The accounts given by ten lesbians of their sexual and relationship experiences were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The emergent themes were compared to the existing literature on lesbian sexual relationships, and psychological approaches and models of sexual and relationship practices. The rationale for conducting this study was to contribute to a growing body of lesbian and gay research by exploring the domains of lesbian sexual and relationship practices using a qualitative research design. The research aimed to address the 'normalised absence and pathological presence' of lesbians' in mainstream psychological literatures. This research was concerned with exploring how the respondents understood and described their sexual and relational practices. The findings illustrate that the accounts given were not 'problem saturated narratives' but descriptions located in the context of everyday life. While 'problem areas' were identified including issues relating to frequency of sexual activity, appraisals and attributions differed from explanations in the literature. A number of additional themes were also identified which have previously been undocumented. These included: risk perception and management of threats to the relationship; experiences of relationship breakdown; descriptions of lesbian love; strengths of the relationship; how sexual practices and psychosexual difficulties are defined and the limited language available to describe them. The findings are critically discussed in relation to existing theoretical perspectives and clinical models available to practitioners working with lesbian clients. Recommendations are made with regard to good practice with sexual minority clients, training needs of clinical psychologists, and theoretical and research development in the domain of lesbian relationships. II

No description available.

This thesis is a theoretical analysis of organisational identity, community and belonging. I use a debate concerning transgender inclusion/exclusion to exemplify the identity work of the Council members of Morton Hall, a UK based public sector LGB organisation. I draw on a range of queer, feminist and post-structural theorists in explicating the processes of dis/identification that I have observed. I elucidate the complex, and often contradictory, relationship between gender and sexuality by employing discourse/narrative analysis on the transcripts of interviews and meetings of the organisation. The reasons given by Council members for either including or excluding transgender from the organisation give insights into the identity constructions of the individuals themselves, and of the organisation as a whole. This is combined with a diverse and distinctive theoretical approach which aims to utilise contemporary queer and gender theory as well as less obvious thinkers such as Nietzsche, Durkheim, Hegel, Bataille and Deleuze and Guattari. Using these theorists I develop the argument that the transgression of normative gender codes is central to the creation of a boundary between gender and sexuality which instigates the exclusionary practice adopted by the organisation at the conclusion of the debate. Whilst the research site specifically relates to sexual and gender identity, the theoretical conclusions regarding the construction of collective identity and the formation of community are widely applicable.

This study challenges many popular views and some academic perspectives on the role of Islam and gay sexuality in personal identity construction. By investigating the lived experiences of Muslim sexual minorities, it examines the complex ways in which individuals can come to identify themselves as ‘gay’ and ‘Muslim’, how they negotiate belonging to the wider society that tends to marginalise them, and the consequences of holding these identities. It examines their experiences in two national contexts – Malaysia and Britain. Based on ethnographic research conducted between October 2012 and September 2013, this study involved participant observation and in-depth interviews with gay Muslims, supplemented by media analysis for context-setting. The study shows that in constructing their sexual and religious identities, gay Muslims adjust their responses – rebelling, conforming, innovating, retreating or merely keeping up appearances – based on how strongly anti-gay or anti-Muslim sentiments inform their immediate surroundings. As a minority within the religious majority in Malaysia, they contend with religiously-motivated, state-sanctioned moral policing. In Britain, they enjoy legal protection as sexual and religious minorities but are sometimes affected by stereotypes equating Islam with violence or extremism. In both countries, these conditions contribute to Islam becoming a primary referent in the construction of gay Muslim identities. However, gay Muslims form their own religious self-understandings through engagement with multiple social authorities, spaces and available interpretations of Islam. Islam therefore becomes a ‘cultural resource’ while the concept of ‘gay’ serves as an umbrella category in the construction of their self-identities. The outcomes of this study challenge the notions that Islam is ‘inherently’ homophobic and that there is essentially a divide between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’. Rather, it suggests that the experiences of gay Muslims illustrate the fluid and variable roles of religion and sexuality in constructions of individual and collective identity.

