tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/sexual-orientation-3555/articlesSexual orientation – The Conversation2023-09-11T12:33:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101822023-09-11T12:33:42Z2023-09-11T12:33:42ZAncient texts depict all kinds of people, not just straight and cis ones – this college course looks at LGBTQ sexuality and gender in Egypt, Greece and Rome<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546480/original/file-20230905-27-72ixgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C795%2C595&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting from the ancient Egyptian tomb of Niankhkhum and Khnumhotep, royal servants whom some scholars have interpreted to be lovers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/manna4u/5241629108">kairoinfo4u/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“LGBTQ Antiquity: A View from the Mediterranean”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/meams/faculty/profile.html?id=tchronop">I study Greek and Latin literature</a> and have noticed that ancient authors wrote about sex, homoerotic feelings or relations, and gender more often than we assume.</p>
<p>A few figures from ancient Mediterranean mythology are sometimes held up as LGBTQ ancestors – such as the Greek gods Apollo and Zeus, who both loved other men. But in a mythology course I taught in the fall of 2021, I found myself highlighting a number of other stories about same-sex attraction and gender variance beyond a strict male-female binary. For example, <a href="https://papyrus-stories.com/2021/06/15/ancient-same-sex-love-spells/">spells from Egypt</a> show that there were women who tried to get other women to fall in love with them. </p>
<p>Students responded with such curiosity and excitement that I decided to create a stand-alone course that would focus exclusively on these topics.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The course explores literary texts from the ancient Mediterranean – including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Roman Italy – in which authors describe relationships that can be said to fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. We read the texts in chronological order, rather than grouped by theme or identity. This allows students to encounter the texts relatively label-free, since the words U.S. society uses to talk about gender and sexuality today – like “gay” or “transgender” – do not always align with ancient understandings.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A circular, red and black image of two men in battle gear as one binds the other's wound." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vase depicts Achilles bandaging the wound of his close friend Patroclus. Art from the era sometimes depicts the pair as lovers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/achilles-hero-of-homers-epic-poem-iliad-bandaging-the-wound-news-photo/113441527?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Assaults on members of the LGBTQ community, especially trans folks, are rising in the United States: both <a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/healthcare_youth_medical_care_bans">through legal means</a> in a number of states and through <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/what-we-know-about-the-killing-of-oshae-sibley.html">physical attacks and hate crimes</a>. </p>
<p>My goal is for students to take courage and hope from knowing that same-sex relationships and gender diversity have existed in various guises for millennia. In antiquity, homosexuality was not considered an identity category the way it is today, making it hard to determine if and how <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704629">LGBTQ-like people</a> were discriminated against, but they certainly were not always met with contempt. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139600439.007">the body of Hermaphroditus</a>, a god whom Greeks sought out for help with fertility and child care issues, combined female and male characteristics.</p>
<p>I also want students to connect with the past as a way to feel rooted and validated. In this, I took a cue from <a href="https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/self/">trans activist Leslie Feinberg</a>, who wrote in the 1996 book “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Transgender-Warriors-P463.aspx">Transgender Warriors</a>,” “I couldn’t find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed.” </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>LGBTQ-like individuals have always been here, although modern conceptions of self, gender and sexuality cannot be mapped directly onto the past. </p>
<p>The identities we know today were unknown then: The concept of homosexuality as a distinct sexual orientation or distinct kind of behavior did not exist. For instance, elite men in ancient Athens <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118610657.ch7">often engaged in same-sex relationships</a> with men alongside their marriages to women. Those who were in exclusively homoerotic relationships, however, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118610657.ch8">tended to be ridiculed</a>.</p>
<p>Another critical lesson is that language matters. The words we use today are often inadequate to capture how social status or age intersected with one’s gender in the ancient Mediterranean. Take the Greek word for a woman or wife, “γῠνή.” Typically, this word refers to an upper-class woman, rather than, say, one who is enslaved or a foreigner. Norms around sexual activity depended on a person’s social status, age and gender.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A statue of the head of a woman with curly hair, whose nose is partially missing, against a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A seventh century B.C.E. marble bust of Sappho from the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sculptural-bust-of-the-greek-lyric-poetess-sappho-marble-news-photo/566415199?adppopup=true">GraphicaArtis/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Students come into the course expecting to encounter celebrated characters such as the poet Sappho, from the Greek island of Lesbos, whom lesbians have regarded <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324092315">as an ancestor</a>. </p>
<p>However, we also read less famous authors, such as Lucian of Samosata, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-second-century-roman-citizen-lucian-can-teach-us-about-diversity-and-acceptance-196726">a Syrian-born satirist</a> from the second century C.E. In <a href="https://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/motc/motc09.htm">one of his dialogues</a>, a sex worker tells her friend about an encounter she had with two other women, one of whom describes herself as “quite like a man.”</p>
<p>Not all authors are sympathetic. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Chrysostom">John Chrysostom</a>, archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century C.E., <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC160018">vilified people</a> who engaged in homoerotic acts or homosexual relationships as criminals, mentally ill, diseased or diabolic. Many of these views are still being promulgated by religious leaders today.</p>
<p>The course also explores the lives of some Byzantine saints who were seen as women before they entered a monastery or became ascetics. Yet their self-punishing practices, such as extreme fasting, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048540266.011">transformed their bodies</a>, and the surrounding communities started to see them as men. These stories, which aimed to uplift their audiences, serve as a reminder that cross-dressing and gender variance were not always seen as objectionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tina Chronopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Writing about same-sex relationships and gender beyond a strict male-female binary was more common in ancient Greece and Rome than students assume, a scholar writes.Tina Chronopoulos, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103432023-08-02T13:27:23Z2023-08-02T13:27:23ZSouth Africa’s new Marriage Bill raises many thorny issues - a balancing act is needed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539927/original/file-20230728-16043-9x88ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brides attend a mass wedding ceremony at the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, south of Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ihsaan Haffejee/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is changing its marriage law to recognise all types of intimate partnerships – irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, or religious, cultural and other beliefs. </p>
<p>The Department of Home Affairs has <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/department-home-affairs-invites-public-submit-written-comments-draft-marriage-bill-11-jul">invited public comment</a> on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/marriage-bill-draft-7-jul-2023-0000">Draft Marriage Bill 2022</a>. The bill amends some marriage laws, and prescribes what’s required for marriages to be considered valid, forms of registration, and the property consequences of marriage. As the <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/48914_7-7_HomeAffairs-4-28.pdf#page=3">preamble</a> shows, it seeks to promote liberal values of equality, nondiscrimination, human dignity and freedom of thought. </p>
<p>While it is innovative for bringing all forms of intimate partnerships under one piece of legislation, the bill raises thorny questions. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism">Liberalism</a> – or openness to different behaviour, opinions or new ideas – is a strange beast. It pushes accepted conduct to its limits.</p>
<p>For instance, if the bill truly seeks equity, why does it not recognise intimate partnerships such as cohabitation? Why does <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202307/48914gon3648.pdf#page=20">section 22(6)</a> criminalise marriage between people who are related to each other by adoption or by blood (to certain degrees)?</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JgVz0yUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researched</a> these issues, notably as a member of the Advisory Committee on Matrimonial Property of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/Salrc/ipapers/ip41-prj100E-MatrimonialPropertyLawReview-6Sep2021.pdf">South African Law Reform Commission</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-relevance-of-african-customary-law-in-modern-times-150762">Understanding the relevance of African customary law in modern times</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I believe that even though the bill promotes important constitutional values, it does not sufficiently reflect changing social and economic conditions. Specifically, it ignores polyandry – marriage of a woman to more than one man – and unmarried partnerships. This is significant because other laws recognise <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a17-061.pdf">civil unions</a>, which include formalised marriage-like partnerships of same-sex couples.</p>
<h2>The thorny issues</h2>
<p>Firstly, radical socioeconomic changes require society to reevaluate traditional assumptions about accepted forms of relationships. Due to urbanisation and the interaction of different cultures, relationships such as cohabitation and polyandry are rising. A couple could live together for reasons such as exorbitant rent, distance to workplaces, and prohibitively high bridewealth (<em>ilobolo</em>). </p>
<p>The bill doesn’t recognise such intimate partnerships, which the Constitutional Court has accorded the same legal status as formal marriages. As the court has <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/51.html">acknowledged</a>, unmarried partnerships have serious implications for finances, human dignity, property ownership and child custody.</p>
<p>Secondly, the Marriage Bill <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/48914_7-7_HomeAffairs-4-28.pdf#page=8">defines</a> <em>ilobolo</em> as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>property in cash or in kind … which a prospective husband or the head of his family undertakes to give to the head of the prospective wife’s family in consideration of a customary marriage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This implies that only (traditionally male) family heads can receive it. The definition does not anticipate a role for women, as happens among the Galole Orma people of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2744433">northeastern Kenya</a>.</p>
<p>Also, the position of family head could be disputed where the mother is divorced and raised the bride alone. As far back as 1997, the Transvaal High Court <a href="https://www.bbrief.co.za/content/uploads/2019/11/Mabena-v-Letsoalo-1998.pdf">ruled</a> that the bride’s mother could negotiate and receive <em>ilobolo</em>. The bill should therefore redefine bridewealth as “money, property, or anything of value given by the groom or his family to the bride’s family in consideration of marriage and/or to symbolise a union between the groom and bride’s families”.</p>
<p>This definition is consistent with the decreasing role of the extended family in the education or raising of the bride. Uncles and aunts should not benefit from bridewealth if they did not assist in raising the bride. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the bill is silent on the coexistence of a civil law marriage with a customary or religious marriage. For reasons like legal certainty and communal respect, <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/journals/SPECJU/2018/14.pdf">double marriage is common</a>. Previously, if a couple in a civil marriage subsequently concluded a customary or religious marriage, the state regarded the latter marriage as invalid. </p>
<p>The bill creates ambiguity because it does not stipulate the fate of a subsequent customary or religious marriage. This could affect inheritance, property and child custody because legal systems may govern these issues differently.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">South Africa's courts and lawmakers have failed the ideal of cultural diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Furthermore, the bill defines polygamous marriage as “a marriage in which a male spouse has more than one spouse at the same time”. This patriarchal definition does not promote equality. It implies that a woman should not marry more than one man. </p>
<p>Finally, the bill imposes an omnibus standard for divorce on all marriages. This standard may complicate divorce under Islamic and customary law, where the standard is relaxed. Also, <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202307/48914gon3648.pdf#page=19">section 21(1)</a> of the bill states that a marriage may be dissolved by the “continuous unconsciousness of one of the spouses,” without specifying how long a spouse must be unconscious following an injury, for example.</p>
<p>If the thorny issues in the bill are not addressed, the eventual legislation could be challenged as discriminatory. Its amendment would then drain the public purse. </p>
<h2>A balancing act</h2>
<p>Significantly, the bill emerged from the 2022 <a href="http://www.dha.gov.za/images/PDFs/White-Paper-on-Marriage-in-SA-5-May2022.pdf">White Paper on marriages and life partnerships</a>. The advisory committee that worked on the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/dpapers/dp152-prj144-SingleMarriageStatute-Jan2021.pdf">Single Marriage Statute (Project 144)</a> proposed two options for regulating life partnerships in its discussion paper.</p>
<p>These are a <a href="https://www.lssa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SALRC-discussion-paper-152-on-single-marriage-statute-plus-media-release.pdf">Protected Relationships Bill and a Recognition and Registration of Marriages and Life Partnerships Bill</a>. It appears Home Affairs did not add life partnerships to the bill because it is controversial. But legislative avoidance is unhelpful because it <a href="https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-37812021000100048">postpones inevitable problems</a>. The Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/51.html">recognises</a> the right of a woman in a life partnership to inherit or claim maintenance from her deceased partner’s estate. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-rights-african-union-watchdog-goes-back-on-its-own-word-197555">LGBTQ+ rights: African Union watchdog goes back on its own word</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ultimately, new forms of relationships demand legislative recognition. Law reform should be carefully handled to ensure that non-discriminatory cultural and religious practices <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10566/7355/Diala_law_2021.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">are respected</a>. The bill should strike a balance between preserving these practices, promoting liberal values, and recognising the evolving realities of contemporary relationships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Diala receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 136532). </span></em></p>The Marriage Bill should strike a balance between preserving non-discriminatory cultural and religious practices and promoting liberal values.Anthony Diala, Director, Centre for Legal Integration in Africa, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821152022-05-17T12:24:56Z2022-05-17T12:24:56ZIn Midwestern schools, LGBTQ teachers face discrimination, hate and their own fears<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462308/original/file-20220510-12-tsnpqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C5391%2C3564&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers and their supporters demonstrate in St. Paul, Minn., in March 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/st-paul-minnesota-march-6-2022-because-the-attacks-against-news-photo/1385208098">Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The national debate about <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-lgbtq-mean-5069804">LGBTQ</a> issues in schools has come to the Midwest. In the wake of the passage of Florida’s so-called “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/floridas-dont-say-gay-bill-actually-says-rcna19929">don’t say gay</a>” law, more than a dozen other states – including Missouri, <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/des-moines/2022/03/03/kim-reynolds-iowa-bill-trans-girls-womens-sports">Iowa</a>, Tennessee and Ohio – have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/10/1091543359/15-states-dont-say-gay-anti-transgender-bills">proposed similar legislation</a> aimed at limiting how teachers discuss topics of gender identity or sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Based on my own experience, that of my collaborator Steven Gill, and our initial research, teachers in the Midwest are having experiences similar to those <a href="https://www.glsen.org/research/2019-national-school-climate-survey">elsewhere around the country</a>. </p>
<p>We have both faced invalidating, even scary, obstacles in our journeys as out queer educators, and we have seen our queer and trans students suffer as well.</p>
<h2>Our stories</h2>
<p>For me, being a faculty sponsor for the school’s gay-straight alliance student group was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I started my career at an urban school serving a high-poverty population in Nebraska in 2001 and found that the school’s GSA membership was just a handful of students. </p>
<p>During my first year as a volunteer sponsor of the group, another teacher was invited by the official sponsor to one of our meetings and showed a video of people claiming to be “former gays.” He then pulled out a Bible and had a discussion with the students about how who they were was a sin. The official sponsor, a school counselor, smiled throughout and let him continue speaking.</p>
<p>I fought back tears of anger as I heard students say, “I know I’m going to hell, but I can’t control how I feel and I’ve tried not to be gay, but it’s impossible.” I was furious that this was allowed to happen in what was supposed to be a safe and affirming space in a public school where this type of proselytizing should not be allowed. I watched as all the confidence and self-esteem drained from the students. </p>
<p>When I became the official sponsor, I ensured that teacher would not be allowed back to speak to the group. Later, he told a lesbian teacher he was praying for her soul. Twenty-one years later, he is still at that school – in a leadership role. </p>
<p>By the time I left in 2011, students were out and proud as allies and as a part of the LGBTQ community. While I won <a href="https://leoadambiga.com/tag/national-education-associations-virginia-uribe-awards-for-creative-leadership-in-human-rights/">two national awards</a> for my work there, neither was acknowledged by my school. </p>
<p>I witnessed students being disowned when they came out while also being rejected by religious shelters. There were many suicide attempts and countless mental health crises, and grades would drop as a result of bullying and harassment by teens and adults. </p>
<p>I have always been out as a queer woman, and many students thanked me for that. But I was told that two other teachers called me a “dyke” in the staff lounge because I participated in the <a href="https://www.glsen.org/day-of-silence">Day of Silence</a> to support LGBTQ rights. Some students told me they were praying for my soul around the flagpole. A parent accused me of turning his child gay because they went home with a rainbow ribbon and he threatened to follow me home and show me “what a real man is.” The school had two visits by the infamously homophobic <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220511203230/https://www.godhatesfags.com/">Westboro Baptist Church</a>. Its members held signs across the street saying “God hates fags” and tried to distribute literature to our students as they left the school building.</p>
<p>My collaborator Steve Gill reports, “I’m a current middle and high school social studies teacher who is out as nonbinary, and queer, to my students, and my school system. When I was going through elementary, middle, and high school and college I had no out queer or nonbinary or transgender teachers, or any type of representation.</p>
<p>"This caused me feelings of isolation and loneliness, as I did not have close queer icons or representations to look up to.</p>
<p>"In adulthood, as a teacher, I firmly and confidently tell students ‘I am Coach Gill, I go by "Coach” because I am nonbinary. I am also Black and Queer.’ I choose to be out despite the discrimination I have faced, continue to face, and will face in the future. I choose to be out because <a href="https://www.grantlarsonproductions.com/blog/representation-of-lgbtq-youth-in-education-and-media">representation does matter</a>.</p>
<p>“I want the people in my community to know that LGBTQ people exist in everyday jobs, not just as famous celebrities. I have students who come out to me because I am a safe space. I know of students who have been kicked out of their homes, misgendered, and they are mocked and ridiculed for being out at home.”</p>
<h2>Our survey and what the preliminary results found</h2>
<p>Our research shows that we are not alone. Many schools in the Midwest are places where queer and trans educators cannot thrive and do their jobs without fear or hesitation. </p>
<p>We posted a preliminary survey on social media, seeking teachers in the Midwestern states of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Out of the 45 educators who responded, 12 place their identities in the broad spectrum of LGBTQ community. But just four of them are out in their schools.</p>
<p><iframe id="xNAP2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/xNAP2/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>While our initial survey data is limited to these 45 respondents, the results are not surprising given our lived experiences and <a href="https://www.glsen.org/research/2019-national-school-climate-survey">other research into schools’ treatment of LGBTQ people</a>. </p>
<p>But our experiences and those of our survey participants are being lost as lawmakers restrict what <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/10/1091543359/15-states-dont-say-gay-anti-transgender-bills">teachers can and cannot say in the classroom</a>, <a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/sports_participation_bans">how students can and cannot participate in school programs,</a> and <a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/10/school-districts-have-begun-banning-pride-flags-as-political-speech/">what symbols teachers can and cannot have in their classrooms</a>. We plan to conduct more research to better understand how schools can participate in making the future more fair and just for everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ferial Pearson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the national debate over LGBTQ rights continues, teachers in the Midwest are facing challenges similar to those facing their colleagues elsewhere in the US.Ferial Pearson, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1816792022-04-27T17:35:15Z2022-04-27T17:35:15ZCEOs are hindering LGBTQ+ equality in the workplace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460095/original/file-20220427-26-ysk2u2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C4891%2C3238&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent research has found that CEOs with significant power discourage LGBTQ+ initiatives in the workplace.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/ceos-are-hindering-lgbtq+-equality-in-the-workplace" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Global acceptance of homosexuality has risen over the past two decades to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/">72 per cent in 2019 from 51 per cent in 2002</a>. Despite this, a report from last year found that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/half-lgbtq-workers-faced-job-discrimination-report-finds-rcna1935">majority of American LGBTQ+ workers have faced job discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>This echoes <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-21-2015-1.3081675/ccdi-report-finds-workplaces-are-not-inclusive-for-lgbt-employees-1.3081723">an earlier report, published by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion in 2015</a>, that found many Canadians were uncomfortable disclosing their sexual orientation at work. Just last month, <em>The Canadian Press</em> published an article that found <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/65-per-cent-of-lgbtq-quebec-employees-experienced-harassment-survey-1.5832913">65 per cent of LGBTQ+ employees in Québec</a> have faced discrimination in the past five years.</p>
<p>There is a clear disconnect between the increased tolerance toward LGBTQ+ people in broader society compared to the experience of LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. </p>
<p>As major stakeholders <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-more-powerful-states-or-corporations-99616">with significant power</a>, corporations have the responsibility to bridge this equality gap and be leaders in making the workplace inclusive and welcoming for their LGBTQ+ employees.</p>
<h2>The LGBT Purge</h2>
<p>One of the longest, most devastating examples of workplace discrimination in Canada is known as the <a href="https://lgbtpurge.com/about-lgbt-purge/">LGBT Purge</a>. Between the 1950s and mid-1990s, the Canadian government embarked on a purge of LGBTQ+ workers from federal public service and the Canadian Armed Forces. </p>
<p>An estimated 9,000 LGBTQ+ Canadians experienced abuse and violence at the whims of the government that investigated, interrogated and traumatized them.</p>
<p>The LGBT Purge was driven by anticommunist sentiment during the Cold War. Socially stigmatized people, like members of the LGBTQ+ community, were seen as <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lgbtq-purge-in-canada">targets for blackmail by the Soviet Union for classified information</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/world/canada/canada-gay-purge-monument.html">There is no record</a> of any Canadian government employees or members of the Armed Forces turning over evidence to the Soviet Union out of fear their sexual orientation would be exposed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people in marching in a parade holding a bannar" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460089/original/file-20220427-18-we0gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Survivors of the LGBT Purge take part in the 2019 Pride Parade in Ottawa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/homosexual-offences-exunge-records-1.4422546">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized</a> for the “state-sponsored, systematic oppression and rejection” of the LGBT Purge. A <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/proactive-disclosure/supplementary-budget-b-2019-2020/supp-est-b-items/voted-appropriations/lgbt-purge.html">settlement was reached the following year</a> that included up to $110 million in compensation for survivors of the purge.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq2-apology-is-a-good-start-but-its-not-enough-88159">LGBTQ2 apology is a good start, but it’s not enough</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Purge resulted in <a href="https://humanrights.ca/news/advisory-council-created-for-major-cmhr-project-about-lgbt-purge">psychological trauma, material hardship, financial ruin, self-harm and suicide</a> among survivors. The legacy of the Purge, still felt to this day, reminds us that there is still much to be done in the fight for equality.</p>
<h2>CEO power and workplace equality</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2021.100543">recently published a research paper</a> investigating if and how chief executive officer’s (CEO) power affects corporate LGBTQ+ equality. To measure corporate LGBTQ+ equality, we used the <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporate-equality-index">Corporate Equality Index rating system</a> provided by the Human Rights Campaign. </p>
<p>We decided to study CEO power because CEOs play a key role in investing in corporate LGBTQ+ equality initiatives. They normally set the strategic directions and initiate major decisions in their companies and can influence what initiatives receive funding.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2015.40">CEOs improve sustainability</a> because they have higher job security and can focus on long-term initiatives, such as sustainability. A similar argument could be made for LGBTQ+ employee equal rights initiatives. CEOs, who are in the most secure position in their companies, have the ability and flexibility to invest in corporate LGBTQ+ equality.</p>
<h2>How power comes into play</h2>
<p>Our research found that powerful CEOs discouraged corporate LGBTQ+ equality initiatives. This could be for a number of reasons, including CEOs catering to shareholders who don’t think corporate LGBTQ+ equality initiatives should be invested in, either because it clashes with their beliefs, or they don’t think it’s a worthy investment.</p>
