An extensive review of the existing literature makes apparent that academics who study intimate partner violence focus primarily on physical violence in heterosexual relationships. Non-physical forms of abuse receive secondary attention, despite reported claims from survivors that non-physical forms of abuse are more common, more painful, and have longer lasting effects than physical forms of abuse. The dominant focus on intimate partner violence as a social problem enacted by males on their female partners results in a lack of sufficient literature or conversation pertaining to abuse that exists outside these parameters. Members of sexual minority groups are deliberately excluded from the mainstream movement to protect and support survivors of intimate partner violence. Influenced by these realizations, this research explores the dynamics of non-physical forms of intimate partner violence in lesbian relationships; particularly the ways survivors frame the abuse and their experiences with seeking help.

The majority of discussions of gay and lesbian experiences in the United States associate gay culture with urban areas. However, there is still a significant population of LGBT people living in the rural United States (Baumle et al 2009). Many of these individuals identify with rural spaces and seek to maintain “country” identities. As with rural spaces, there is an assumption that Christian identities directly conflict with those of non-heterosexual identities. This study examines the ways in which these individuals create and negotiate stereotypically conflicting identities regarding their sexuality, their rural identities and their religious identities. The goal of this project is to add to currently sparse literature on rural gay Christians and give an accurate portrayal of gay Christians in rural areas. I found that the sensationalized stereotypes of what it means to be a gay Christian in the country are often far cries from the actual experiences.

The purpose of this study was to explore the concerns of parents upon learning about their children’s gay or lesbian sexual orientation from the conceptual framework of attachment theory. Personal and contextual factors such as parents’ attachment anxiety and avoidance, parent and child gender, length of time since disclosure, and parents’ prior interpersonal contact with gay and lesbian person(s) were examined to see how they influence parents’ concerns. Members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) support groups were electronically surveyed using the Experiences in Close Relationships - Short Form (ECR-S; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt & Vogel, 2007) and the Concerns of Parents of Lesbians (COPLAG; Conley, 2011b). A total of 296 parents met the criteria to be considered participants. The results of this study indicated that parental concerns are correlated with attachment anxiety, but not attachment avoidance. There were significant differences in concern levels between parents who reported high levels of interpersonal contact with gay or lesbian people and those who reported low levels. Parents’ concerns were significantly higher for gay sons than for lesbian daughters. Amount of time since disclosure was not found to be a significant factor in parental concerns; however, attachment anxiety and amount of time since disclosure were negatively correlated. Additionally, parents who were aware of their child’s sexual orientation for more than five years reported lower levels of attachment anxiety than parents who were aware of their child’s gay or lesbian sexual orientation for less than five years. Although parent gender was a variable in this study, too few fathers participated, precluding analyses using parent gender. Overall, the results indicate that parents’ concerns about having gay and lesbian children are influenced by both intrapsychic and contextual factors.

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A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) Johannesburg 1993 / This dissertation explores the relationships between fusion (operationalised as a very high level of intimacy), levels of sexual desire and the frequency of sexual activity in lesbian relationships of duration longer than one year. The viability and appropriateness of the research method is also assessed, as this is an under-researched area. Fusion is theoretically and clinically posited to be associated to be associated with low levels of desire and sexual activity for lesbian couples.The questionnaire used consists of the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships Inventory, demographic questions and measures of the frequency of sexual activity and levels of sexual desire. This last had to be discarded as invalid. Participants were found via friendship networks and the media, and questionnaires were distributed and returned postally. The sample of thirty-six women covers a broad range of ages'but is predominantly English-speaking and skewed towards higher education and salary levels. Spearman correlation coefficients were. calculated for the variables. The frequency of sexual activity does not' correlate significantly with any form of intimacy, including sexual intimacy. Sexual activity does decline in frequency with an increase in the age of the participants and their partners and with an increase in the duration of the relationship, a finding in accordance with overseas research.

