Gender-Bashing in Adolescents: Structural Relations with Heterosexual Matrix, Racism/Xenophobia and Attitudes Toward Bullying

Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice of sexual health among students in a Chinese medical college: a cross-sectional study

Background

Sexual health is an essential part of overall well-being, and medical students' sexual education, level of sexual knowledge, and attitudes toward sexual health will affect their sexual behavior.

Aim

To explore the correlation among medical decision tendency, sex education level, and sexual health KAP (knowledge, attitudes, and practices).

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional survey in March 2019. Data were collected via online surveys with a self-developed questionnaire covering sexual KAP and sexual education. We used Spearman correlation to assess the effect of sexual education on KAP after scoring the related questions.

Outcomes

Outcomes included descriptive analysis and correlation of medical and nursing students' KAP and education regarding sexual health.

Results

Medical and nursing students hold a high level of sexual knowledge (74.8%) and a positive attitude toward premarital sex (87.5%) and homosexuality (94.5%). By conducting the correlation analysis, we observed that medical and nursing students' tendency to support friends' homosexuality was positively correlated with the view that medical intervention for transgender or gay/lesbian people is unnecessary (P < .01). A positive correlation was also found between medical and nursing students who want more diverse sexual education and who would tend to provide patients with more humanistic care regarding their sexual needs (P < .01).

Clinical Translation

Medical and nursing students who want more diverse sexual education and who had higher scores in the sexual knowledge test tend to provide their patients with more humanistic care regarding sexual needs.

Strengths and Limitations

The research shows the current situation of medical and nursing students' sexual education experience and preference and sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Heat maps were used to more intuitively describe the correlation between medical students' characteristics and their sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors and sex education. The results may not be generalizable across China, as the participants were from 1 medical school.

Conclusion

It is essential to provide sexual education for medical and nursing students to ensure a more humanistic approach to patient care regarding sexual needs; therefore, we recommend that medical schools invest in sexual education for medical and nursing students throughout their education.

[Sexism and intimate partner violence in adolescents]

OBJECTIVE

Despite the efforts to reduce gender inequality, sexism persists. There are still few studies on this matter that consider variables such as sexual desire or migration background. The aim of this study is to analyse the social circumstances (individual and from the immediate context) associated with sexism as well as its relationship with intimate partner violence perpetration amongst adolescents.

METHOD

Cross-sectional study with 1421 students aged 13-17 from Alicante and Terrassa (2019-2021). Sexism was measured with the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, which assesses ambivalent, hostile and benevolent sexism. Generalized linear models were carried out and stratified by sex to identify variables associated with sexism. A logistic regression model was used to assess the association between sexism and intimate partner violence.

RESULTS

The likelihood of a high score in ambivalent sexism was higher in migrants (girls and boys: p<0.01) and adolescents with migrant parents (girls: p<0.01; boys: p<0.05). Non-heterosexual desire was negatively associated with sexism in girls (benevolent: p<0.01) and boys (ambivalent and hostile: p<0.01; benevolent: p<0.05). Hostile sexism showed association with intimate partner violence perpetration, independently of the rest of the adjustment variables included in the model, for both girls (odds ratio [OR]: 1.07; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.00-1.14) and boys (OR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.03-1.20).

CONCLUSIONS

Sexism is present amongst teenagers and its relationship with intimate partner violence is confirmed. Sexual desire and migration background should be taken into account for intimate partner violence prevention.

Bullying Perpetration and Homophobic Teasing: Mediation through Gender Role Attitudes

Homophobic teasing or name-calling, one form of school-related gender-based violence, refers to the use of derogatory language or actions towards sexual- or gender-nonconforming individuals. Research in the Global North has indicated that it is highly prevalent among adolescents, and is associated with a broad range of negative outcomes for both victims and perpetrators. However, such behaviors remain understudied in China. Using a cross-sectional design, the present study investigated the structural relations between homophobic teasing, bullying perpetration, and gender role attitudes among 1915 Chinese high school students. The results showed that 11.5% of the participants had perpetrated such harassment in the past month. Structural equation analyses revealed that bullying perpetration predicted more teasing involvement, and that the relationship was partially mediated by gender role attitudes among both female and male youth. The moderation effect of sex was found only for the direct effect of bullying; such that males who engaged in bullying were more likely to perpetrate homophobic teasing than females. These findings suggest the need for further examination and effective interventions and preventions for the behavior in Chinese contexts.

Teen, Queer, and Asian: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus Asian American Students' Experiences in Schools

BACKGROUND

The experiences of youth with intersecting LGBTQ+ and Asian American (AA) identities have been largely unexplored. This study explored these experiences of LGBTQ+ AA California youth with mental health, school climate, and school victimization.

METHODS

Drawing from the 2016-2017 California Healthy Kids Survey (N = 326,124), this study utilized secondary data analyses to examine mental health, school climate, and school victimization among students of specific AA ethnicities (eg, Cambodian, Hmong, Vietnamese) and LGBTQ+ identities. The participants in this study included 7th, 9th, and 11th graders from California public schools, with subsamples of lesbian or gay students (N = 13,291), bisexual students (N = 30,127), and transgender students (N = 7916).

RESULTS

The results indicated that Asian Indian, Cambodian, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, and Other Asian LGBTQ+ students experienced more negative school climate and victimization compared to their Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and white LGBTQ+ peers. For instance, 41.1% of Cambodian transgender students reported they were beaten up compared to 27.1% of white transgender students. Mental health differences between LGBTQ+ AA and LGBTQ+ white students were also found.

CONCLUSIONS

This study's findings can inform school administrators and teachers how to best support LGBTQ+ AA populations.

Preventing Violence toward Sexual and Cultural Diversity: The Role of a Queering Sex Education

BACKGROUND

The prevailing sex education (SE) model falls within a neoliberal prevention- and risk-oriented paradigm. This model ignores the identity dimension of sexuality, is based on the cis-heteronormative and ethnocentric matrix and stigmatizes sexual and cultural diversity; this has significant consequences for sexually and culturally diverse adolescents and youth. In this study, we explored the potential of the identity dimension of SE to prevent violence toward sexual and cultural diversity. Specifically, our objective was to identify the influence of heteronormative and ethnocentric variables on violence exerted against trans* and gender-diverse people and people from minority ethnic groups.

METHODS

A total of 623 Spanish adolescents with a mean age of 14.73 years and an age range of 13 to 18 years participated in the study. Students completed a questionnaire that included measures regarding violence toward sexual and cultural diversity, gender stereotypes, sexist attitudes and rejection of sexual and cultural diversity. We performed two hierarchical linear regression models.

RESULTS

Students who exerted the highest amount of violence toward trans* and gender-diverse people were those who showed the lowest endorsement of expressive traits and the highest endorsement of instrumental traits as well as the highest level of hostile sexist, heteronormative and hostile racist attitudes (the five predictor variables explained 29.1% of the variance of gender-bashing). These same variables-except expressiveness-and benevolent sexism explained 46.1% of the variance of rejection of minority ethnic groups.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a need for a comprehensive, intercultural, critical and queer SE aimed at transforming the classroom into a space that promotes social transformation through an educational practice that is transgressive and critical of cis-heteronormativity and normative ethnocentrism.