INTERSECTIONS OF GAY AND BISEXUAL IDENTITY WITH FATNESS: BODY ESTEEM, INTERNALIZED HOMONEGATIITY, AND PROECTIVE FACTORS IN GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN by James

Title of Thesis: INTERSECTIONS OF GAY & BISEXUAL IDENTITY WITH FATNESS: BODY ESTEEM, INTERNALIZED HOMONEGATIVITY, AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS IN GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN. James Christopher Welch, Master of Education, 2016 Thesis Directed By: Professor Richard Shin, PhD, Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education This thesis examines the intersections of gay and bisexual identity with body size, or fatness. Gay and bisexual identity and fatness are marginalized social identities that seem to be incompatible (Bond, 2013). While a sense of collective identity with the gay and bisexual community has been shown to be a protective factor against internalized homonegativity in gay and bisexual men (Halpin & Allen, 2004), the degree to which this protective factor persists for fat people in an anti-fat environment like the gay and bisexual community (Wrench & Knapp, 2008) has not been explored. This intersection of identities and anti-fat culture seemed to suggest there might be a relationship between fatness and internalized homophobia. Fatness did not moderate the relationship between sense of belonging to the gay and bisexual community and internalized homonegativity, but a significant positive relationship was found between belongingness to the gay and bisexual community and body shame. INTERSECTIONS OF GAY AND BISEXUAL IDENTITY WITH FATNESS: BODY ESTEEM, INTERNALIZED HOMONEGATIITY, AND PROECTIVE FACTORS IN GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN