Sexual Minorities

Book excerpt: Explore the crucial issues facing the GLBT population in their struggle for acceptance in contemporary America! Sexual Minorities: Discrimination, Challenges, and Development in America examines the stumbling blocks that prevent gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and trangenders from living wholesome, healthy lives. This book concentrates on the effects of outside influences on the homosexual psyche from adolescence to mid-life and programs and services that need to be developed to improve quality of life. While some outside influences can make positive changes—such as Internet-based outreach to educate men in chat rooms about HIV—sexual minority groups face negativity from society in the forms of homophobia and heterosexism. Sexual Minorities uses statistics, charts, graphs, and surveys to reveal a remarkable trend correlating how contemporary American society treats sexual minorities and how it affects their psychological and psychosocial health. This book also reveals how—when internalized— this hurtful discrimination can cause self-hatred and depression. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the GLBT population, including: the history of homophobia and intolerance toward homosexuals with its basis in cultural, religious, and sociological views an in-depth survey utilizing Erikson’s psychosocial model to determine the lifespan development of seven “out” gay males who discuss their coming-out period, their roles in society, their legacies, and later-life issues the lack of federal legislation protecting GLBT employees in the workplace and recommendations for creating a sense of security for these employees a case study revealing the high incidence rate of heterosexism amongst social workers and the repercussions this could have among homosexual clientele surveys and statistics investigating the rate of abusive behavior in lesbian relationships three chapters involving specific issues of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents, such as coming out, risk and protective factors, and being homosexual in a rural environment as opposed to a city Sexual Minorities is an important tool for everyone in today’s society—from students and practitioners of social work, health care, human sexuality, psychology, and sociology, to legislators, lawyers, activists, and business owners. This book is also vital for every parent, relative, or friend of a man or woman labeled as a sexual minority.