<p>Additionally, we found that powerful CEOs were more likely to discourage corporate LGBTQ+ equality initiatives when corporations lacked external monitoring (lower level of institutional ownership), information transparency (higher tendency to manipulate their earnings) or were headquartered in a state that had a majority religious population.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people in business clothing holding pride flags" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460092/original/file-20220427-26-un8gyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are numerous benefits for investing in LGBTQ+ initiatives in the workplace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surprisingly, CEOs did not suffer any consequences for suppressing LGBTQ+ employee equality initiatives. Instead, some enjoyed better stock market returns and higher long-term firm market values.</p>
<p>But there are greater benefits for investing in LGBTQ+ initiatives. They aren’t just the morally correct thing to do, but can also be good for companies in the long run by improving <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.6.1244">employee morale</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2007-09571-016">productivity</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2624">firm performance and future firm valuation</a>.</p>
<h2>It’s time for change</h2>
<p>Our findings <a href="https://theconversation.com/discrimination-against-lgbtq-soldiers-doesnt-stop-just-because-a-policy-has-been-revoked-164115">reinforce previous reports</a> that we have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ensuring-equity-for-lgbtq-canadians-on-the-road-92246">a long way to go in achieving equal rights</a> for LGBTQ+ people, <a href="https://education.prideatwork.ca/">especially in the workplace</a>.</p>
<p>It is clear that corporations will not alter their course unless they are forced to or their bottom line is at stake. It is time for regulators and policymakers to enact affirmative action regulations to encourage corporations to create equitable and fair workplace environments for their LGBTQ+ employees. </p>
<p>There are a variety of ways this could be accomplished. Activist-investors could motivate their corporations to invest in corporate LGBTQ+ equality initiatives, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/lgtbq-esg-investing-sri/">like they do for environmental causes</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.securities-administrators.ca/">Canadian Securities Administrators</a>, an umbrella organization of Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators, could propose regulations that would require boards of directors to have LGBTQ+ representation, which in turn may influence more LGBTQ+ friendly policies and initiatives by corporations more broadly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Ashrafee Tanvir Hossain receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Corporations have the responsibility to make workplaces more inclusive and welcoming for LGBTQ+ employees.Ashrafee Tanvir Hossain, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657402021-08-11T20:07:37Z2021-08-11T20:07:37ZWhy New Zealand’s proposed law banning conversion practices is so unlikely to criminalise parents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415588/original/file-20210811-23-1rnyfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5463%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given all parliamentary parties have said they oppose conversion practices being performed on LGBTQ+ people, you could be forgiven for wondering why the first reading of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2021/0056/latest/whole.html#LMS487197">Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill</a> last week didn’t pass unanimously.</p>
<p>In the end, the bill passed comfortably, 87-33, but the National Party has sown doubt by voting against it due to the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/i-will-not-support-parents-being-criminalised-for-being-parents-judith-collins-on-conversion-therapy-bill/ILX7Y2XWNBIXCSROZ4JQAJ76DQ/">alleged risk</a> of criminalising parents “for trying to advise their 12-year-old child not to take puberty blockers”.</p>
<p>ACT voted for the bill to proceed to select committee but voiced <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/act-supports-conversion-therapy-ban-bill-national-holding-out-over-parental-concerns/QJGIIHIIEC6Q57K2JQGQ5RPCPI/">similar concerns</a>, and also <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20210805_051960000/mckee-nicole-rurawhe-adrian">argued</a> it would unduly restrict the ability of religious people to express and engage with their beliefs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1424558437849919493"}"></div></p>
<p>While there are some <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2021/0056/latest/LMS494268.html">other aspects</a> of the bill that might assuage these concerns, whether or not these are realistic fears ultimately comes down to the bill’s <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2021/0056/latest/LMS487215.html">definition</a> of “conversion practice”. The core of the definition is contained in section 5(1), which says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this Act, conversion practice means any practice that —</p>
<p>(a) is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; and</p>
<p>(b) is performed with the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-ban-on-conversion-therapy-has-to-include-religious-groups-160896">Why the ban on conversion therapy has to include religious groups</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The definitions are clear</h2>
<p>Right off the bat, you can see that to count as a conversion practice there must be a practice. This word by itself strongly suggests a course of conduct or action is required.</p>
<p>Moreover, it must be “directed towards an individual” — again suggesting a passive <em>failure</em> to do something (such as not seeking affirming health care for a trans child) would not be caught by the law because it is not directed at a person.</p>
<p>The practice must also be intended to change or suppress the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. </p>
<p>It is difficult to see how merely advising their child against a particular healthcare option could be seen as suppressing their gender identity or expression.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1421040563063824387"}"></div></p>
<p>Section 5 explicitly draws on Australian legislation that also supports the idea that this sort of parental reluctance would not be caught by the bill. One of these Australian laws, a 2020 amendment to Queensland’s Public Health Act, gives <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2005-048#sec.213F">examples</a> of what conversion practices include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>inducing nausea, vomiting or paralysis while showing the person same-sex images</p></li>
<li><p>using shame or coercion to give the person an aversion to same-sex attractions or to encourage gender-conforming behaviour</p></li>
<li><p>using other techniques on the person encouraging the person to believe being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex is a defect or disorder.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These are clearly ongoing courses of action directed at making a person associate pain and shame with their sexual or gender identity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-australian-christian-lobby-waging-a-culture-war-over-lgbtq-issues-127805">Why is the Australian Christian Lobby waging a culture war over LGBTQ issues?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why parents are covered</h2>
<p>It is not unreasonable to see the examples in the Queensland act – which directly influenced the drafting of New Zealand’s bill – as further evidence that family discussions about appropriate health care (even if it involves parents not immediately seeking out the health care their child wants) simply aren’t matters the bill is concerned with.</p>
<p>It is, however, appropriate that the bill covers parents who do take an active course of action to suppress or change their child’s identity. </p>
<p>The sad fact is that, in almost all cases, if a child is subjected to conversion practices it is because their parents have sent them there. A general exclusion for parents would defeat the purpose of the bill.</p>
<p>That said, section 5(2) does explicitly exclude some types of conduct from the definition of conversion practice. These include helping a person express their gender identity or transition to a different gender, facilitating a person’s coping skills or identity exploration, and providing acceptance, support or understanding of an individual.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4DGLKtYyRs4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Expressing religious beliefs is allowed</h2>
<p>There are also medical and religious exclusions. The former is written slightly oddly, but functionally means that regulated medical professions – including doctors, nurses, psychologists and psychotherapists – can provide advice and support for LGBTQ+ people within the normal ethical practice of their profession without risking being caught by the bill.</p>
<p>The professions covered by this carve-out do not include counsellors, although the Association of Counsellors <a href="https://www.nzac.org.nz/assets/Ethics/Conversion-Therapy-2020.pdf">unequivocally considers</a> conversion practices to be unethical.</p>
<p>The religious exclusion is not a general exemption for all conduct based on religious beliefs. That would defeat the purpose of the bill, because many conversion practices are indeed religious.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-talk-about-gay-reparations-and-how-they-can-rectify-past-persecutions-of-lgbtq-people-162086">It's time to talk about gay reparations and how they can rectify past persecutions of LGBTQ people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What it does do is state that merely expressing religious principles or beliefs to an individual without any intention to change or suppress their identity will not be caught by the bill. General religious discussion or preaching, even if it could be seen as homophobic, is not a conversion practice. </p>
<p>What this means is that if a priest, for example, said to an LGBTQ+ person, “It’s a sin to be gay, you’re a sinner”, this would not be caught by the bill. If, however, they added, “I can help change you, or make you put that part of yourself in a little box you never think about”, and offered “therapy” from a religious standpoint, it would be. </p>
<p>What is targeted is the <em>practice</em>, not the beliefs that motivate it. Given this explicit exclusion, ACT’s concerns about the effect on general freedom of religion seem overblown.</p>
<h2>Definitions no reason to oppose the bill</h2>
<p>The fears raised about the effect on families struggling to deal with a child’s gender identity are not borne out by the actual text of the bill. </p>
<p>On their own, awkward or emotional discussions, or a failure to actively seek out affirming health care, cannot reach the required threshold of active, deliberate conduct.</p>
<p>If even more clarity is required, perhaps the wording of the definition could be changed to “<em>actively</em> suppressing”, making it (even more) crystal clear that passive failure to act cannot be caught. That is a very minor tweak, however, and could easily be made at the select committee.</p>
<p>It is certainly no reason to vote against ending a practice that every party in parliament agrees is cruel and unnecessary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eddie Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fears that concerned parents might fall foul of a new law banning gay conversion practices are not borne out by the strict definitions in the bill before parliament.Eddie Clark, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1590232021-04-28T12:16:10Z2021-04-28T12:16:10ZFeminism’s legacy sees college women embracing more diverse sexuality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397159/original/file-20210426-15-u7y7bf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5615%2C3741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How women describe themselves, and whom they engage romantically with, is changing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/urban-female-couple-enjoy-royalty-free-image/800390692">serts/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most adults identify themselves as heterosexual, meaning they report being attracted to, and engaging in sex with, only members of the other sex. However, women ages 18 to 29 are increasingly rejecting exclusive heterosexuality and describing their sexual orientation in other ways. These changes in women’s sexuality are not mirrored by their male peers.</p>
<p>That’s the primary finding in our most recent report on nine years of surveys at the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Binghamton-Human-Sexualities-Lab-Sean-Massey">Binghamton Human Sexualities Research Lab</a>, just published in “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sexuality-in-emerging-adulthood-9780190057008">Sexuality in Emerging Adulthood</a>.” Together with our Binghamton University colleagues Richard E. Mattson, Melissa Hardesty, Ann Merriwether and Maggie M. Parker, we conclude that changes in young adults’ sexual orientation are not just as a result of increased social acceptance of LGBT people – but also are related to feminism and the women’s movement.</p>
<iframe src="https://public.tableau.com/views/ABITrend_16194527000960/Sheet1?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<h2>LGBT progress</h2>
<p>These findings align with recent polling by the Gallup Organization, which found that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx">American adults are increasingly identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or more than one of those</a>. The Gallup report attributed these changes to increasing public awareness and acceptance of people who identify as LGBT, as well as the influence of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Obergefell-v-Hodges">legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide</a>. Another potential factor was proposed federal legislation <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-passes-bill-to-ban-discrimination-based-on-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/2019/05/17/aed18a16-78a3-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html">banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity</a> or sexual orientation.</p>
<iframe src="https://public.tableau.com/views/ABIBehavior_16195521680720/Sheet1?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<p>But our study goes beyond those poll results, showing that young American adults are shifting away from heterosexuality not just in how they identify themselves when asked about their identities, but also how they describe whom they are attracted to and with whom they have sex. That indicates something more is happening than an increasing willingness to “come out” and identify as LGBT.</p>
<p>The fact that these differences are larger among women than men indicates, we believe, that feminism and the women’s movement have, in fact, begun to change female sex and gender roles.</p>
<h2>Compulsory heterosexuality</h2>
