Southern black soldiers came back from war with experience of a larger, freer world than they had previously known. Southern women had wartime work experience in jobs previously restricted to men. Gay and lesbian soldiers and workers who had never been aware of the existence of a national gay and lesbian cohort discovered friendly bars and made fast friends (p. 19). Few were prepared for a return to the region's status quo. Lost Revolutions is the first of all a story of hopes betrayed. Daniel is most authoritative discussing agricultural history, and the story he tells is a horrific one-a corpulent and obfuscating bureaucracy imposed an agribusiness approach upon a traditional labor-intensive rural order by means of government subsidies administered by local elites, land-grant university research, and corporate drumming (p. 41). His indictment of bureaucratic promotion of chemical herbicides and pesticides (and withholding of studies demonstrating health and environmental risks) is especially vivid and compelling. The bad guys greatly outnumber the good guys in this narrative, and Daniel pulls no punches. Names are named, and photographs which should have been mug shots are included. Lost Revolutions is very nearly as incisive in its discussion of civil rights issues in the 1950s, and the basic narrative is dismayingly similar to the agricultural history. Politicians, school administrators, and ministers take the place of agricultural bureaucrats, and African Americans take the place of small farmers, but once again the story is one of failure of both vision and nerve. The better sort lacked all conviction, and they left the initiative to the worst. Daniel's account centers on voter registration drives and school integration issues, and more specifically on two watersheds of the decade-the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. …

Receipt of preventive health care services by lesbians

Background: We measured receipt of age-appropriate preventive health services by lesbians and assessed whether provider and individual characteristics, including disclosure of sexual orientation, are independently associated with receipt of these services. Methods: A questionnaire was printed in a national biweekly gay, lesbian, and bisexual news magazine, and self-identified lesbians living in all U.S. states ( N =6935) responded to the survey. Main outcome variables were receipt of a Pap smear within the preceding 1 and 2 years and, for women aged ≥50, receipt of a mammogram within the past 1 and 2 years. Results: Fifty-four percent had Pap smears within 1 year and 71% within 2 years, with increasing rates among older and more educated respondents. Seventy percent of respondents aged ≥50 had a mammogram in the past year, and 83% within 2 years; rates did not vary significantly controlling for education. Sixty percent had disclosed their sexual orientation to their regular health care provider. Controlling for patient and provider characteristics, disclosure was independently associated with receipt of Pap smears, but not mammograms. Conclusions: It is important for providers to identify their lesbian patients’ unmet needs for preventive health care. Additionally, it is important for providers to provide complete and appropriate preventive health care for their lesbian patients. Further research is needed to determine why lesbians are not receiving Pap smears at the recommended rate and whether this disparity is reflective of aspects of cervical cancer screening or indicates a more general problem with access to health care including receipt of preventive services.

Differences between Internet samples and conventional samples of men who have sex with men: implications for research and HIV interventions

The Internet is becoming a new erotic oasis for obtaining sex online or in person. We reviewed the literature on cybersex and compared differences in data from samples of homosexually active men obtained on identical questionnaires from a conventional written questionnaire, distributed through the mailing and contact lists of a large national gay organization in Sweden, and through the same organization’s website and chat room. A total of 716 written questionnaires and 678 Internet questionnaires were obtained. The Internet sample was younger, more likely to live in small towns or cities, live with parents or a girlfriend, and have lower formal education. They are less likely to have previous sexual experience solely with other men (one in three of the Internet sample vs. 1 in 14 of the written sample defined themselves as bisexual) and more likely to visit erotic oases such as bathhouses, video clubs and erotic movie houses. They also visited Internet chat rooms more frequently (86% of the Internet sample vs. 50% of the written sample). One third of the Internet sample wanted the opportunity to talk with an expert about HIV compared with a quarter of the written sample. Sexual practices between the two samples were generally similar, although the Internet sample reported significantly less body contact, kissing, hugging, mutual masturbation, and more condom use for anal intercourse with steady partners. Over four times as many of the Internet samples reported sex with women in the past year as the written sample. These data indicate that Internet data collection is feasible and that this mode of data collection, despite the nonrandom and self-selected nature of both types of samples, is likely to be more significantly oriented toward the young, geographically more isolated, and more behaviorally and self-identified bisexual respondent than conventionally distributed written questionnaires.

Gay and Greek: The Identity Paradox of Gay Fraternities

Drawing on concepts from queer theory, this paper examines collective identity construction in the national gay fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi (DLP). Based on a grounded theory analysis of 42 open-ended in-depth interviews, extensive participant observation, and analysis of archival data, this paper explores how DLP members negotiated their identity as both gay and Greek. We contend that DLP's collective identity, paradoxical in nature, was a product of organizational structure, available cultural resources, and member interaction. We discuss how the processes of identity construction were colored by the organization's precarious social location with one foot placed in one of the most traditionally heterosexist cultures in straight society, the college fraternity culture, and the other placed in an oppositional gay culture. We demonstrate how an understanding of identity construction can move beyond dichotomies such as assimilation versus liberation or a completely deconstructed versus a reified notion of gay identity.

Lesbians' Sexual Activities and Efforts to Reduce Risks for Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Introduction: Little information is available regarding the specific sexual practices of lesbians, and whether these activities may carry an associated health risk. Methods: Self-identified lesbians from all U.S. states (N = 6935) responded to a questionnaire that was printed in a national biweekly gay, lesbian and bisexual news magazine. Items included sexual practices engaged in with women during the past 1 and 5 years, past history of a sexually transmitted disease (STD), number and gender of lifetime and recent sexual partners, concerns regarding STDs, and risk reduction behaviors. Results: Lesbians engaged in a variety of sexual activities with female partners including orogenital sex, use of a dildo, and anilingus. Seventeen percent reported a lifetime diagnosis of an STD. Women with a history of an STD were more likely to be concerned about STDs, to ask questions of their new female sexual partners, and to have had an HIV test. Conclusions: Lesbians participate in a variety of sexual activities with their female partners that involve the exchange of body fluids, potential exposure to blood, and genital and anal stimulation that may put them at risk for STDs.