For homosexuals, “coming out” or disclosing one’s sexual orientation has come to be seen as a marker of self-acceptance, actualisation and the imperative first step in the authentication of a liberated subjectivity and social identity. This popular construction of “coming out” has been supported by a range of feminist and queer theory. However, other critical schools of thought, largely informed by Foucault’s middle writings, have argued that “coming-out” is merely a confessional response to an incitement to discourse about sex. Confessions of this kind form important relays in modern forms of power. Thus while homosexual subjects may experience “coming-out” as a form of liberatory identity politics that challenges the repressive power of the heteronormative, this rite of passage may also be viewed as forming an insidious entry into nets of self and social surveillance that are characteristic of disciplinary and biopower in modern societies. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to explore constructions of coming-out by a group of self-identified lesbians in South Africa. Data was collected via eight semi-structured interviews and then subjected to a discourse analysis. While coming-out stories appear to conform to some of the discursive practices characterising confessional modes of response to incitements to speak, they are also deemphasised as central to the constitution of selfhood. The changing conditions of possibility for the production of sexual subjectivity in contemporary South Africa thus seem to disrupt understandings of coming-out as either solely a confessional or liberatory practice. Ultimately, the study holds important implications for the way that coming-out stories are understood and activated by both homosexual subjects and a sexually “liberated” society in general.

Social contagion concerns, which are defined as heterosexuals’ fears about being misidentified as gay/lesbian, can lead to avoidant and hostile responses toward gay men/lesbians. I argue that fear of becoming the target of sexual advances from gay men or lesbians, if misidentified, contributes to contagion concerns. I further hypothesized that the overperception of sexual interest from gay/lesbian individuals leads to heightened fears of sexual advances by same-sex gay/lesbian individuals if misidentified. Consistent with these predictions, in two studies fear of sexual advances was identified as a strong, independent predictor of social contagion concerns (Study 1a & 1b). An additional study (Study 2) showed people who are higher in trait contagion concerns thought their gay/lesbian interaction partner displayed more sexual interest in them, compared to those lower in trait contagion concerns. However, contagion concerns did not influence the interpretation of sexual interest from a heterosexual interaction partner. Additionally, when paired with a gay/lesbian partner high trait contagion participants were more concerned about being misidentified as gay/lesbian, more anxious about the upcoming interaction, and more interested in avoiding the interaction. Finally, perceptions of sexual interest and concerns about sexual advances mediated the indirect effect of the partner sexual orientation X contagion concerns interaction on concerns about being misidentified during the interaction. High contagion participants with a gay/lesbian interaction partner perceived more sexual interest from their partner, which was associated with increased fear of sexual advances from their partner, which then predicted increased concerns about being misidentified as gay/lesbian during the interaction. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / July 12, 2017. / Overperceptions, Prejudice/Stereotyping, Sexual Advances, Sexuality/Sexual Orientation, Social Contagion Concerns / Includes bibliographical references. / E. Ashby Plant, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kathryn Tillman, University Representative; James McNulty, Committee Member; Andrea Meltzer, Committee Member; Colleen Ganley, Committee Member.

