A Retrospective Study of Sexual Minority Women's Gendered Sexuality: Butch and Femme Sex at the Turn of the 21st Century.

This study is a retrospective examination of how sexual minority women have experienced their sexuality. The analysis examined a national archival dataset that was collected online in the US and Canada to examine the relationship between gender and sexuality in 1084 sexual minority women in 2003, with a focus on butch and femme identities. It provided an understanding of how gender and sexuality interacted at the turn of the last century when the gender identity landscape differed from that of today. While this study collected data from butch and femme women approximately 20-years ago, the results have implications for how we develop situated understandings of the relationship between gender and sexuality. Findings indicated gendered patterns in sexual preferences and attraction that can shed light on how gender and sexuality have evolved in connection. At the same time, there were no differences in sexual satisfaction, which suggests that the enactment of gendered sexuality (in which attraction is structured by a gender dynamic) was experienced as empowering rather than oppressive. We examine our findings in relation to current scholarship on gendered sexuality to consider how sexuality is constructed and reconstructed across time. The findings support a view of gendered sexuality as a source of pleasure, affirmation, and positive embodiment. We theorize gendered sexuality as functioning to enhance experiences of authenticity and resist heteronormativity. The study holds implications for research on the interaction of gender and sexuality.

Beyond minority stress: Toward a multidimensional psychology of trans/nonbinary gender.

Although research that documents minority stress caused to LGBTQ + people supports needed advocacy, it can concomitantly cause harm to communities by portraying them as depleted and powerless. This review article assesses if and how researchers who study minority stress also center interpersonal functions of gender expression that are agentic for trans/nonbinary (TNB) people. These functions were coded in the qualitative research related to minority stress for TNB people over the last five years. Findings revealed that while most interpersonal functions of gender were described rarely, especially those associated with TNB communities of color, damage-centered perspectives were common. Damage-centered perspectives were common. We charge the field to expand its scope of inquiry, center functionalist and agency-focused research, and to develop a multidimensional psychology of gender.