This qualitative study explored Thinking a Lot (TAL), a culturally patterned idiom of distress through which individuals describe and make sense of psychological and somatic suffering, among Vietnamese men who have sex with men (MSM). Between June and October 2018, 197 participants completed a verbally administered standardized questionnaire containing quantitative and qualitative questions about TAL. Qualitative responses were analyzed thematically to characterize its features and content. TAL was commonly described as persistent preoccupation with unresolved, often negative thoughts; emotional and mental distress; and difficulty focusing on the present. Concerns centered on professional challenges, societal expectations, family pressures, health, and romantic relationships. Work emerged as the most salient source of TAL, particularly in the context of limited legal protections for MSM in Vietnam. Participants also described pressures related to filial piety and societal norms that complicated efforts to balance employment, caregiving, and personal identity. These findings highlight the compounded stress experienced by MSM in a predominantly heteronormative society, where structural and cultural barriers constrain educational, occupational, and social opportunities. These findings suggest that TAL could provide a culturally salient, non-stigmatizing entry point for screening psychological distress and identifying and potentially intervening in the specific stressors underlying it among Vietnamese MSM.
This research focuses on the experiences of gay intended fathers with the loss of a pregnancy via international surrogacy, with the aim of exploring a relatively under-researched experience and expanding the knowledge relevant to their needs following pregnancy loss. Twelve Israeli gay men who experienced pregnancy loss via international surrogacy were interviewed. Ricoeur-inspired interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted to explore their subjective experiences. The findings are presented in a three-stage analysis, consisting of naïve reading, structural analysis, and comprehensive understanding. In the first stage, the experiences emerged as characterized and shaped by distance. In the second stage, four themes were identified: "The Fragmented Experience of Becoming a Gay Parent"; "The Disrupted Experience of Grief"; "Ambiguity of Identity and Roles Following the Loss"; and "Emotional Mechanisms of the Present and of the Future." In the final stage, links were made to embodied grief and ambiguous loss. In the absence of a clear embodied experience, distance increased emotional and relational detachment and fragmented the parental identity. Furthermore, heteronormative norms contributed to ambiguity regarding the right to mourn. Practitioners should provide a safe space to process the surrogacy triad dynamics and clarify roles, helping gay intended fathers feel recognized and validated as parents.
This article examines how sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE) are discursively constructed in the executive orders issued during the first 100 days of the second Trump administration. Drawing on critical frame analysis and situating the findings within the intersecting literatures on anti-gender politics and authoritarian statecraft, we identify four dominant frames: 1) biological truth, ideology, and pseudo-science; 2) protection and safety; 3) equality, fairness, and meritocracy; and 4) anti-Americanism, cultural tradition, and division. We argue that these frames do not constitute discrete policy positions but form a coherent discursive architecture that delegitimises SOGIE minority rights epistemically, morally, legally, and nationally. A key finding is that the executive orders actively construct a vision of the state grounded in binary sex and heteronormativity as foundational organizing principles-a form of epistemic authoritarianism that exceeds the regulation of gender and sexuality as such. The findings contribute to comparative debates on the institutionalization of anti-gender politics through formal instruments of executive governance.
Research shows that sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals report disproportionate rates of hazardous drinking compared to heterosexual individuals. Studies have documented various reasons for these rates. These include minority stressors and one's connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. The present study uses longitudinal data collected by Generations: A Study of the Life and Health of LGB People in a Changing Society, United States, 2016-2019. We conducted a multinomial logistic regression analysis. This analysis measured how various indicators of community connectedness, minority stressors, and perceived social support influence drinking behaviors among non-transgender SGM individuals. We found that non-transgender SGM individuals who had a stronger bond with the LGBT community were less likely to engage in hazardous drinking than to abstain. However, respondents who only reported feeling a part of the community were more likely to report hazardous drinking. Further, we found that Hispanic and older respondents were less likely to report hazardous drinking, while respondents who had more than a bachelor's degree were more likely to report hazardous drinking. We noted variations in reporting hazardous drinking versus abstaining by the respondents' connection with the LGBT community and various demographic subgroups.
