<p> Gay men from conservative Christian denominations like the Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses (JW), where a non-heterosexual identity is considered ungodly, experience difficulties integrating their sexual identity into such a religious identity (Brooke, 2005). This study explored the therapeutic experiences of gay male individuals who aspired to reconcile their spiritual identities as current, or former Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses (JWs) with their concurrent non-heterosexual identities. The purpose of this research was to identify specific interventions and processes in therapy that these individuals highlight as having helped them (or hindered them) syncretize their gay sexual orientation with their spiritual beliefs and practices.</p><p> Utilizing elements of the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique (Butterfield, Borgen, Maglio, &amp; Amundson, 2005) eight gay men who are, or were, Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses and who had participated in psychotherapy were interviewed in order to identify aspects of their therapeutic experience that they found helped them in their desire to integrate their religious identities and their sexual orientation. Elements of the psychotherapy experience that participants identified as important included the establishment of a safe therapeutic environment, the therapists&rsquo; use of self-disclosure and active engagement in therapy, the therapists&rsquo; willingness to learn about Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses&rsquo; beliefs, and the importance of the therapists&rsquo; cultural competence in professional practice. The findings of the study revealed that client-therapist connection, therapeutic engagement, and the act of empowering gay JW clients were critical in facilitating the integration of competing sexual and religious identities for the participants. The best practices identified by the participants can inform the development of culture-specific training for therapists who treat JW gay men, and suggest areas for further research.</p>

<p> <b>Introduction:</b> The Home-based Management of Malaria (HMM) is a cornerstone of malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and is recommended by WHO to provide prompt access to antimalarial treatment for children in under-served areas. Although HMM has been shown to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality with chloroquine, it has not been examined previously in the era of artemisinin-based combination therapies. The objectives of this study were to determine whether HMM reduced: 1] the time from when a mother or guardian realized her child was ill to the time when the child was brought for treatment and 2] malaria morbidity in children less than 5 years of age.</p><p> <b>Methodology:</b> This cross-sectional retrospective study (2008-2014) was performed in intervention villages (receiving HMM) and control villages (not receiving HMM) to examine the effectiveness of HMM.</p><p> <b>Key Results:</b> More mothers and guardians were informed about the malaria control activities performed (98% vs. 24%) in intervention than control villages (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.001). Consistent with that result, mothers and guardians in intervention villages sought care for their sick children earlier than mothers in control villages (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.001) and were more likely to obtain treatment from community health workers (CHWs) in their home villages. In contrast, more children were referred for malaria treatment to health posts and health centers from control than intervention villages (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.001). Likewise, more children with complicated malaria were referred for treatment from control villages (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.001), although those conclusions were limited by the small numbers of complicated (severe) malaria cases.</p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> These results indicate HMM shortens the time mothers wait before taking their children to receive treatment. Because more children with uncomplicated or complicated malaria are referred for treatment from control than intervention villages, these results indicate that the availability of HMM treatment in the child&rsquo;s home village reduces morbidity (the risk of severe malarial disease). However, additional studies with larger numbers of subjects will be necessary to determine if HMM reduces mortality. </p>

<p> The older adult population in the United States is projected to more than double by the year 2050. An important subgroup of this growing population includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults. It has been estimated that there are approximately 2.4 million people in the United States identifying as LGBT, with nearly 90,000 residing in Los Angeles County. Throughout their life, many of these LGBT individuals experienced harassment, discrimination, and persecution only because of their sexual identity. As a result, many today experience social isolation, depression, and a poor quality of life in later years. Project Resilience is an in-home case management program for LGBT older adults with the goal of improving the mental health and well-being of this hidden population. The LGBTQ Center Long Beach in Long Beach, California will serve as the host agency for this proposed program. The actual submission and/or funding of this grant was not required for the successful completion of the project.</p>

