What motivates individuals to pursue conversion therapy and ex-gay groups? How do they perceive its harmfulness and helpfulness? In this study, 202 consumers of sexual orientation conversion interventions were interviewed to answer these questions. The results indicated that a majority failed to change sexual orientation, and many reported that they associated harm with conversion interventions...

Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Cypriot Labour Market: Distastes or Uncertainty? Sexual orientation and employment bias is examined in Cyprus (Republic of Cyprus: Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos) by implementing an experiment for the period 2010-2011. The design is aimed at answering three main questions: Do gay and lesbian people face occupational access constraints and entry wage ...

This research examines how women's sexual orientation guides the accuracy of judgements of other women. One hundred ten judges (67 straight and 43 lesbian women) watched videotapes of 9 targets (4 straight and 5 lesbian) and made judgements about the targets' thoughts, emotions, personality, and sexual orientation. Accuracy scores were created for each judge by comparing judgements to criterion...

Although biological findings currently dominate the research literature on the determinants of sexual orientation, biological theorizing has not yet spelled out a developmental path by which any of the various biological correlates so far identified might lead to a particular sexual orientation. The Exotic-Becomes-Erotic (EBE) theory of sexual orientation (Bem, 1996) attempts to do just that, b...

Psychological research has shown the detrimental effects that overt heterosexism have on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) clients and on the psychotherapeutic relationship. However, the effects of subtle forms of discrimination, specifically sexual orientation microaggressions, have on LGBQ clients and the therapeutic relationship have not been addressed. This study used qualitative met...

BACKGROUND Lesbians have more health risks than other women but access preventive medical care less frequently. OBJECTIVE To test the influence of (i) provider inquiry about sexual orientation, (ii) perceived provider gay-positivity and (iii) patient disclosure of sexual orientation on regular health care use in a sample of Canadian lesbians. METHODS A path analysis using community survey d...

0022-1031/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. A doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.07.010 * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 617 627 3181. E-mail address: [email protected] (N.O. Rule Whereas previous work has shown that male sexual orientation can be accurately and rapidly perceived from the human face and its individual features, no study has examined the judgment of female sexual orientation. To f...

Alexithymia has been affecting the lives of people in many ways, though the affect is seen not immediately. Sometimes, it happens so subtly that other reasons with loud appearance are the only ones to be addressed, leaving behind the unfinished business keeping the question still unanswered or vice versa. Sexual Orientation, on the other hand, had been constantly gaining attention from various ...

Perceivers can accurately judge a face's sexual orientation, but the perceptual mechanisms mediating this remain obscure. The authors hypothesized that stereotypes casting gays and lesbians as gender "inverts," in cultural circulation for a century and a half, lead perceivers to use gendered facial cues to infer sexual orientation. Using computer-generated faces, Study 1 showed that as two faci...

This study examined victimisation, substance misuse, relationships, sexual activity, mental health difficulties and suicidal behaviour among adolescents with sexual orientation concerns in comparison to those without such concerns. 1112 Irish students (mean age 14 yrs) in 17 mixed-gender secondary schools completed a self-report questionnaire with standardised scales and measures of psychosocia...