This study explores how queer people respond to androcentric and heteronormative representations in marketing and advertising content for outdoor brands. Using a novel qualitative research method we call "walking focus groups," this research examines barriers, gendered norms, and the role of strategic communication in reclaiming queer relationships with nature. We held five walking focus groups-semi-structured interviews with 17 participants in the desert southwest. These conversations illuminated how U.S. outdoor lifestyle brands alienate queer consumers, while at the same constructing a script about socially-acceptable LGBTQ+ lifestyles in branded content. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from queer ecology and critical approaches to strategic communications, we underscore how access to the outdoors is framed in media through lenses of access and capital rooted in whiteness, able-bodiedness, masculinity, and good health.
Arthur Greeves (1895-1966) was the world-famous Oxford scholar and author C.S. Lewis's (1898-1963) lifelong gay best friend. The article offers the first sustained reconstruction of Greeves's sexual self-understanding across six identifiable stages between 1917 and 1935. Drawing on Lewis's nearly three hundred published letters to Greeves, some of them censored but successfully restored, Greeves's three unpublished diaries, and related archival materials, the article argues that Greeves's homosexuality or same-sex attraction was not static but developed through discernible phases of disclosure, affirmation, psychoanalysis (conversion therapy), theological reframing, and attempted renunciation.
In recent years, the disclosure of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals identity has emerged as a phenomenon receiving increasing attention from researchers, due to its impact on family dynamics and the mental health outcomes of this population. This research aims to map existing knowledge regarding the experiences of parents of TGNC youth during the gender identity disclosure process, between 2018 and 2024. To conduct this research, the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews and the PRISMA guidelines were used. Five major themes emerged from this process, characterizing the experiences of families with TGNC youth during the coming out process: (1) a journey from shock to acceptance; (2) mourning a living child; (3) coping to be able to breathe again; (4) coming out and learning about and (5) outside the closet, into to the world. Similar to TGNC youth, parents tend to experience a transition marked by intense and ambivalent emotions, feelings of ambiguous loss, social pressure to maintain cisnormative standards, and significant concern for their children's safety, mental health, and future. This review broadens the understanding of the phenomenon under analysis, creating opportunities for mental health professionals, including nurses, to intervene with TGNC families.
Most non-heterosexual individuals begin their sexual orientation development under compulsory heterosexuality, eventually exploring attractions, behaviors and identities beyond these expectations. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) examines sexual orientation as a multidimensional construct that can change over time. This study examined the experiences of gay, lesbian and bisexual (LGB) Chilean adults across seven KSOG dimensions and three timepoints. The sample comprised 12 LGB participants, cisgender or non-binary, from Southern Chile, who responded to the KSOG and an accompanying interview analyzed with a mixed-methods approach. Findings showed a continuum of experiences that mostly started under compulsory heterosexuality, while participants' present experiences resembled their ideal. Bisexual participants reported distinct experiences from gay and lesbian counterparts, but all recognized changes in their sexual orientation over time. We also analyzed the KSOG's advantages and disadvantages for sexual orientation research in Latin American contexts. Despite important limitations, it can encourage nuanced discussions about sexuality in contexts that offer individuals little opportunity to reflect on their sexual orientation.
This paper explores identifying, "coming out" and "coming in" as Two Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or queer (2SLGBTQ+) during the AIDS crisis in Canada (1981-1997). We conducted 30 oral history interviews about this unique historical moment between 2022 and 2025 with participants from eight Canadian provinces. Informed by queer oral history, we approached community as multiple, and at times, contradictory. We sought interviews from racialized and rural participants, and women, to help further diversify existing archival materials. Our analysis highlights the ways interviewees described coming out and visibility not only as an ongoing, relational, and a strategically managed process, but as a form of solidarity, care, and responsibility to others during the AIDS crisis. This sense of responsbility to others, and to create more inclusive spaces and services, was pronounced for interviewees who experienced racism in LGBT spaces and Canadian society at large. Two Spirit participants described complex processes of returning to community shaped by colonial violence as well as the cultural ethic of noninterference. We found that for HIV+ interviewees, sharing they were seropositive with others was a more difficult process of disclosure, with higher stakes. Across the narratives, realizations about sexual and gender difference were closely tied to gender nonconformity. Overall, the findings underscore how community was forged through the urgent need for solidarity in the context of the AIDS crisis.
Despite the history of religious-based persecution faced by the queer community, spirituality continues to be a source of resilience for many lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB+) individuals. However, there is limited research empirically examining the psychological pathways through which spirituality can support LGB+ well-being. The present study aimed to examine whether self-compassion and psychological flexibility mediate the relationship between spirituality and positive LGB+ identity, defined as low internalized heterosexism and high authenticity, in a sample of LGB+ adults. Participants (n = 577) completed an online survey with self-report measures on spirituality, self-compassion, psychological flexibility, internalized heterosexism, and LGB+ authenticity. Results from a structural equation modeling analysis indicated that, as hypothesized, spirituality indirectly predicted positive LGB+ identity. More specifically, spirituality predicted greater self-compassion, which predicted greater psychological flexibility and subsequently lower internalized heterosexism, which in turn predicted greater LGB+ authenticity. These findings have important implications for interventions designed to support the well-being and identity development of LGB+ individuals. Self-compassion and psychological flexibility may be targeted in therapy to facilitate identity integration among spiritual LGB+ clients.
The protective effects of religiosity and spirituality against mental illness and suicidality have been widely established, but the ways these dimensions characterize racialized GBTQ men's suicidality is poorly understood. Drawing on interpretive descriptive methodology and using virtual photovoice methods, individual Zoom interviews were conducted with 32 Canadian-based racialized GBTQ men to explore the connections between their religiosity, spirituality, and suicidality. Using constant comparison analytics, three distinct yet interconnected themes were inductively derived: (a) Differentiating religiosity and spirituality, (b) seeking solace and assurance, and (c) cultivating unwavering faith. In differentiating religiosity and spirituality, participants described reimagining spirituality to waylay the impact of religious trauma while working to reconcile their sexual/gender minority identities and cope with suicidality. In seeking solace and assurance, participants entrusted their emotional pain to a higher power to ease the hopelessness and suicidality that beset them amid the absence of social supports. Lastly, by cultivating unwavering faith, participants summoned spiritual resilience as the foundation for overcoming minority stressors and promoting their mental health in the long term. These findings can guide tailored mental health promotion and suicide prevention interventions to be more responsive to racialized GBTQ men's religious and spiritual needs.
Persistent health disparities among LGBTQIAP+ populations reflect systemic inequities and access to culturally responsive care. Continuing professional education for healthcare providers is critical to address these gaps. This scoping review maps post-qualification LGBTQIAP+ training initiatives, including workplace-based and continuing education programs. A systematic search was conducted using these key words: healthcare professional, education, LGBTQIAP+, evaluation, and professional development. A PRISMA-ScR guided search of PsycINFO, EBSCO, Web of Science, and PubMed identified 24-peer-reviewed studies published from 2013 to September 2025 across healthcare settings. Interventions varied in format, duration, and content, with most relying on short-term workshops or online modules. Outcomes reported improved knowledge and self-reported preparedness; however, attitudinal change and sustained behavioral impact were inconsistently demonstrated. Evaluation approaches employed pre/post self-report measures, with limited longitudinal follow-up and patient-reported outcomes. Measures lacked consistency and psychometric rigor. Findings highlight the need for standardized curricula, the integration of LGBTQIAP+ cultural responsiveness into core professional development rather than optional training, and research to enhance practitioners' opportunities for reflective, ongoing learning. Embedding robust, evidence-based LGBTQIAP+ education into ongoing professional development has the potential to transform healthcare interactions by fostering trust, reducing discrimination, and ultimately improving the quality of life and health outcomes for LGBTQIAP+ communities.
This article considers Wicked: Part I (Jon M. Chu, 2024) and Wicked: For Good (Jon M. Chu, 2025) as a case study on the contemporary state of queerbaiting and queer-coding, arguing that the films reflect larger cultural conflicts between capital and narrative. Rather than simply asking whether the filmic relationship between the two female protagonists is queerbaiting or queer-coding, this article builds from existing scholarship to read the narrative itself, meta components of its promotion and news coverage, and audiences' affective responses to and investments in it as all reflective of a uniquely contemporary form of cruel optimism.
Emerging adulthood represents a period of life characterized by a high prevalence of mental health problems, including depressive symptoms. This is especially evident among sexual minority individuals who continue to face discrimination despite increasing societal acceptance. Attachment insecurity, which has been widely recognized as a vulnerability factor for mental health problems, may play a key role in how sexual minority individuals experience and cope with stress, particularly in relation to the internalization of negative beliefs regarding one's sexual orientation. Nevertheless, we are not aware of previous studies that have considered internalized homonegativity when investigating the connection between attachment insecurity and depressive symptoms in this group. We used structural equation modeling to explore the cross-sectional direct and indirect associations between attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) and depressive symptoms through internalized homonegativity in a sample of 536 Chilean emerging adults self-identified as gay, lesbian and bisexual. Our analyses revealed that higher attachment insecurity was associated with higher depressive symptoms directly and indirectly. Specifically, higher attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were linked to greater internalized homonegativity, and thus to higher depressive symptoms. The theoretical and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.