<p>In the early 1980s, lesbian feminist Adrienne Rich argued that what she called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/493756">compulsory heterosexuality</a>” was the primary cause of gender inequality. She said that because social pressures and threats of violence – as well as actual violence – force heterosexuality on women, that made women dependent on and subservient to men in all areas of life, including gender roles and sexual expression. </p>
<p>Our research indicates that one outcome of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">more than a century of feminist activism and progress</a> may be women’s increasing resistance to compulsory heterosexuality and its consequences. As a result, more women under 30 are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality than men in the same age group.</p>
<iframe src="https://public.tableau.com/views/SOITrend_16194543753150/Sheet1?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<p>In a related development, we found that women in this age group are also reporting more open attitudes toward sex than previous generations of women. They are separating sex from traditional love relationships, describing themselves as enjoying casual sex with different partners and more likely to have sex with a person before being sure the relationship would become serious or long term. These attitudes are more akin to those of their male peers.</p>
<p>The shift is more pronounced among women who are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality, and less obvious among women who report they are exclusively heterosexual.</p>
<h2>There’s much more to learn</h2>
<p>We still have a lot of questions about these trends. We wonder how they affect the ways that these young adults engage in sex and relationships. We also don’t know how women who identify themselves as not exclusively heterosexual negotiate and navigate sexual relationships with men – or whether these trends will continue as they age. </p>
<iframe src="https://public.tableau.com/views/SOICasualSex_16195524649830/Sheet1?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<p>We are also interested in why men in this age group are less likely than women to reject exclusive heterosexuality – but are more likely to report exclusive homosexuality. And we’d like to know whether, or at what point, those who are not exclusively heterosexual might come out to family and friends – and if they deal with things like anti-LGBT prejudice. </p>
<p>As human sexuality becomes increasingly diverse, it remains unclear whether the political and social landscape will affirm these changes or threaten those who are expressing that diversity. We are hopeful that the continued success of the LGBT and feminist movements will push society toward an affirming future.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women’s sexual identities and behaviors are changing in ways men’s are not.Sean G. Massey, Associate Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkMei-Hsiu Chen, Director of Statistical Consulting Services, Lecturer, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkSarah Young, BSW Program Director, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1585412021-04-20T14:35:52Z2021-04-20T14:35:52ZSouth Africa has failed to champion human rights in the world. But that’s changing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395260/original/file-20210415-19-98zopa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, first president of a democratic South Africa, wanted human rights to guide the country's foreign policy. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hamish Blair/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of democratic South Africa and its approach to human rights in the rest of the world is a tale of woe. For two-and-a-half decades, its foreign policy mostly failed to defend internationally – and quite often contradicted – the human rights principles contained in its <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/images/a108-96.pdf">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052702556.html">assessment</a> in the <em>Washington Post</em> more than a decade ago still rings true:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>South Africa remains an example of freedom while devaluing and undermining the freedom of others. It is the product of a conscience it does not display. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why has South Africa behaved this way? </p>
<p>Surprisingly, it is not the case of the country feeling compelled to make common cause with African states, many of which <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/FIW2021_World_02252021_FINAL-web-upload.pdf">have poor rights records</a>, as is often claimed. In fact, many African states weaker than South Africa are more committed to international human rights. A 2018 <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/african-states-at-the-un-human-rights-council-in-2018/">report</a> on the voting records of the 13 African members of the UN Human Rights Council ranked South African eighth on this score in terms of international commitment to human rights.</p>
<p>A more convincing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/South-Africa-and-the-UN-Human-Rights-Council-The-Fate-of-the-Liberal-Order/Jordaan/p/book/9781138609945">explanation</a> of South Africa’s actions is that it sees the world in terms of a conflict between the West and the developing world. When this ‘anti-imperialist’ struggle and human rights conflict, the latter must be sacrificed. This has resulted in a foreign policy <em>The Economist</em> described as <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/09/03/clueless-and-immoral">‘clueless and immoral’</a>.</p>
<p>While the overall picture remains bleak, the good news is that there have recently been signs that South Africa is becoming more willing to stand up for human rights. Evidence for this comes from its <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/pages/sessions.aspx">recent final year</a> of a six-year term on the UN Human Rights Council.</p>
<h2>A disappointing record</h2>
<p>In 2006, the Human Rights Council <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/502/66/PDF/N0550266.pdf?OpenElement">replaced</a> the UN Commission on Human Rights. The commission had become, according to then secretary-general of the <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/kofi-annan">United Nations Kofi Annan</a>, so dysfunctional that it was damaging <a href="https://undocs.org/A/59/2005">the reputation of the entire UN</a>. The plan was that the council would retain the commission’s good parts and shed the bad. </p>
<p>It is hard to find proof that South Africa, during its 2006 to 2010 council membership, did anything to improve the new organisation. Rather, it voted to shield the <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/4/7">rights-abusing regime</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PB_Darfur_Rice.pdf">genocidal one</a> in Sudan. It <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G09/144/09/PDF/G0914409.pdf?OpenElement">helped</a> the Sri Lankan government to evade international pressure to ensure accountability for war crimes committed during the final months of the country’s civil war. </p>
<p>South Africa tried to <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/13249393.pdf">curtail the independence</a> of the UN’s human rights investigators. It prominently attacked free speech by supporting the Islamic bloc’s demand that speech lacking in <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/sdpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/4/9">“respect for religions and beliefs”</a> be made illegal under international human rights law.</p>
<p>When South Africa <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/Group2014.aspx">returned</a> to the Human Rights Council in 2014 for a tenure that ended in 2019, it often made common cause with the authoritarian regimes in China and Russia. Perhaps most shocking was when South Africa <a href="http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/human-rights-council/regular-sessions/watch/ahrc25l.20-vote-item3-56th-meeting-25th-regular-session-human-rights-council/3403776345001">represented</a> these states in attacking a 2014 resolution on the right to peaceful protest.</p>
<p>On the council, South Africa often <a href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/ahrc32l.2rev.1-vote-item3-41st-meeting-32nd-regular-session-of-human-rights-council/5009164455001">invokes</a> its democratic constitution and history. Yet, in a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/South-Africa-and-the-UN-Human-Rights-Council-The-Fate-of-the-Liberal-Order/Jordaan/p/book/9781138609945">recent book</a> and in <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/african-states-at-the-un-human-rights-council-in-2018/">reports</a> for the South African Institute of International Affairs, I show that apart from a vote for a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/083/21/PDF/G1608321.pdf?OpenElement">2016 resolution</a> on human rights defenders and <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/27/2">two votes</a> against hostile amendments on a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/179/53/PDF/G1417953.pdf?OpenElement">2014 resolution</a> on civil society, South Africa not once, out of more than 100 such votes, voted to support human rights related to the democratic process.</p>
<h2>Rights violations in specific countries</h2>
<p>The Human Rights Council is notorious for singling out Israel. Frequent resolutions criticise Israel and support incisive investigations into its violations <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/40/23">against Palestinians</a>, its <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/40/24">settlement-building</a> in occupied Palestinian territory or its <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/S-2/1">international aggression</a>. South Africa has backed council resolutions on Israel without fail.</p>
<p>While South Africa has been willing to support hamstrung country-specific investigations, such as the African Group’s 2017 <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/36/2">resolution on Burundi</a>, it either <a href="https://www.universal-rights.org/country-voting-history-portal/country/?country=South_Africa">abstains or votes against</a> resolutions that authorise incisive investigations into the human rights problems of countries other than Israel. </p>
<h2>A welcome change</h2>
<p>In 2019, however, an improvement became detectable. South Africa, for the first time ever, supported imposing Human Rights Council investigations on countries that did not want them, Israel excluded.</p>
<p>It backed two resolutions on <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/40/29">Myanmar</a>, both of which urged criminal prosecution of alleged perpetrators of human rights <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/42/3">crimes</a>. Then, after an abstention on a similar <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/296/70/PDF/G1829670.pdf?OpenElement">resolution in 2018</a>, it supported extending an <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/42/2">investigation</a> into human rights violations related to the Yemeni Civil War.</p>
<p>South Africa’s actions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, an issue on which it has been inconsistent, offer further proof of change. In March 2011, it <a href="https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/16/L.27">tabled a resolution</a> to confine discussion of sexual orientation throughout the UN to a committee that would meet for only 10 days a year. </p>
<p>Opponents of LGBTI rights <a href="https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3336&context=soss_research">did not want to discuss </a> sexual orientation. Proponents of LGBTI rights <a href="https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3336&context=soss_research">wanted to discuss</a> worldwide violence and discrimination against LGBTI people. Isolated, <a href="https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3336&context=soss_research">South Africa withdrew </a> its draft resolution.</p>
<p>Three months later, South Africa went from skunk to saviour when it led the council to adopt the first ever <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/17/19">UN resolution</a> on sexual orientation. But the glow faded as the country, weighed down by African opposition and its own confusion, failed to lead on the issue.</p>
<p>As patience with South Africa ran out, Latin American states took over and in 2014 sponsored a new sexual orientation resolution. South Africa and others successfully <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/lgbt-rights-resolution-passes-united-nations-human-rights-co#.hyzp1aQ7R">lobbied to weaken the text</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, Latin America tabled a follow-up resolution. South Africa <a href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/ahrc32l.2rev.1-vote-item3-41st-meeting-32nd-regular-session-of-human-rights-council/5009164455001">denounced</a> the resolution’s sponsors for being arrogant, reckless, confrontational, divisive and causing acrimony. More importantly, it refused to support a resolution authorising reports on violence and discrimination against LGBTI people for the subsequent three years.</p>
<p>But in 2019, the country came in from the cold. It wholeheartedly supported Latin America’s <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/41/18">resolution</a> asking for three more years of reporting on the persecution of LGBTI persons. It <a href="https://ilga.org/downloads/RenewIESOGI_report.pdf">countered numerous attempts</a> to distort or weaken the text.</p>
<h2>Uncertain future</h2>
<p>In recent decades, South Africa has continued to find creative ways to disappoint those who share its former president Nelson Mandela’s belief that human rights should <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-africa/1993-12-01/south-africas-future-foreign-policy">be a light that guides</a> the country’s foreign affairs. </p>
<p>It is too soon to become optimistic, but some of South Africa’s recent actions on the Human Rights Council are small but significant breaks from a dismal past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eduard Jordaan has received funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa.</span></em></p>South Africa frequently invokes its celebrated constitution that is based on human rights, but has often failed to live up to its ideals.Eduard Jordaan, Associate Professor of Politics, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1317432020-02-13T22:42:13Z2020-02-13T22:42:13ZExpanding the definition of family to reflect our realities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316238/original/file-20200219-11017-e3nic0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=240%2C444%2C2785%2C1551&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A narrow definition of family can neglect the experiences of single-parent families.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The second Monday in February is Family Day in parts of Canada. <a href="https://open.alberta.ca/publications/f04">Started in Alberta in 1990</a>, four additional provinces celebrate Family Day: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick. (Other provinces have holidays reflecting their heritage.) </p>
<p>Québec is one of few jurisdictions that does not have a civic holiday in February, though <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-one-province-got-80-per-cent-of-fathers-to-take-paternity-leave-118737">the province has generous family leave policies</a>. </p>