This thesis examines the formation of ’Bodies that Stutter’ in instances of gay male photographic, pornographic, and networked online media. It argues that these bodies can be understood through the concepts of metonymy and impersonality allied to jouissance in the work of Jacques Lacan, which is informed by earlier Freudian approaches to homosexual identity and desire. It also uses post-Lacanian and queer theory to argue that when the representational exchanges between an Imaginary other and Symbolic Other intersect they facilitate impersonal desire through how ‘Bodies that Stutter’ and the processes of Symbolic-stuttering aligned to them. The thesis draws upon close analytical readings of three contextual instances: representational practices and uses of the website dudesnude.com; pornographic output produced by Triga Films; and sexually explicit representation primarily connected to ‘selfie’s’ posted in micro-blogs on the website tumblr.com. The analysis of these examples closely engage with Lacan’s concept of jouissance alongside of the Symbolic as a way of demonstrating that personal, metaphoric, and identity based models of gay desire are formed on the basis of how metonymic and impersonal modes of identification simultaneously facilitate and operate as jouissance. This close analysis claims that impersonal desire is formed through the Symbolic Other and Imaginary other in the formation of jouissance. More specifically it argues that recent critical and cultural studies use of Lacanian analysis misrecognises the dynamics of an impersonality of male gay desire and the ways in which it Symbolically-stutters. This thesis also illustrates that the convergence of metaphoric identity in the Imaginary and its metonymic displacement in the Symbolic intersect to facilitate the emergence of this form of jouissance which also stutters. This pursuit of jouissance through the rhetoric of visual representation results in ‘Bodies that Stutter’ impersonally. Yet this impersonality is also connected to the potentials of enigmatic signification and self-shattering of the ego as ways of expressing desire. By locating gay sex, sexuality, and masculinity outside of this Imaginary ego or that which is imagined as uniquely gay it illustrates that it is the gay subjects loss of Imaginary identity that energises them as ‘Bodies that Stutter’ and informs their jouissance through processes of Symbolic-stuttering. Through these interventions and in the concluding parts of the thesis it is claimed that Symbolic-stuttering may form a way for gay male sexual desire to be articulated through an intangible form of impersonal desire. It is here that the loss of jouissance in the Symbolic is the force for sexual desire, a desire which is ultimately impersonal.

The Equality Act 2010 ended a decade of legislation addressing discrimination and social exclusion on the basis of gender or sexual difference. This was followed by the economic and social climate of ‘austerity’ under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. I bring together social policy scholars who have critically interrogated austerity and the Conservative ‘Big Society’, with geographers of sexualities who have challenged rural imaginaries of sexual and gendered oppression. Using poststructural approaches to space, sexuality, the state and society, I understand such phenomena to be fluid, porous and co-constitutive, and aim to explore public sector/community partnership work for LGBT equalities in rural and non-urban areas.

In this study I adopt a social constructionist perspective to consider how young lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGBs) construct their experiences and their sense of self as LGB within the context of broader cultural understandings of LGBs and LGB sexualities. Firstly, I discuss the literature on LGB sexualities, tracing the ways modernist and postmodernist perspectives have produced varying discursive constructions of LGB sexualities. I then describe the present study in which I interviewed eight young people (aged 15 - 25yrs), using a semi-structured interview, all of whom identified as either lesbian, gay or bisexual. The accounts produced through these interviews were analysed using a discourse analytic approach. Through this analysis two metanarratives were identified. The first constructed LGB sexualities in terms of normality and abnormality and the second in terms of similarity and difference. Having described these metanarratives and the discourses of which they are comprised, I consider their functions and effects, paying particular attention to the ways in which these discourses are played out as social practices. I also consider the ways that LGBs are variously positioned within these narratives and discuss some of the strategies which may be employed by young LGBs in order to position themselves positively within the metanarratives of normality/abnormality and similarity/difference. A key finding of this study was that the similarity/difference metanarrative appeared to afford greater flexibility and more possibilities for constructing a positive identity as LGB compared with the normal/abnormal metanarrative.