This study developed a substantive grounded theory explaining how middle-aged gay men in Cebu City, Philippines, construct their attitudes toward aging. Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, 12 middle-aged gay men aged 35 to 50 were recruited through purposive and theoretical sampling and participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews. Data analysis employed initial, focused, and theoretical coding, guided by constant comparative analysis. The core category, Improvising Survival Without Guarantees, emerged as the central explanatory process through which participants navigate aging outside the normative Filipino life course. Ten substantive categories were organized into three domains: Material Improvisation, Relational Improvisation, and Psychological Improvisation, with Seeing Futures in Others' Lives serving as a bridging category across all domains. Findings challenge static models of aging attitudes and demonstrate how marginalized populations exercise creative agency in constructing pathways toward security, meaning, and dignity in later life. Theoretical propositions and implications for queer aging research, Filipino psychology, and decolonial gerontology are discussed.
Childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) is a well-established developmental correlate of adult sexual orientation, yet evidence from Southern Europe remains scarce. This article examines how young gay men in Spain recall early gender-atypical preferences and embodied practices, and the social responses these elicited before the emergence of sexual desire or identity labels. Drawing on sixteen in-depth biographical interviews analyzed through an inductive thematic approach, the study explores and documents recurring forms of childhood gender nonconformity, including preference for girls as companions, avoidance of masculine-coded games such as football, bodily and vocal styles that depart from masculine norms, and interest in toys and feminized domestic activities. Participants consistently described an early awareness of being "different," accompanied by teasing, exclusion, or bullying from peers, teachers, and some family members. The findings suggest that minority stress among many gay men begins through the policing of gender expression before sexual self-recognition. The article also highlights the cultural specificity of childhood gender regulation in Spain, where expanding acceptance of homosexuality coexists with persistent norms of hegemonic masculinity. None of the participants described sustained discomfort with their male gender identity, underscoring the importance of distinguishing analytically between gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
This study explored the lived experience of British drag performers, focusing on the complex relationship between their persona and sense of self. Against the backdrop of drag's growing mainstream acceptance, this research addressed a gap in a field dominated by US accounts of cisgender male performers. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six drag performers of diverse gender identities, sexualities, and drag styles with the aim of understanding how drag personas and personal identities intersect. Analysis yielded three superordinate themes: 1) "The Paradox of Integration," which positioned the persona-self relationship on a spectrum from clear separation to deep integration; 2) "Persona as Protector," which examined the persona's function as a psychological buffer against internal vulnerabilities and external threats; and 3) "Peak Me," which captured the transcendent and motivating experience of heightened self-expression during performance. The findings suggested the persona was not merely a theatrical role but also a psychological partner, protector, and a source of profound pleasure. This study proposed a "spectrum of integration" to understand this interplay and highlighted an underexplored psychological desire of performers to return to the heightened state achieved in performance.
Mental healthcare professionals' pathologizing views of LGBT+ people can compromise adherence to deontological principles and the very effectiveness of mental health interventions. This study aimed to explore homonegative attitudes of licensed psychologists in Sicily, Italy. The study replicated a survey previously administered in other Italian regions for data collection, to promote systematic comparability and future replication studies. Descriptive and exploratory data analyses were conducted. The sample (n = 727) corresponded to 8% of psychologists registered in the region in 2021. When exploring participants' assumptions on the origin of homosexuality, a lack of knowledge on the topic of sexual diversity and its normal variations emerged. Moreover, 27% of participants partially or completely agreed that a professional should help a patient/client change their sexual orientation, despite the ban on conversion practices established by the Italian Psychologists Association. Participants describing themselves as religious and right-wing politically affiliated held higher levels of homonegative attitudes, beliefs, and opinions. Homonegative attitudes emerging from politically conservative and religious groups should be further explored to ascertain whether underlying constructs, such as authoritarianism, are determining the observed trends. These findings also evidence the need for more thoughtful training experiences that can help psychologists deconstruct negative stereotypes on sexual identities.