<p> This study sought to examine the ways in which sexual identity development may be changing for young gay men as they grow to adulthood with the expectation that they will have the ability to choose marriage for themselves in their lifetime. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six self-identified gay men between the ages of 20 and 24 living in a large metropolitan area. </p><p> This study aimed to explore several questions. In general, how does the possibility that one may be able to marry impact an individual's imagined future and life story? How do these men envision their future relationships, and if they hope to marry, what do they imagine their marriage might be like? How do increasing legal recognition and equality impact one's self-view and the comfort with which one learns to accept and disclose one's sexual orientation? How do men with same-sex attraction who experienced adolescence while marriage equality was becoming legal throughout the United States define their sexual orientation?</p><p> The interviews revealed several themes, including others' reactions to the sexual identity of the individual, attitudes and beliefs about the "gay community", attitudes and beliefs about the role sexual identity plays in one's overall identity, attitudes and beliefs about relationship goals, awareness during childhood/adolescence about the advancement of marriage equality, attitudes about the current push toward gaining marriage equality, the anticipated impact of marriage equality on relationships, and attitudes and beliefs about the impact of marriage equality on gay culture.</p><p> Participants' relationship ideals were largely shaped by the values and attitudes of the culture in which they were raised. Their awareness that marriage equality was being fought for allowed them to believe that heteronormative relationship ideals regarding long-term, monogamous relationships for the purpose of childrearing were (or should be) available to them in a same-sex relationship. While participants were aware that non-monogamy in relationships was an available option, most participants rejected non-monogamy in favor of seeking long-term monogamous relationships with the possibility of raising children. Participants were aware of, and often internalized, stereotypes and negative judgments about gay men that are still prevalent in society, and most participants believed stereotypical characteristics or judgments were somewhat accurate depictions of the "gay community." Perhaps it was for this reason that the gay men interviewed for this study often distanced themselves from identifying with the "gay community." This suggested they felt that characteristics inherent to gay identity were not descriptive of themselves as individual people. In spite of the fact that participants did not feel they had much in common with the greater "gay community," they nonetheless adopted "gay" as the identity label that best described their sexual orientation.</p>