Thesis advisor: Ruth McRoy / Thesis advisor: Summer Hawkins / Adoptive parenting contributes to the dramatic growth in lesbian and gay (LG) parenting. Research on adoptive families has mostly focused on heterosexual parent families and the limited research on LG parenting has primarily emphasized child adjustment outcomes. This three-paper dissertation utilized subsamples from a large (N=1616) and recent (2012-2013) comprehensive dataset, The Modern Adoptive Families Study, designed to compare family characteristics, experiences, and adjustment outcomes across different types of adoptive families, especially families headed by sexual minority parents. The Minority Stress model is used to frame a deeper understanding of parenting processes in heterosexual and lesbian and gay parent adoptive families. This framework takes into account the potential for families, led by sexual minority parents, to encounter discrimination and suggests processes may exist within the family to help buffer interpersonal and systemic bias. Paper 1 used logistic regression to examine the associations of adoptive parents’ satisfaction with their mental health services and their pediatrician. Pediatrician satisfaction was specifically related to the parental perception of their provider’s understanding of their minority status; based on 1) adoptive family status, 2) parental sexual orientation, and 3) transracial adoption status. Overall, 51% of the sample of parents who sought mental health services reported satisfaction. Satisfaction was positively associated with being a gay father, having a higher household income, and having a child whose race was identified as Asian. Satisfaction was negatively associated with having a child older than 11 years old. Of parents who reported on their satisfaction with pediatricians, 82% of parents reported satisfaction. Having a higher household income was positively associated with respondents’ satisfaction. Paper 2 used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to explore how findings from two racial socialization measures compared across parental sexual orientation, in transracial adoptive families. The scales measured parental endorsement of cultural competency pertaining to race and related self-efficacy enacting racial socialization practices. In Paper 3, cultural socialization theory was used to investigate parents’ endorsement of socialization related to being raised in a same-sex headed family with two newly developed scales using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Results of these studies will help to inform policy and practice by addressing critical questions impacting a growing number of adoptive families, especially those headed by sexual minority parents. Contributions to the literature include findings about parenting practices, perceptions, experiences, and relationship dynamics within lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parent families. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This thesis examines the role of historical reference in the representation of homosexuality in British literature since the late nineteenth century. The texts it examines are both literal fictions - novels, short stories and poems - and less 'imaginative' forms, such as biography, historiography and sexology: its main project is to disentangle the network of discourses facilitating and restricting representation of the homosexual past. It identifies the history of this representation as a series of moments - the turn of the century, the 1930s, the 1950s, for example - when homosexuality was redefined, and lesbian and gay traditions correspondingly reinvented. This continual reinvention was often the work of homosexuals themselves:the thesis demonstrates how historical representation has allowed lesbians and gay men to intervene in sexual debate when more obviously 'contemporary' dissident voices were being publicly silenced. Chapters I and 2 examine the invocation of historical example within the late Victorian homophile subculture, and argue that the ancient Greek practice of paiderastia provided tum-of-the-century homosexuals with an affirmative model with which to counter juridical and sexological prescription. Chapters 3 and 4 consider the extent to which Antinous and Sappho became established in the same period as homosexual icons, but were subtly reconstructed by different, sometimes competing, sexual discourses. Subsequent chapters explore the influence of literary models such as Radclyffe Hall's The Well ofLoneliness (1928) upon lesbian historical fiction and biography of the 1930s, and uncover some hitherto forgotten lesbian texts; examine the role of male homosexuality in the women's historical romance of the 1950s; and discuss the homoerotic historical fiction of lesbian authors Mary Renault and Bryher. The final chapter considers recent lesbian and gay historical fiction, and finds reflected in the genre the modem homosexual self-image with all its gender and racial tensions.

by Yuen Yun Chou. / Thesis submitted in: December 1997. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-166). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review and Theoretical Framework / Introduction --- p.5 / New Social Movements --- p.5 / Alberto Melucci's Analytical Framework of Social Movement --- p.14 / Charles Taylor's Interpretative Framework of Human Action --- p.18 / An Interpretative Framework for Social Movement Studies --- p.26 / Objectives of this Study --- p.33 / Methodology --- p.34 / Outline of the Thesis --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- The History of Hong Kong Gay Men and Lesbians / Introduction --- p.37 / Gay Men and Lesbians: Rise as A Subaltern Group --- p.37 / Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Groups --- p.46 / Terminology --- p.50 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- The Gay Self / Introduction --- p.52 / Discovering a Gay Self --- p.52 / Coming out: Living a Gay Life --- p.64 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Interpreting Predicament / Introduction --- p.69 / The Predicament: an Ideal Way of Life --- p.69 / The Predicament: the Concerns --- p.71 / Authenticity and the Perception of Predicament --- p.79 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- The Gay Selves: Entering the Gay and Lesbian Groups / Introduction --- p.81 / Making Sense of Participation --- p.81 / Locating the Process of Collective Identity --- p.98 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- In Search of Authenticity in Everyday Life / Introduction --- p.109 / The Submerged Networks in Everyday Life: the Alternative Space --- p.109 / Everyday Resistance and Accomplishment --- p.120 / The Limited Authenticity in Everyday Life --- p.131 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Conclusion / From “I´ح to “We´ح --- p.135 / The Ideal of Authenticity --- p.148 / The Issue of Identity in Social Movement --- p.151 / Limitation / Appendix / Bibliography