<p>This year, to coincide with the emphasis on family, <a href="http://www.concordia.ca">Concordia University</a> and the <a href="https://vanierinstitute.ca">Vanier Institute of the Family</a> are hosting a <a href="https://vanierinstitute.ca/concordia-university-to-host-families-in-canada-satellite-event-february-20-2020/">conference</a> on families and family life on Feb. 20. The conference will explore some of the tensions and dichotomies embedded in families. For one, how do we define what family means? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C191%2C4714%2C3061&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315121/original/file-20200212-61947-1you67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People take to the Rideau Canal on Family Day in Ottawa on Feb. 18, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Expanding the definition of family</h2>
<p>How we define family (and who gets to do that defining) is an important starting point for conversations on family life. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who actually counts as family? For some, family means married parents with children, or married heterosexual parents with children. For others, it may mean a chosen family, or a cohabiting couple with no children.</p>
<p>For our conference, we are using an adaptation of the <a href="https://vanierinstitute.ca/family-definition-diversity/">Vanier Institute’s definition</a>: a family consists of any combination of two or more people, bound together over time, by ties of mutual consent and/or birth, adoption or placement, and who take responsibility for various activities of daily living, including love.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2017.1333055">research has identified the need to attend to extended families</a>, including grandparents, aunts and uncles. It also includes the need to extend the definition of family to non-traditional family forms including LGBTQ2S+ families, chosen families, multi-generation families that include grandparents, single parents and people living alone. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until 2001 that Statistics Canada gathered information on multi-generational households, and in 2011 the census first counted stepfamilies and foster children. Families in Canada <a href="https://vanierinstitute.ca/resources/statistical-snapshots/">are diverse</a> and our programs and policies should be responsive to this diversity.</p>
<p>We find that a narrow definition of family can neglect the experiences of <a href="http://demeterpress.org/books/intensive-mothering-the-cultural-contradictions-of-modern-motherhood/">single-parent, poor and minority families</a>. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211427700">research shows</a> that women of colour and low-income women often experience and interpret motherhood differently than white, class-privileged mothers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316242/original/file-20200219-11005-x0029j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This image includes four adults and three children: many factors, including race and class impact family relationships.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gift Habeshaw /Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recently, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2010.516804">researchers</a> began to examine how diversity related to race, class and sexual orientation affects grandparent-grandchild relationships. To continue to expand our understanding of families’ experiences, we need to think more broadly about what factors matter in families. </p>
<h2>Family realities should be reflected in policy</h2>
<p>How we define family impacts social policy like <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental.html">parental, maternity and paternity leave entitlements</a> and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/canada-child-benefit-overview.html">child-care tax credits</a>. <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/caregiving.html">Caregiver benefits and compassionate leave policies are also tied to family status</a>. Eligibility depends on whether you are a family member. </p>
<p>In health-care contexts, visitors in intensive care units and emergency departments are often restricted to immediate family and grandparents often don’t have rights when it comes to child custody cases. So a comprehensive definition of family influences how we develop programs for families and who is eligible. </p>
<p>Besides needing to expand the definition of family, we also need to look at the messy realities of family and family life. The irony of organizing a public family conference while attending to the realities of our private family lives was not lost on us. As we scheduled meetings and conference calls, we were also planning Skype dates, making school lunches and caring for parents across the country.</p>
<p>We believe that practitioners, service providers and policy-makers need to take into account the complexity of family lives when thinking about family practice, programs and policies. Family scholars and the Vanier Institute of the Family refer to using a family lens: needing to look at the complexity of family and family relations beyond individual family members.</p>
<p>Thinking about families in a broad sense when we develop programs and policies can be challenging. It is much easier to use an individual lens to think about developing children, or aging seniors. But these individual family members, even those who live on their own, live out their lives in the context of families —whether biological or social. </p>
<h2>The future of families</h2>
<p>When using a family lens, it can be easy to slip into a glass-half-empty approach. Family life educators and social workers struggle with the tension between deficit models of family, and asset or strength-based models of family. Instead of only focusing on what problems families experience, we can benefit from understanding what strengths they have and what makes them resilient in the face of life’s challenges. </p>
<p>Some family practitioners and family scholars would say that in the best of all possible worlds, it would be preferable to remain apolitical as we think about family and as we provide information and assistance to families. </p>
<p>And yet, some of us feel strongly that it is important to look beyond families to society to advocate on behalf of families, or family members, who are at risk. </p>
<p>At our families conference we will be exploring the tension between present and future. Based on our understanding of systems and systemic change, we will emphasize envisioning a different future by including all families — in the broadest sense. </p>
<p>Rather than staying focused on the present, we look towards a future of change by asking the question: “Wouldn’t it be great if …?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Hebblethwaite receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC), the Fondation Luc Maurice, and TELUS Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilary Rose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A narrow definition of family can neglect the experiences of many people and can impact policy and programs. It’s time to expand our ideas of what family means.Hilary Rose, Associate Professor of Applied Human Sciences, Concordia UniversityShannon Hebblethwaite, Associate Professor of Applied Human Sciences, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1176842019-06-09T09:04:42Z2019-06-09T09:04:42ZAttitudes to gender and sexual diversity: changing global trends<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278078/original/file-20190605-40723-15ypoq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Changes in geopolitical forces are sweeping rapidly across the world, affecting the lives of many, for better and for worse. In much the same way, attitudes towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-behind-a-more-meaningful-understanding-of-sexual-orientation-42641">gender and sexual diversity</a> are dynamic. They are moving towards greater acceptance in some parts of the world, while in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/03/world/same-sex-laws-map-intl/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2019-04-04T00:04:17">others</a> there is push back against this diversity.</p>
<p>The result is that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people are experiencing increasing freedom to express their diversity in some countries and communities. But in others they face discrimination, abuse, violence and even death because they don’t fit into the expectations of what certain sectors of society consider to be the norm. </p>
<p>The determinants of gender and sexual diversity can be understood from several perspectives. These include biological or physical sex – what we see or can measure; gender identity – how people identify independently of their biological sex; and sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Together, all elements contribute to a person’s gender expression. In other words, how they live their lives. Gender expression in turn is context dependent, and this includes the society in which people live. </p>
<p>The problem is that those who wish to impose their own beliefs frequently overlook the extent – and complexity – of natural human diversity.</p>
<h2>Biological sex determination</h2>
<p>Biological <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9967/">sex determination</a> starts in the first trimester of pregnancy with the differentiation of the gonads (ovaries and testis). Male development is driven by the Y chromosome; X chromosomes (in the absence of a Y chromosome) drive development in the female direction. There are variations on this theme, some of which defy a binary classification.</p>
<p>This is followed by the development of the internal reproductive organs and external genitalia. In males this is androgen dependent and in females, estrogen dependent. There is an indeterminate phase early in the development of external genitalia, and variability can occur at any point in the process.</p>
<p>One of the ways in which diversity between people manifests is through what is now referred to as “<a href="https://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/dsd.htm">"disorders of sex development”</a>, previously referred to as intersex or hermaphroditism. </p>
<p>People whose physical sex characteristics do not fit into culturally established gender norms feel strongly that the word “disorder” should not be used. Rather, they argue, it should be seen as a naturally occurring variation in development. Use of the terminology “differences in sex development” might therefore be more appropriate.</p>
<p>Surgery is often performed early in childhood on people who don’t fit into the binary classification of male or female with regard to their external genitalia. The aim is apparently to allow these people to fit into a socially accepted gender category. </p>
<p>Genitalia are often “corrected” towards female. But if this is done at a time in early infancy when the individual has not had a chance to establish their gender identity, it may create a disjunction between gender identity and physical identity later in life. </p>
<p>In addition, there are many consequences related to the surgery. These can include infertility, incontinence, scarring, loss of sexual pleasure, pain, mental suffering and depression.</p>
<h2>Gender identity</h2>
<p>What determines gender identity?</p>
<p>From a biological perspective, it appears that the determination of gender identity occurs once the gonads and organ systems are in place. During development, our gender identity is female by default. The brain becomes masculinised in the presence of testosterone and remains feminised in the absence or inactivity of testosterone. </p>
<p>One well recognised naturally occurring variation may be that the degree of masculinisation of the genitalia does not reflect the degree of masculinisation of the brain. When gender identity does not correlate to physical sexual characteristics, this may result in transgenderism. People in this situation may decide to transition to achieve a match between their physical and psychological sex.</p>
<p>Identifying as transgender has previously been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “gender identity disorder”. On May 25 of this year, in the most recent International Classification of Diseases manual, the WHO reclassified transgenderism as “gender incongruence” rather than as a mental health disorder. Gender incongruence has now been moved to a new chapter dedicated to sexual health, which it is believed <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/05/1039531">will reduce stigma while ensuring access to healthcare</a>. </p>
<p>The reclassification came about because the WHO now has a better understanding that gender incongruence per se is not a mental health condition.</p>
<p>With regard to sexual orientation, although the mechanisms which determine individual preference have not been determined, both genetic and epigenetic factors are believed to be involved.</p>
<h2>Difference versus disorder</h2>
<p>Embracing human gender and sexual diversity requires acceptance of the fact that alignment between physical sex, gender identity and sexual orientation does not necessarily adhere to heteronormative rules. Each facet may be determined independently of the others in the course of the development of an individual, both in utero and in post-natal life.</p>
<p>When does a difference or a variation become a disorder or a disease? </p>
<p>One answer might lie in linking the difference or variation to subjective distress or suffering. Take for example heart disease or cancer. A person is subjected to distress or suffering as a result of the condition, which in this case is referred to as a disorder or a disease.</p>
<p>If the difference or variation per se does not cause distress or suffering, it should not be considered a disorder or a disease, even though distress or suffering may be imposed by others, which is frequently the case in LGBTI individuals. In societies where gender diversity is accepted, the magnitude of externally imposed distress and suffering is reduced.</p>
<p>There are numerous countries that have moved closer to embracing gender and sexual diversity. </p>
<p>For example, the state of Minnesota in the US is moving towards banning “conversion therapy” for people whose <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/politics/minnesota-conversion-therapy-ban-trnd/index.html?utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2019-04-27T21%3A45%3A02&utm_term=image">sexual orientation differs from a heteronormative pattern</a>, while Taiwan has recently become the first country in Asia <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/5/17/18629156/taiwan-same-sex-marriage-legalization-lgbtq-asia">to legalise same-sex marriage</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.intersexequality.com/words-from-malta-the-first-nation-to-ban-intersex-genital-mutilation-igm/">the move by Malta</a> to ban “normalisation” surgery on infants will allow for the self-determination of gender identity in people with differences in sex development. And several countries and communities are moving towards a gender neutral option on official documents.</p>
<p>But other countries have gone in the opposite direction and have hardened their stance. Examples include recent legislation enacted in Kenya and a ban on transgender people being allowed to join the military in the US. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/homosexuality-remains-illegal-in-kenya-as-court-rejects-lgbt-petition-112149">Homosexuality remains illegal in Kenya as court rejects LGBT petition</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Fundamental human rights</h2>