Introduction: Evidence has emerged that women who have sex with women (WSW) in South Africa face multiple vulnerabilities to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV. This health policy analysis seeks to understand why and how interventions to improve sexual health of WSW were initially proposed in the HIV & AIDS and STI Strategic Plan for South Africa 2007-2011, what was implemented and how issues were reframed in the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on HIV, STIs and TB 2012-2016. Methodology: Qualitative methods were used to analyse changes over time in policy discourse around WSW sexual health. A conceptual framework considered four factors determining political priority setting for WSW issues in NSP development processes: actor power, ideas, political context and issue characteristics. 25 semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted in South Africa in 2013 and findings were triangulated through document analysis. Results: Breakthrough in participation in policy making on HIV/AIDS in 2007 enabled the women’s sector of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) to present testimony from WSW affected by HIV. Policy content of the 2007-2011 NSP included WSW issues but no activities were implemented in the public health system. Policy actors were mandated to redevelop an evidence based NSP for 2012-2016 and discourse on key populations vulnerable to HIV, including men who have sex with men (MSM), shaped policy content. Data on HIV and STIs among WSW existed but resources to disseminate or undertake further research were limited. The SANAC LGBTI sector, created to represent community interests, became preoccupied with MSM programming. Focus on WSW was not maintained in the 2012-2016 NSP due to limited health metrics, limits on participation and growing social conservatism. Conclusion: In the future advocates must reiterate rights based arguments on the vulnerabilities of WSW and call for a revised research agenda on the epidemiology of WSW sexual health.

Homophobia and transphobia are two main modes of oppression affecting LGBT people. These interlinked forms of oppression make LGBT people feel disempowered, discriminated, and marginalized. Although there is a comprehensive body of literature exploring the impact of oppression on this part of the population, sexual orientation and gender identity are not yet highly recognised as factors of health inequalities. Respectively, health care services have been structured within a homophobic and transphobic society resulting unavoidably in important barriers and poor quality of health care for LGBT people. Internationally, there is a growing number of health studies that outline the ways homophobia and transphobia construct health inequalities for LGBT people. Being the first of its kind in Greece, this study aims at contributing to this body of knowledge by providing an opportunity to LGBT people in Greece to describe for themselves their realities in the public domain. To this end, an ethnographic approach was employed in drawing upon observations and interviews with LGBT groups and LGBT individuals, as well as with doctors, which facilitated a rich understanding of the ways that homophobia and transphobia violate LGBT health rights. The findings of this study revealed that the health inequalities of LGBT people in Greece can be founded upon Phoenix’s couplet “normalized absence, pathologised presence” (Phoenix, 1987). Invisibility in its many dimensions is undeniably interrelated with LGBT participants’ experience of (low quality) health care (services) and is a recurring issue noted in every pattern of homophobia and transphobia I discuss throughout this thesis. Within a culture of silence and invisibility, the very system of ideas that historically pathologise LGBT people, is after all fostered. These findings are of value to those who want to promote the accessibility and the quality of health care services that LGBT people deserve. My suggestion is that in order to achieve these two goals, we should on the one hand overcome the invisibility of LGBT people, and comprehend the real notion of being discriminated, on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity on the other. Unless we efficiently address such critical goals, ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ as bases of discrimination will remain abstract terms in official documents regarding health rights.

Prejudice towards gay men has almost exclusively been characterised as hostility. However, myriad other groups have been found to be targets hostile and benevolent (i.e., ambivalent) prejudice. Scholars have attempted to conceptualise ambivalent prejudice towards sexual minorities, but they are based on uncertain theoretical foundations. The aims of the current programme of research were, therefore, to develop a novel theory of ambivalent prejudice towards gay men in light of emerging literature, to further develop and nuance the nascent constructs of adversarial, repellent, romanticised, and paternalistic homoprejudice using qualitative methods, to develop a scale with which to measure the endorsement of such prejudice in the United Kingdom, and to provide evidence outlining the measure’s psychometric utility. A series of three empirical studies consisting of a focus group study on heterosexuals (n = 12) and gay men (n = 10), a large-scale survey study (n = 801), and a study of test-retest reliability (n = 131) were undertaken in order to address these aims. The qualitative findings corroborated and elaborated upon the initial theory development, suggesting that it offers a valid theoretical alternative to other theories. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and construct validation produced a multidimensional measure comprising the constructs identified in the earlier theory development and qualitative study. The proposed factor structure demonstrated good model fit and each subscale demonstrated good convergent, discriminant, and known-groups validity as well as good internal consistency and temporal stability. Altogether, these findings challenged competing theories’ accounts of attitudinal ambivalence towards gay men, offered a novel reconceptualization of these attitudes that was well-grounded in both data and theory, and produced a measurement tool with promising psychometric utility. Directions for future research such as further scale validation and behavioural studies are proposed and the implications of these findings on theory in this area is outlined.