<p> In the last forty years, U.S. national and statewide LGBT organizations, in pursuit of &ldquo;equality&rdquo; through a limited and focused agenda, have made remarkably swift progress moving that agenda forward. However, their agenda has been frequently criticized as prioritizing the interests of White, middle-class gay men and lesbians and ignoring the needs of other LGBT people. In their shadows have emerged numerous grassroots organizations led by queer people of color, transgender people, and low-income LGBT people. These &ldquo;queer liberation&rdquo; groups have often been viewed as the left wing of the GRM, but have not been extensively studied. My research investigated how these grassroots liberation organizations can be understood in relation to the equality movement, and whether they actually comprise a separate movement operating alongside, but in tension with, the mainstream gay rights movement. </p><p> This research used a qualitative content analysis, grounded in black feminism&rsquo;s framework of intersectionality, queer theory, and social movement theories, to examine eight queer liberation organizations. Data streams included interviews with staff at each organization, organizational videos from each group, and the organizations&rsquo; mission statements. The study used deductive content analysis, informed by a predetermined categorization matrix drawn from social movement theories, and also featured inductive analysis to expand those categories throughout the analysis. </p><p> This study&rsquo;s findings indicate that a new social movement &ndash; distinct from the mainstream equality organizations &ndash; does exist. Using criteria informed by leading social movement theories, findings demonstrate that these organizations cannot be understood as part of the mainstream equality movement but must be considered a separate social movement. This &ldquo;queer liberation movement&rdquo; has constituents, goals, strategies, and structures that differ sharply from the mainstream equality organizations. This new movement prioritizes queer people in multiple subordinated identity categories, is concerned with rebuilding institutions and structures, rather than with achieving access to them, and is grounded more in &ldquo;liberation&rdquo; or &ldquo;justice&rdquo; frameworks than &ldquo;equality.&rdquo; This new movement does not share the equality organizations&rsquo; priorities (e.g., marriage) and, instead, pursues a different agenda, include challenging the criminal justice and immigration systems, and strengthening the social safety net. </p><p> Additionally, the study found that this new movement complicates existing social movement theory. For decades, social movement scholars have documented how the redistributive agenda of the early 20th century class-based social movements has been replaced by the demands for access and recognition put forward by the identity-based movements of the 1960s New Left. While the mainstream equality movement can clearly be characterized as an identity-based social movement, the same is not true of the groups in this study. This queer liberation movement, although centered on identity claims, has goals that are redistributive as well as recognition-based. </p><p> While the emergence of this distinct social movement is significant on its own, of equal significance is the fact that it represents a new post-structuralist model of social movement. This study presents a &ldquo;four-domain&rdquo; framework to explain how this movement exists simultaneously inside and outside of other social movements, as a bridge between them, and as its own movement. Implications for research, practice, and policy in social work and allied fields are presented.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores the Black Madonna as the archetypal center of the American cultural complex around homophobia. The dissertation is designed to: (a) present an approach to Jungian concepts informed by complexity theory and transdisciplinarity; (b) integrate the unconscious in research, by honoring the feminine archetype in theory and methodology; (c) extend analytical psychology to the collective level through an exploration of archetype and the evolution of consciousness and culture; (d) detail the American cultural complex around homophobia; and (e) engage the <i>religious function</i> through the production of a meaningful, hermeneutic exploration of consciousness and cultural transformation. </p><p> The research question guiding this dissertation is as follows: through the irruptions of the American cultural complex around homophobia, how has the dominant culture&rsquo;s unconscious, collective projection of the Black Madonna, symbolically embodied by gay men, constellated the transcendent function, supporting the emergence of an integral structure of consciousness and a partnership model of culture? </p><p> Several theoretical perspectives (Jungian and post-Jungian thought, complexity theory, Gebser&rsquo;s structures of consciousness, Eisler&rsquo;s Cultural Transformation theory, and Singer&rsquo;s theory of the cultural complex) provide an integrated framework. The research is guided by a melding of approaches and methods, including transdisciplinarity, hermeneutics, and amplification. </p><p> The dark feminine archetype has been symbolically embodied by gay men throughout the course of the American struggle for gay rights. As the dominant culture is better able to relate to gay men, it may likewise better relate to the dark feminine archetype, imagined herein as the Black Madonna. Incremental shifts in homophobic attitudes seem to emerge through this relation to the Other and are indicative of evolved consciousness. Ongoing retraction of homophobic attitudes may help to move the culture towards an integral structure of consciousness and partnership model of culture, the unfolding of the Black Madonna archetype. </p><p>

<p> This project describes the development of a software application geared towards connecting LGBTQ older adults with each other with an aim to reduce social isolation. Older adults tend to lose their connections with others throughout the aging process. LGBTQ older adults experience more challenges in creating and maintaining social relationships compared to their heterosexual peers. When social connections are lost, social isolation threatens the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of older adults. The software application was designed and revised using feedback from two expert panel focus groups of LGBTQ older adults, 50 years and older, residing in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation is an ethnography of trans identity and North American music and explores the ways musicking makes viable underrepresented forms of embodiment. The subjects of this ethnomusicological study&mdash;Jennifer Leitham, Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, Transcendence Gospel Choir, and Joe Stevens&mdash;are contemporary musicians who are trans identified. Contemplating the multiple facets of identity embodied by these individuals and groups, I consider relationships among their subjectivities, identities, bodies and behaviors, and interactions with others, and how those relationships are explored, affirmed, celebrated, judged, contested, and valued (or not) through their music and musical performances. An ethnomusicological approach allows the performances and narratives of these artists to show multiple levels and intersections of identity in relation to gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, religion, age, and disability. The dissertation draws from interviews, performances, and onsite fieldwork in and around Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area between 2009 and 2016. Ethnographic data include interviews with artists and audience members as well as live performances, rehearsals, recordings, videos, and social networks. Jennifer Leitham challenges an association of gender and sexual identity in jazz while simultaneously finding it a difficult category of music to navigate when her trans identity is foregrounded. For some of the vocalists in the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles and the Transcendence Gospel Choir of San Francisco subjectivity, identity, and embodiment are connected to ideas about voices, bodies, and behaviors and these attributes are highly variable. For example, whether singers are attempting to extend their range, grapple with the effects of androgen hormones, or both, their voices, like all singers&rsquo; voices, are in process. Joe Stevens&rsquo;s musical life presents us with particular ways in which trans subjects harness musical genre in order to perform trans identities. Genre, voice, embodiment, and transition all contribute to the ways in which masculinity and vulnerability frame Joe&rsquo;s identity, and they are juxtaposed with his female gender assignment at birth. The project ultimately concludes that sharing musical performances of trans identity requires a thinking through of bodies and behaviors, where gender identity as multiplicitous, varied, and diverse, is always in relation, contention, or collusion with socio-political and cultural forces that control those bodies and behaviors. Musicking provides a strategic arena where trans subjectivities and identities flourish.</p><p>