<p>Self-expression is a fundamental human right. Gender and sexual diversity are part and parcel of being human. This is a fact. It is also a fact that this diversity <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8523648?selectedversion=NBD13947902">occurs in many other species</a>.</p>
<p>Whether or not one wishes to embrace this diversity is a separate issue. </p>
<p>Acceptance of diversity should not be predicated on scientific data. Furthermore, data in any shape or form is unlikely to convince people who wish to impose their own beliefs.</p>
<p>The key question is: does anyone have the right to judge?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Sean Pepper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Global attitudes to gender and sexual diversity are changing. Some embrace the diversity; others push back.Michael Sean Pepper, Director, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine & SAMRC Extramural Unit for Stem Cell Research & Therapy, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1120962019-02-22T11:56:55Z2019-02-22T11:56:55ZWhy body mass index and sexual orientation study raises health concerns for lesbian and gay people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259928/original/file-20190220-148542-1pdmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/709343245?src=OJYHYWdWA-TJSHx-YG1epg-1-50&size=medium_jpg">Anton Mukhin/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite recent legal advances in the UK, such as the Equality Act 2010 and same-sex marriage rights, lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people continue to experience discrimination and health inequalities, such as <a href="https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-016-0767-z">poorer mental health</a> and increased levels of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758978/">smoking and alcohol consumption</a>. Now <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdy224/5346731?searchresult=1">our research</a> has raised concerns about unhealthy body mass index (BMI) in gay men and lesbian and bisexual women.</p>
<p>Being obese or overweight increases a person’s risk of several cancers (including <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547959/">bowel cancer</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24375928">breast cancer</a>), <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16311223">type 2 diabetes</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/089543569190265B">heart disease and stroke</a>. Being underweight also has health risks, such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23508809">osteoporosis</a> and a weakened immune system. And being obese or underweight is associated with a <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/200731">reduced life expectancy</a>. </p>
<p>The proportion of people who are overweight or obese in the UK is <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet-england-2018#key-facts">rising</a> and it’s a pressing health issue. Despite the focus of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/all-our-health-personalised-care-and-population-health">UK government’s health strategy</a> on addressing unhealthy weight, and the known <a href="https://spark.adobe.com/page/iISs8fqGJiVgI/">health disparities</a> experienced by LGB people in the UK, no research has looked at the prevalence of unhealthy weight in the lesbian, gay and bisexual population in the UK, until now.</p>
<p>For our study, published in the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdy224/5346731?searchresult=1">Journal of Public Health</a>, we pooled data from 12 national health surveys in the UK (93,429 people) and compared the <a href="http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/a-healthy-lifestyle/body-mass-index-bmi">BMI</a> of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, as well as people who selected “other” as their sexual identity, with the BMI of heterosexuals.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gaaTW0Elxgg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">How to measure your body mass index.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Large dataset, nuanced picture</h2>
<p>Our analysis showed that lesbian and bisexual women were more likely to be overweight or obese compared with heterosexual women, and gay men were less likely to be overweight or obese compared with heterosexual men. We also found that men who identified as gay, bisexual or “other”, and women who identified as “other”, were more likely to be underweight.</p>
<p>Until 2008, sexual orientation was not recorded in health surveys. This means that only recently has it been possible to determine health inequalities affecting lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Often surveys have low numbers of lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents and sexual orientation is often under-reported in self-report surveys, probably due to fear of disclosure. However, pooling data from <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318007633_Recording_Sexual_Orientation_in_the_UK_Pooling_Data_for_Statistical_Power">several surveys</a> gave us a large enough sample to analyse lesbian, gay, bisexual and “other” identified groups separately. </p>
<p>Also, by analysing underweight separately, we showed that gay men are more likely to be underweight. Usually, due to small sample sizes, sexual minority studies combine underweight and normal weight, potentially masking the data about underweight and giving the impressions that gay and bisexual men are a healthy weight.</p>
<h2>Long-term studies</h2>
<p>It is important to note this type of survey data only provides a snapshot in time and doesn’t look at weight change over the life course. It also can’t tell us if the association between BMI and sexual orientation continues over time. </p>
<p>The UK does not collect data on sexual orientation within health service admissions, cancer registry data or coronary care, so any knowledge we have on health outcomes for LGB people in the UK depends on national health surveys. Continued collection of data on sexual orientation within national health surveys will let us continue to measure the health of sexual minorities and provide us with long-term (“longitudinal”) data. Longitudinal research will let us look at weight change over time and help us determine the reasons for these ongoing health disparities.</p>
<p>In the meantime, we can posit several possible explanations for these disparities in both physical and mental health. For example, we know that sexual minority groups are more likely to be exposed to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ilan_Meyer/publication/10581240_Prejudice_Social_Stress_and_Mental_Health_in_Lesbian_Gay_and_Bisexual_Populations_Conceptual_Issues_and_Research_Evidence/links/00463531a24d8a4f42000000/Prejudice-Social-Stress-and-Mental-Health-in-Lesbian-Gay-and-Bisexual-Populations-Conceptual-Issues-and-Research-Evidence.pdf">increased stress because of the discrimination they experience</a>, which <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6a5c/15a11d3e31772866ded9ec54f9c185c52010.pdf">affects their mental health</a> and increases their likelihood of unhealthy behaviour, such as smoking, alcohol misuse and disordered eating. Research has shown that gay men are more likely to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X13004825#bib10">use unhealthy weight-control strategies</a>, such as fasting and using laxatives, to lose weight than heterosexual men. </p>
<p>Also, there is evidence that ideal body-size standards among heterosexuals <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J155v03n04_04?needAccess=true">are rejected by the LGB</a> population. Research shows that sexual minority women have higher levels of body satisfaction while conversely, young gay and bisexual men <a href="https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1054139X13004825/1-s2.0-S1054139X13004825-main.pdf?_tid=133a4e26-662c-48fe-a4db-5e3231f0306e&acdnat=1550768453_5925b711ab8cff05976b227f928cd770">tend to see themselves as overweight</a>, despite being healthy or underweight.</p>
<p>Our study clearly shows the link between sexual orientation and unhealthy weight in lesbian and bisexual women and in gay and bisexual men leading us to conclude that sexual minorities have an increased risk of several conditions, including coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and early death. These findings add to the evidence that sexual minorities experience significant and widespread health disparities. Addressing this inequality should now be a priority for policymakers and healthcare providers.</p>
<p><em>Correction. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated: And all three unhealthy weight categories (obese, overweight and underweight) are associated with reduced life expectancy. That has now been corrected to read: And being obese or underweight is associated with a reduced life expectancy.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Semlyen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>First UK study to look at body weight and sexual orientation reveals health disparities in sexual minorities.Joanna Semlyen, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/982932018-06-21T21:55:06Z2018-06-21T21:55:06ZSex and gender both shape your health, in different ways<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224310/original/file-20180621-137717-6m9mqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are now many gender categorizations, from the traditional 'masculine' and 'feminine' to 'gender fluid' and 'undifferentiatied.' Health researchers can work with these to gain a more accurate understanding of disease susceptibilities. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When you think about gender, what comes to mind? Is it anatomy or the way someone dresses or acts? Do you think of gender as binary — male or female? Do you think it predicts sexual orientation?</p>
<p>Gender is often equated with sex — by researchers as well as those they research, especially in the health arena. Recently I searched a database for health-related research articles with “gender” in the title. Of the 10 articles that came up first in the list, every single one used “gender” as a synonym for sex.</p>
<p>Although gender can be related to sex, it is a very different concept. Gender is generally understood to be socially constructed, and can differ depending on society and culture. Sex, on the other hand, is defined by chromosomes and anatomy — labelled male or female. It also includes <a href="http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex">intersex people</a> whose bodies are not typically male or female, often with characteristics of both sexes.</p>
<p>Researchers often assume that all biologically female people will be more similar to each other than to those who are biologically male, and group them together in their studies. They do not consider the various sex- and gender-linked social roles and constraints that can also affect their health. This results in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F00333549111260S304">policies and treatment plans that are homogenous</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Masculine?’ ‘Cisgender?’ ‘Gender fluid?’</h2>
<p>The term “gender” was originally developed to describe people who did not identify with their biological sex. John Money, a pioneering gender researcher, explained: “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00926239408403428">Gender identity is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness</a>; and gender role is the cultural stereotype of what is masculine and feminine.” </p>
<p>There are now <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0036215">many terms used to describe gender</a> — some of the earliest ones in use are “feminine,” “masculine” and “androgynous” (a combination of masculine and feminine characteristics). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224116/original/file-20180620-137711-1mm4jcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research shows that gender, as well as sex, can influence vulnerability to disease.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recent gender definitions include: “Bigender” (expressing two distinct gender identities), “gender fluid” (moving between gendered behaviour that is feminine and masculine depending on the situation) and “agender” or “undifferentiated” (someone who does not identify with a particular gender or is genderless). </p>
<p>If a person’s gender is consistent with their sex (e.g. a biologically female person is feminine) they are referred to as “cisgender.” </p>
<p>Gender does not tell us about sexual orientation. For example, a feminine (her gender) woman (her sex) may define herself as straight or anywhere in the LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex and asexual or allied) spectrum. The same goes for a feminine man.</p>
<h2>Femininity can affect your heart</h2>
<p>When gender has actually been measured in health-related research, the labels “masculine,” “feminine” and “androgynous” have traditionally been used. </p>
<p>Research shows that health outcomes are not homogeneous for the sexes, meaning all biological females do not have the same vulnerabilities to illnesses and diseases and nor do all biological males. </p>
<p>Gender is one of the things that can influence these differences. For example, when the gender of participants is considered, “higher femininity scores among men, for example, are associated with lower incidence of coronary artery disease…(and) <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F00333549111260S304">female well-being may suffer when women adopt workplace behaviours traditionally seen as masculine</a>.” </p>
<p>In another study, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00702-005-0285-5">quality of life was better for androgynous men and women with Parkinson’s disease</a>. In cardiovascular research, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550857912001908?via%3Dihub">more masculine people have a greater risk of cardiovascular disease than those who are more feminine</a>. And research with cancer patients found that both <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07347330903438917">patients and their caregivers who were feminine or androgynous were at lower risk of depression-related symptoms</a> as compared to those who were masculine and undifferentiated.</p>
<p>However, as mentioned earlier, many health researchers do not measure gender, despite the existence of tools and strategies for doing so. They may try to guess gender based on sex and/or what someone looks like. But it is rare that they ask people. </p>
<h2>A tool for researchers</h2>
<p>The self-report gender measure (SR-Gender) I developed, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics3010003">first used in a study of aging</a>, is one simple tool that was developed specifically for health research. </p>
<p>The SR-Gender asks a simple question: “Most of the time would you say you are…?” and offers the following answer choices: “Very feminine,” “mostly feminine,” “a mix of masculine and feminine,” “neither masculine or feminine,” “mostly masculine,” “very masculine” or “other.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224306/original/file-20180621-137717-1m2wgx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-report gender tool.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lisa Carver)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The option to answer “other” is important and reflects the <a href="http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2013/01/a-comprehensive-list-of-lgbtq-term-definitions/">constant evolution of gender</a>. As “other” genders are shared, the self-report gender measure can be adapted to reflect these <a href="https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary.html">different categorizations.</a> </p>
