This contributed text features articles written by experts from psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, women's studies, and law. Developmental focus provides students with a sense of continuity in understanding the life span challenges of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Range of topics includes perinatal factors in gender identity, issues in sexual childhood identity, perspectives on coming out, ethnic minorities, dating, relationships, families, and law. Lists of resources, organizations and services, as well as policy recommendations, form a valuable reference guide within the textbook.

Key Benefits: This book joins the strengths approach with an overview of social work practice with an oppressed population. A strengths approach provides a skills framework that can be used with any vulnerable or oppressed group. The book speaks directly to the reader through illustrations and boxes written by undergraduate students, as well as a wealth of case examples provided by experienced family counselors. Key Benefits: The text includes an entire chapter on sexuality (Ch. 6), two chapters on health care with the gay, lesbian, and bisexual population (Chs. 9 and 10), and sections on homophobia and prejudice (Ch. 2). The strengths approach provides a skills framework that relates to direct practice with all vulnerable people; the text also incorporates diverse racial, as well as sexual, perspectives. Market: For any level of social work practice.

This book provides an overview of current thought about the psychological issues affecting lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men.

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals-often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT-are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.

Because homoerotic relations can be found in so many cultures, Gilbert Herdt argues that we should think of these relations as part of the human condition. This new cross-cultural study of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals around the world, Same Sex, Different Cultures provides a unique perspective on maturing and living within societies, both historical and contemporary, that not only acknowledge but also incorporate same-gender desires and relations.Examining what it means to organize ?sex? in a society that lacks a category for ?sex,? or to love someone of the same gender when society does not have a ?homosexual? or ?gay/lesbian? role, Herdt provides provocative new insights in our understanding of gay and lesbians lives. Accurate in both its scientific conceptions and wealth of cultural and historical material, examples range from the ancient Greeks and feudal China and Japan to the developing countries of Africa, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand, from a New Guinea society to contemporary U.S. culture, including Native Americans. For all of these peoples, homoerotic relations emerge as part of culture?and not separate from history or society.In many of these groups, loving or engaging in sexual relations is found to be the very basis of the local cultural theory of ?human nature? and the mythological basis for the cosmos and the creation of society. The mistake of modern Western culture, Gilbert contends, is to continue the legalization of prejudice against lesbians and gays.In this light, the book addresses the issue of ?universal? versus particular practices and reveals positive role models that embrace all aspects of human sexuality. Finally, it offers knowledge of the existence of persons who have loved and have been intimate sexually and romantically with the same gender in other lands through divergent cultural practices and social roles.The most important lesson to learn from this cross-cultural and historical study of homosexuality is that there is room for many at the table of humankind.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people often face unique challenges as they grow older. It is vital that those providing them with care and support understand their needs, wishes and experiences. This book demonstrates how biographical approaches can increase understanding about the distinct perspectives of older LGBT people, enhancing inclusive care and support. Chapters explore people's expectations and fears surrounding care and service provision, the impact of discrimination, and specific issues such as HIV, dementia and end-of-life care. The importance of understanding people's whole lives in order to meet their needs is demonstrated, drawing on the examples of community projects that provide services and build networks. The voices of older LGBT people are heard throughout the book through the use of case examples and original research. This insightful book will be essential reading for all those supporting or caring for older LGBT people, as well as students and researchers in the health and social work fields.

In this important contribution to international queer studies, sixteen people, spanning generations from pre-war to newly out young activists, tell their stories.

This book recognizes that intense public battles are being waged in the U.S. over the rights of LGB people to form legally and culturally recognized families. Their families are under a kind of sociopolitical scrutiny at this historical moment that compels us all to take stock of our strategies of family-building and, more broadly, the meaning of family in the U.S. today. Through in-depth, open-ended, qualitative interviews with 61 self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual people regarding how they came to have children or remain childless/childfree,this book reveals the challenges posed by homophobia and discrimination and showcases the creative strategies, resilience, and resourcefulness of lesbians, bisexuals, and gays as they build families (with or without children) after coming out. From descriptions of how the early process of coming out affected the desire to parent or remain childfree, to stories about the impact of homophobia and discrimination on the decision-making process, to the dynamics within couples that lead to becoming parents or remaining childfree, to examining how cultural notions of the strength of biology are employed when having children, to accounts of how the closet can be used strategically when bringing children into a family, their voices form the heart of this book. In a sociopolitical context in which gay, lesbian, and bisexual people often have to struggle to access the array of rights and opportunities that are afforded to most heterosexual people without question, addressing the questions raised in this book is an urgent and necessary endeavor.

Over the last fifteen years, psychological research regarding sexual orientation has seen explosive growth. In this book, Anthony R. D'Augelli and Charlotte J. Patterson bring together top experts to offer a comprehensive overview of what we have discovered--and what we still need to learn--about lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities. Writing in clear, nontechnical language, the contributors cover a range of topics, including conceptions of sexual identity, development over the lifespan, family and other personal relationships, parenting, and bigotry and discrimination. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities Over the Lifespan is essential reading for researchers, students, social scientists, mental health practitioners, and general readers who seek the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available.

The subject of bisexuality continues to divide the lesbian and gay community. At pride marches, in films such as Go Fish, at academic conferences, the role and status of bisexuals is hotly contested. Within lesbian communities, formed to support lesbians in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, bisexual women are often perceived as a threat or as a political weakness. Bisexual women feel that they are regarded with suspicion and distrust, if not openly scorned. Drawing on her research with over 400 bisexual and lesbian women, surveying the treatment of bisexuality in the lesbian and gay press, and examining the recent growth of a self-consciously political bisexual movement, Paula Rust addresses a range of questions pertaining to the political and social relationships between lesbians and bisexual women. By tracing the roots of the controversy over bisexuality among lesbians back to the early lesbian feminist debates of the 1970s, Rust argues that those debates created the circumstances in which bisexuality became an inevitable challenge to lesbian politics. She also traces it forward, predicting the future of sexual politics.