Queering Bem: Theoretical Intersections Between Sandra Bem’s Scholarship and Queer Theory

Comparing conceptions of gender, sexuality and lesbian identity between baby boomers and millennials

To answer this special issue provocation, Is Lesbian Identity Obsolete? we analyzed interviews with people who had identified at some point in their lives as lesbians, or as women/femmes who were attracted to women - some of them part of the Baby Boomer generation and some part of the Millennial generation. Participants from both generations rejected the gender binary. Nevertheless, we found a shift away from understanding gender as an oppressive category to an understanding of gender as a proliferating identity in which one may play with gender in an intentional and creative manner. It appears that participants across generations articulated their sexual identities strategically to express not only a sexual orientation but more importantly political and community alliances. For Baby Boomer lesbians, lesbian identity connoted an alliance with feminism, and for Millennials their sexual identity indicated a political alliance with queer and trans* movements. In order to sustain solidarity between lesbians of different generations, we suggest that narratives about gender should include both intrinsic and extrinsic components. We further suggest that the political project of ending the oppression of all lesbians/women who love women is fraught, but essential in a world that hates women.

Intersecting Sexual Identities, Oppressions, and Social Justice Work: Comparing LGBTQ Baby Boomers to Millennials Who Came of Age After the 1980s AIDS Epidemic

In this study we analyze 50 interviews with racially diverse, predominantly low-income, LGBTQ participants living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rooted in intersectional theory that conceptualizes identities as shaped by interlocking forms of oppression and privilege, we compared interviews with "Baby Boomers" to those with "Millennial" participants, who came into adulthood in a time of greater legal and social inclusion for LGBTQ people. Our analysis focused on three questions: How do participants understand their sexual identities? How are the identities of sexual minority participants co-constructed with intersecting forms of oppression? What motivates LGBTQ people in our sample to engage in social justice work? We found that white LGBTQ people tended to see their sexualities as primary to their identity, compared to LGBTQ Black and/or Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) who tended to see their identities in intersectional terms. Younger LGBTQ people were more likely to delink sex and gender identity; consequently, they were more likely to frame their sexual identities with terms not rooted in a gender binary (e.g., pansexual or queer). Experiences with homophobia were prevalent across generations, and intersected with racism and economic oppressions, but younger people more often described support from institutional agents. Participants' sense of community and commitment to giving back after experiences of trauma motivated them to engage in social justice work. Our findings highlight the intersectional nature of oppressions faced by LGBTQ people and the need for organizations to move away from focusing exclusively on homophobic oppression as a monolith.

Gender as a principle of the organization of clinical sleep research

In 2014 the National Institutes of Health required researchers to examine sex as a biological variable. While this approach is necessary to ensure adequate and appropriate female inclusion in research studies, it puts researchers at high risk for attributing their findings to biological sex differences when instead they may be more appropriately attributed to the influence and expectations of gender. In this paper, we specify how gender works as a principle of the social organization of symptoms, experiences, research, and clinical practice using obstructive sleep apnea symptomology to illustrate these patterns. We draw from psychologist Sandra Bem's account differentiating three specific mechanisms of gender: gender polarization, androcentrism, and biological essentialism.

"Male Hair Cannot Extend Below Plane of the Shoulder" and "No Cross Dressing": Critical Queer Analysis of High School Dress Codes in the United States

In this study, we questioned how high school dress codes outlined in official handbooks were written or presented in regard to the gender binary, either/or perspective. We critically analyzed how or if they allowed for flexibility in expression of gender and sexual identity and if they supported, encouraged, or affirmed a variety of expressions, in particular transgender and gender non-conforming expressions, throughout the text or images. The content analysis method was used to analyze 735 handbooks from the 2016 to 2017 school year. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) support of fluid gender expression, yet not overt support; (2) passive marginalization of gender non-conforming or transgender identities or expressions; and (3) active marginalization of gender non-conforming or transgender identities or expressions. The "LGBTQ+ Dress Code Analysis Tool" was developed for policy makers to use to analyze their dress codes.

I Am a Leader, I Am a Mother, I Can Do This! The Moderated Mediation of Psychological Capital, Work–Family Conflict, and Having Children on Well-Being of Women Leaders

Gender equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Management is one of the jobs that more clearly needs a gender perspective. Women leaders have found a way around the labyrinth to get to the top, which might have developed their personal resources such as psychological capital. Women leaders experience an inter-role conflict when work and family demands are mutually incompatible, affecting negatively their well-being. This study aims to analyze the mediation role that work–family and family–work conflict plays between psychological capital and well-being (engagement and burnout) when moderated by the number of children. In total, 202 Spanish women leaders participated in the study. Results of the mediated moderation model using Model 14 of the macro PROCESS for SPSS software show that psychological capital buffers the negative effects that experiencing work–family conflict has on well-being when having children. The well-being of women leaders is not affected when dealing with family interfering work conflict and having children. As such, women leaders who have children rely on their psychological capital to successfully manage the family demands affecting their work and to reduce the negative effect of work–family conflict on their well-being. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the psychology of a sustainability perspective.