<p> Global self-esteem is a central component of the self, and research has consistently demonstrated its influence on relationship quality. Literature has also shown that self-evaluations of one&rsquo;s perceived social acceptability and physical attractiveness are especially important to one&rsquo;s evaluation of oneself and one&rsquo;s relationships. Internalized homonegativity and body dissatisfaction&ndash;particularly evident among gay males&ndash;share many similarities with some domains of self-esteem and have also been linked with relationship quality. However, less is known about these two variables and how they influence the relationship quality of gay men. This study examined whether global self-esteem and the variables particularly relevant to gay men, internalized homonegativity and body dissatisfaction, were associated with the relationship quality among gay men, while controlling for three relationship-related demographic variables: cohabitation status (whether the couple is living together or apart), relationship status (whether the relationship is open or closed), and number of partners. The dependency regulation model and sociometer theory provided the theoretical context for this study. A sample of 147 gay male participants were recruited through online advertisements to complete anonymous surveys assessing relationship quality, global self-esteem, internalized homonegativity, and body dissatisfaction. Three hypotheses were tested using a hierarchical linear regression model. The results demonstrated that global self-esteem, internalized homonegativity, and body dissatisfaction each significantly predicted relationship quality; however, global self-esteem was nonsignificant when examined concurrently with internalized homonegativity. The clinical implications of this study were explored, and suggestions were made for future stories to explore this topic with a more diverse population sample (e.g., drawing from different ethnic groups, greater variation in age across the lifespan, and both rural and urban communities) as well as possibly using a relatively new measure, the Gay and Lesbian Relationship Satisfaction Scale (GLRSS), which has been developed specifically for the gay and lesbian populations. </p><p>

<p> Over the course of the last 60 years, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) rights movement in the United States has become a beacon of light around the world where LGBT persons continue to face intolerance, discrimination, persecution, and death. As this qualitative phenomenological study was being written, LGBT Americans taking advantage of their legal rights to marry, still face employment discrimination, housing discrimination, adoption discrimination, immigration discrimination, and discrimination in public accommodations including a Presidential Executive Order, state, and local legislation forcing transgender people to use the restroom that reflects their assigned gender at birth. In fact, in almost three dozen states an LGBT person could exercise their legal right to get married and still legally get fired from their job, legally get kicked out of their apartment by their landlord, and get denied an adoption simply because they are LGBT without other legal protections. Each of these issues has an effect on employee recruitment, retention, and performance and an effect in terms of creating an organizational culture where all employees can thrive without fear of retaliation, retribution, or being unaffirmed in the workplace. Affirmative corporate activism in the form of company supported LGBT employee resource groups/business resource groups, LGBT serving volunteer efforts, philanthropy, and public policy advocacy efforts combined have helped to make corporate America a critical ally in the movement for LGBT legal equality. This qualitative phenomenological study examines how LGBT employee resource group/business group leaders and executive champions influence corporate activism on LGBT issues. The rise of elected conservative leadership in the United States and around the world challenges the espoused values of corporate leaders on LGBT issues. This conservative revolution challenging the gains of the LGBT movement also creates an opportunity for corporate America to develop standards, practices, and policies. Although LGBT people outside of corporate America are likely to remain far more vulnerable to an increasingly more hostile government, corporate America has a unique opportunity to develop best practices and strategies to keep employees safe, make their customers feel welcome, while testing and learning scalable corporate social responsibility solutions. </p><p>