<p>It’s also important to note that the SR-Gender is not meant for in-depth gender research, but for health and/or medical studies, where it can be used in addition to, or instead of, sex. </p>
<p>Using gender when describing sex just muddies the waters. Including the actual gender of research participants, as well as their sex, in health-related studies will enrich our understanding of illness.</p>
<p>By asking people to tell us their sex and gender, health researchers may be able to understand why people experience illness and disease differently.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>L.F. Carver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bigender, gender fluid, cisgender? Emerging gender categorizations are important – for your health.L.F. Carver, Post Doctoral Fellow, Faculty of Arts & Science & Research Associate, Department of Medicine, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880742018-01-22T23:37:10Z2018-01-22T23:37:10ZWhat are chronophilias?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202608/original/file-20180119-110094-cgi170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=224%2C4%2C2651%2C1763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some people have unusual attractions to specific age groups.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/BIiC3Dmkv9g">Varshesh Joshi on Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mr. Smith was a 27-year-old man referred for psychological treatment after sexually offending against a 13-year-old boy. He initially denied the charge, but eventually admitted to sexually abusing multiple youth. He later admitted he’d been attracted to boys since his own adolescence.</p>
<p>Mr. Smith is actually a case composite from my <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317136.aspx">first book on pedophilia</a>. But the description is representative of stories I’ve heard from the hundreds of individuals I’ve talked with as a <a href="https://linkedin.com/in/mcseto">psychologist and researcher</a> over the past 25 years.</p>
<p>Most men are sexually attracted to sexually mature young adults. But a small minority of men are sexually attracted to other age groups, from infants to the elderly. These age-based attractions are called chronophilias.</p>
<p>My research focuses on chronophilias and sexual offending against children. Recently, I’ve started to think about these age-specific attractions as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0799-y">sexual orientations for age</a>, similar to how we understand sexual orientation for gender. This is quite different from the traditional way that psychologists view chronophilias, as sexual preferences that are distinct from someone’s identity.</p>
<p>This idea – that chronophilias can be understood as sexual orientations for age – is provocative, because it raises ethical, legal and scientific questions about how we think about sexual orientation, the etiology of sexual preferences and how we respond to sexual offenses against minors.</p>
<h2>Attraction to an atypical age group</h2>
<p>The best-known atypical chronophilia is pedophilia, referring to sexual attraction to prepubescent children (no physical changes due to puberty). Pedophilia has received the most attention because it helps explain many cases of child pornography use and child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>Hebephilia (some physical puberty changes, but still obviously immature) is becoming better known to researchers and the public. Though ultimately rejected, the American Psychiatric Association considered including hebephilia in the latest version of its diagnostic manual (<a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm">DSM-5</a>), where it would have joined pedophilia as a recognized mental disorder.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202897/original/file-20180122-182959-cwvbv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many people first heard the term ‘ephebophilia’ when media used it in reports about U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore and his alleged behavior toward teenaged girls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Alabama-Senate-Moore/e74ad41156944cd58e8fbcf015d9fb57/2/0">AP Photo/Brynn Anderson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are other lesser-known chronophilias, including attraction to infants or toddlers (nepiophilia) and sexually maturing teens who are not yet adults (ephebophilia). Ephebophilia can explain some cases of statutory rape involving “consensual” relationships between adults and teens who are under the legal age of consent. Surprisingly little research is available about these crimes, <a href="https://classic.ntis.gov/assets/pdf/st-on-cd/PB2007105633.pdf">even though they are frequent</a>, with approximately one in four rapes recorded by police in the U.S. involving statutory cases. </p>
<p>Other atypical chronophilias focus on middle-aged persons (<a href="https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/liking-middle-aged-people-is-probably-a-sexual-orientation.html">mesophilia</a>) or the elderly (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2062191">gerontophilia</a>). There is almost no research on mesophilia or gerontophilia, probably because acting on them is legal, as long as the other person consents. </p>
<p>The typical attraction to young sexually mature adults is called teleiophilia. Being drawn to this age category makes biological and evolutionary sense. Acting on this age attraction is most likely to lead to reproductive success (having children). Being attracted to someone who is prepubertal, pubertal or post-menopausal would not lead to offspring. Scientists would expect the traits underlying these attractions to be less likely to appear in future generations since they wouldn’t be passed on.</p>
<h2>Where do chronophilias come from?</h2>
<p>Like sexual orientation for gender, pedophilia (and perhaps other chronophilias as well) is often experienced as something that someone discovers about themselves as he grows up. Like their peers, these young males become attracted to children their own age or younger – imagine a 12-year-old developing his first crush on an 11-year-old girl at his school. Unlike their peers, whose age interests shift as they grow older, males with pedophilia continue to be sexually attracted to young children. Picture the same boy, now 17, who is still attracted to his kid sister’s friends instead of his high school peers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202898/original/file-20180122-182968-1shhvyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar pled guilty to criminal sexual conduct toward girls. There’s a strong cultural taboo against adults acting on attractions to children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Doctor-Sexual-Assault-Gymnastics/1161d68d6fb94aecb316cde5e33e6ab9/1/0">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I think chronophilias are the result of errors in age detection, where heterosexual male preferences for youth cues like big eyes and smooth skin are not offset by sexual maturity cues like full breasts and curvy hips. For pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia, the youthfulness cues dominate; for mesophilia and gerontophilia, the preference for youth cues is actually reversed. </p>
<p>I refer only to men here because that’s whom almost all the research on chronophilias has focused on. And men are much more likely to show variations in their sexual age interests than women. For example, one study found men were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12734">more than twice as likely</a> as women to report ever having sexual fantasies about a child under age 12. </p>
<p>It’s not clear why or how age detection gets scrambled. There is growing evidence that pedophilic men are more likely to show prenatal and early childhood signs such as neurodevelopmental problems, have experienced <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14574100">head injuries</a> and be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17634757">lower in IQ</a>. Researchers have also found that pedophilic men have differences in their <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18039544">brains’ white matter</a> in areas that are involved in networks that help process sexual stimuli. </p>
<p>Even less is known about other atypical chronophilias. Developmental studies are rare because scientists (and parents) are reluctant to include children and adolescents in sex research. Instead, we rely on studies asking adults to remember their earlier lives or looking at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27733213">developmental markers</a> with adults. </p>
<p>There are many other important questions that remain to be addressed. When do chronophilias emerge and how stable are they over a person’s lifetime? What are the female experiences of chronophilias? What might be effective treatments to prevent acting on sexual interests in children and underage adolescents?</p>
<p>We don’t really know how many people have chronophilias. But given my estimate that <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28526106">up to 1 percent</a> of men have pedophilia, it’s vital for researchers to understand the causes of chronophilias and how best to respond to cases involving young people or nonconsent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Seto receives research grant funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the University of Ottawa Medical Research Fund. </span></em></p>Psychologists don’t know much about why people have age-based sexual attractions – such as pedophilia – or how best to help people not act on sexual interests in children.Michael Seto, Forensic Research Director at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/838372017-09-13T10:35:25Z2017-09-13T10:35:25ZMachine gaydar: AI is reinforcing stereotypes that liberal societies are trying to get rid of<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185826/original/file-20170913-23100-103t9kn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artem Oleshko/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the old saying that “knowledge is power”, companies are seeking to infer increasingly intimate properties about their customers as a way to gain an edge over their competitors. The growth of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/artificial-intelligence-90">Artificial Intelligence</a> (AI), algorithms that use machine learning to analyse large multifaceted data sets, provides an especially attractive way to do this. In particular, the rapid advancement in AI capabilities for pattern discrimination and categorisation are leading researchers to explore its capabilities for increasingly complex data mining tasks.</p>
<p>This technology is no longer restricted to simple categorisation of directly traceable online behaviours (“likes” of particular brands, for example) or image objects (cat vs dog). AI is also being deployed to try to infer such intimate characteristics as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/your-computer-knows-you-researchers-cambridge-stanford-university">personality, gender and age</a> from <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073791">language usage on social media</a>, and to use face image analysis to predict the likelihood of someone committing a crime or being a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-seeing-surveillance-state-feared-in-the-west-is-a-reality-in-china-1498493020">terrorist or paedophile</a>. Most recently, a group of Stanford researchers have used AI to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/07/new-artificial-intelligence-can-tell-whether-youre-gay-or-straight-from-a-photograph">predict sexual orientation from facial images</a>. Clearly the development of such methods for inferring intimate details about people carries strong implications for personal privacy.</p>
<p>A potentially even more problematic aspect of this push towards algorithmic categorisation of people is the accompanying tendency towards simplistic reduction. To train AI to categorise humans, one needs to provide discretely defined target categories and large sets of labelled data. This forces one to reduce complex humans into discrete socio-psychological classes.</p>
<h2>Machine gaydar</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://osf.io/zn79k/">recent study</a> on detecting if a person is gay or straight based on a photograph is a clear example of how the choice of label categories imposes a binary view of sexuality. The aim of the study was to show that faces contain subtle information about sexual orientation that can be perceived and interpreted by deep neural networks (a class of AI). </p>
<p>In order to obtain the large data sets required for this type of machine learning, they harvested 130,741 facial images from public profiles posted on a US dating website. The data set contained gay and heterosexual people in equal numbers, with sexual orientation established based on the gender of the partners that they were looking for according to their profiles.</p>
<p>Even though the use of a dating site is probably a good indicator of sexual interest in a person, the use of this data to train a binary classifier contradicts the reality of a wide <a href="https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php">spectrum of human sexuality</a>, ranging from asexual to various degrees of bisexual.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185829/original/file-20170913-23138-lw06vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sexuality is not binary, but on a spectrum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Timothy Hodgkinson / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is that once an automated system is shown to be capable of making such a reductionist classification with a high degree of reliability, it becomes a tool that can easily be applied at scale. Categorisation based on this simplified socio-psychological feature becomes an attractive new element to add to all kinds of service personalisation. There is therefore a real danger that such a simplified perspective of people will be further entrenched.</p>
<p>The discussion section of the gay/straight face categorisation paper indicates that the researchers are aware of the larger implications of this kind of work. They go so far as to state that one of the driving motivations for the research was to make “policymakers, the general public, and gay communities aware of the risks that they might be facing already” due to work that “is possible, and likely being done behind closed doors at corporations and government organizations”.</p>
<h2>Sourcing feedback</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, despite this social awareness, the methodology used followed common practice in this field of research, which is to treat any publicly accessible data as “fair game”, no matter that the data subjects likely never intended their data to get used for these research purposes. Of course, it might have been difficult to contact the people whose images were used. But at the very least, spokespeople for the gay community should have been consulted.</p>
<p>In order to truly express their concerns about the impact of this kind of research on peoples’ rights, the researchers should have allowed the affected community, in this case LGBT, to directly express their views as part of the discussion section of the paper. This would have changed the way in which the research gets reported in the media and the way in which it is received by the affected community. Such direct stakeholder engagement is one of the key principles of <a href="https://www.orbit-rri.org">responsible research and innovation</a>, which aims to ensure the sustainability, acceptability and desirability of research processes and outputs.</p>
<p>In order to address the issues of unchecked use of AI for corporate gain it is important to promote a culture of broad stakeholder engagement and ethics within the AI research and development community. The good news is that this is already underway, with ethical <a href="https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/public-policy/2017_joint_statement_algorithms.pdf">guidelines</a>, <a href="https://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/ec/autonomous_systems.html">initiatives</a> and the development of <a href="https://standards.ieee.org/develop/project/7003.html">ethics based industry standards</a> that aim to provide a means to certify ethical use of AI, similar to food safety standards, on the rise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ansgar Koene is a co-investigator on the "UnBias: Emancipating Users Against Algorithmic Biases for a Trusted Digital Economy" project, which is funded by a grant from the EPSRC Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security programme in the RCUK Digital Economy theme. He is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Impact lead at the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute of The University of Nottingham. He chairs the IEEE working group for the development of the P7003 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations.</span></em></p>The current push towards AI categorisation of people is in danger of embedding a binary view of society.Ansgar Koene, Senior Research Fellow, Horizon Digital Economy, UnBias, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/769522017-07-04T20:09:18Z2017-07-04T20:09:18ZSurgery to make intersex children ‘normal’ should be banned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175546/original/file-20170626-32724-121ds44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1497%2C992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Intersex people are born with sexual anatomy that doesn't fit binary notions of male or female bodies. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston Public Library/flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Questions in the proposed new citizenship test that address family violence, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-targets-labor-over-australian-values-citizenship-quiz-20170419-gvo9jn.html">child marriage and female genital mutilation</a> imply opposition to these is an Australian value.</p>
<p>Indeed most Australians would agree female genital mutilation is an appalling breach of a girl’s right to bodily integrity, and that safeguarding children from violence is a vital goal in modern society. But protection from genital cutting should not only be granted to girls, but to all children. </p>
<p>While condemning female genital mutilation, Australian society appears to broadly accept routine circumcision of young boys, and genital modification surgeries on intersex children where the child’s genitals are reconstructed to resemble those typical of either a male or female. These procedures are legal and supported by Medicare.</p>
<p>In most cases, circumcisions and intersex surgeries occur without medical necessity or urgency: the children are healthy and no adverse medical consequences will arise if the surgery is not carried out immediately. Importantly, children undergoing such surgeries are often too young to understand what is happening to them and are legally too young to provide their consent. </p>
<p>Human rights concerns about underage male circumcision <a href="https://theconversation.com/infant-male-circumcision-stop-violating-boys-human-rights-8517">have been discussed in the past</a>, yet infringements suffered by intersex children are an emerging area of controversy. Medically unnecessary, non-consensual intersex genital modification should be made <a href="http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1900/40/part3/div6/sec45">illegal in Australia in the same way</a> as female genital mutilation.</p>
<h2>Children with intersex variations</h2>
<p>Intersex children are <a href="https://unfe.org/system/unfe-65-Intersex_Factsheet_ENGLISH.pdf">born with sex characteristics</a>, including genitals, gonads (testes and ovaries) and chromosome patterns, that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. </p>
<p>Nearly 2% of Australia’s population have <a href="https://oii.org.au/16601/intersex-numbers/">intersex variations</a>, which may not always be apparent at birth and may reveal themselves at puberty or later in life. While some intersex people may have atypical external genitalia, others may not. </p>
<p>Intersex variations describe physical or bodily traits – they do not describe gender or sexuality. Like non-intersex folks, intersex people may identify with any number of gender or sexual identities.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/boy-girl-or-dilemmas-when-sex-development-goes-awry-49359?sr=7">Boy, girl or …? Dilemmas when sex development goes awry</a></em></strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Genital “normalising” surgery</h2>
<p>Many intersex children undergo what proponents call genital “normalising” procedures, which implies these children’s bodies are abnormal. The procedures, intended to make the children conform to social norms of male or female bodies, often include irreversible surgical modification of sexual organs. These may result in sterilisation by removal of their gonads (testes or ovaries), and life-long hormone treatments. </p>
<p>Those who advocate for these procedures to be carried out when children are still young often argue the chances of medical success are higher and the children will be able to grow up with a consistent gender identity. However, this ignores the human rights of these children to independently develop a gender identity and decide for themselves whether they want their bodies to be altered irreversibly. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175550/original/file-20170626-32724-1tot11t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Safeguarding children from violence is a vital goal in modern society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Man-wise/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many examples of intersex people who, as children, were subjected to “normalising” procedures without their consent. In the 1970s, intersex advocate <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/12/01/4135509.htm">Georgie Yovanovic</a> went through forced medical examinations, hormone treatments, surgery to descend her testicles, and ultimately a unilateral mastectomy without her consent or any explanation from doctors when she was a child and teenager.</p>
<p>Alice Springs-based musician <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/12/01/4140196.htm">Shon Klose</a> was born without internal female organs. As a teenager in the 1980s, she was pressured into having medical treatment to create a vagina to have a more typical female body capable of heterosexual penetration. She did not receive any medical counselling, support or information.</p>
<p>Genital “normalising” procedures on young children still occur in Australia today. The recent <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/carlas-case-ignites-firestorm-among-intersex-community-on-need-for-surgery/news-story/7b1d478b8c606eaa611471f70c458df0">Family Court of Australia</a> case of five-year-old Carla is an example. Carla was born genetically male but with the external appearance of a female child and had undergone early childhood surgery to enhance the appearance of her genitalia. </p>
<p>In 1992, the High Court of Australia had established a precedent in <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/175clr218.html">Marion’s Case</a>, that parents cannot consent on behalf of their children to have certain types of medical procedures, which therefore require court authorisation. Consequently, in 2015 Carla’s parents, who were raising her as a girl, sought permission to have her gonads surgically removed, which the Family Court granted. </p>
<h2>Human rights violation</h2>
<p>Greater visibility of intersex people is driving increasing resistance to these procedures. There is now growing global criticism of genital modification procedures on intersex children as a violation of human rights. </p>
<p>In 2013, Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe, <a href="http://semantic-pace.net/tools/pdf.aspx?doc=aHR0cDovL2Fzc2VtYmx5LmNvZS5pbnQvbncveG1sL1hSZWYvWDJILURXLWV4dHIuYXNwP2ZpbGVpZD0yMDE3NCZsYW5nPUVO&xsl=aHR0cDovL3NlbWFudGljcGFjZS5uZXQvWHNsdC9QZGYvWFJlZi1XRC1BVC1YTUwyUERGLnhzbA==&xsltparams=ZmlsZWlkPTIwMTc0">identified intersex genital modification</a> as a non-medically justified violation of children’s right to physical integrity. The Council encouraged states to “guarantee bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination” to intersex people. </p>
<p>In 2015, <a href="https://rm.coe.int/168045b1e6">Malta became the first country</a> to explicitly outlaw the practice. No other country has done so at the time of writing. In the same year, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Astepforwardforintersexvisibility.aspx">held a conference</a> to address what it called the human rights violations faced by intersex people. As the first of its kind, the meeting broadened global awareness of intersex issues and genital modification specifically. </p>
<p>Shortly after this, twelve UN entities including the OHCHR, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Discrimination/Joint_LGBTI_Statement_ENG.PDF">released a joint statement</a> condemning anti-LGBTI discrimination and violence. They specifically pointed out that LGBTI persons may face </p>
<blockquote>
<p>abuse in medical settings, including unethical and harmful so-called “therapies” to change sexual orientation, forced or coercive sterilization, forced genital and anal examinations, and unnecessary surgery and treatment on intersex children without their consent.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>So, what about Australia?</h2>
<p>There is growing awareness in Australia of the potential human rights abuses on intersex children. </p>
<p>A 2013 federal senate inquiry into the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Involuntary_Sterilisation/Sec_Report/index">involuntary or coerced sterilisation</a> of intersex people found there is no medical consensus regarding how and when genital “normalising” surgery should be conducted. </p>
<p>Among the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Involuntary_Sterilisation/Sec_Report/b01">committee’s recommendations</a> was that all intersex medical procedures be managed by multidisciplinary teams in a human rights framework, and require authorisation by a court or tribunal. These recommendations did not lead to policy changes or legislative reform. </p>
<p>In 2016, Australian Human Rights Commissioner Ed Santow <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/stories/intersex-rights-are-human-rights">endorsed international calls</a> to end medically unnecessary procedures to safeguard the human rights of intersex children. </p>
<p>In February 2017, the Rationalist Society of Australia – a secular free thought organisation – published its <a href="https://www.rationalist.com.au/campaigns/genital-autonomy-2/">white paper on genital autonomy</a>. This condemns all forms of medically unnecessary, non-consensual genital modification as violations of human rights. The white paper calls for the criminalisation of these procedures on equal footing with the prohibition of female genital mutilation.</p>
<p>Despite increasing international and national awareness of the human rights violations caused by genital modification procedures, Australia has not reformed its laws. Yet rights to bodily integrity and autonomy should be protected for all children. Until we safeguard every child from all forms of violence, opposition to genital cutting will not be an Australian value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cornelia Koch is on the Advisory Board of the Australasian Institute for Genital Autonomy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Travis Wisdom is an associate member of Organisation Intersex International Australia Limited (OII-Australia) and is the co-author of the Rationalist Society of Australia white paper, 'Genital Autonomy.' </span></em></p>Until we safeguard every child from all forms of violence, opposition to genital cutting will not be an Australian value.Cornelia Koch, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of AdelaideTravis Wisdom, PhD Candidate, International Human Rights Law, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/775792017-05-21T10:43:11Z2017-05-21T10:43:11ZGay university students feel invisible. It’s time to shine a light on their issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169299/original/file-20170515-6990-1aef4ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Education and awareness about gender identity and sexual orientation are crucial.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Eastern Cape is South Africa’s <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-data/view/1665">most conservative province</a> when it comes to attitudes about homosexuality. Even in spaces that might be considered more liberal – like university campuses – <a href="https://kinseyconfidential.org/gender-nonconformity/">gender non-conforming</a> students and those who belong to sexual minorities <a href="https://theconversation.com/gay-students-still-not-welcome-at-south-african-universities-42778">face</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-residences-arent-yet-a-happy-home-for-same-sex-students-42135">open discrimination</a>.</p>
<p>This is happening even though discrimination based on sexual orientation is outlawed by South African’s post-apartheid <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">Constitution</a>. </p>
<p>Research into sexual orientation and gender identity at South Africa’s university is becoming more common. It aims to advance scientific evidence and generate knowledge that can help universities protect sexual minorities. Too often, sexual minorities are “invisible”. Students are forced to remain in the closet for fear of stigmatisation. </p>
<p>In other cases students with a same-sex sexual orientation are subjected to corrective therapy, instead of affirmation. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (<a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/vg/lgbti-faq.html">LGBTI</a>) student societies struggle to receive recognition or even to be registered by student representative councils.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajpherd/article/view/146682">new study</a> conducted at one Eastern Cape university offers some ideas about how to make sexual minorities more visible and encourage learning about sexuality and gender. This will involve tackling deeply-held religious and cultural convictions.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>Dr Abaver and his colleagues are involved in ongoing research about sexual orientation at the <a href="http://www.wsu.ac.za">Walter Sisulu University</a> in the Eastern Cape. It’s a sprawling public university with more than 24 000 students and about 2500 staff. They live and work across four campuses, with 13 satellite sites.</p>
<p>One of these studies was <a href="http://journals.co.za/docserver/fulltext/ajpherd/20/4/ajpherd_v20_n4_a4.pdf?expires=1494497334&id=id&accname=57716&checksum=F0C0ED2B6173DAA80390666E8287EDDF">a cross-sectional survey</a>. It involved 126 participants aged between 18 and 40. They were located on two of the university’s campuses: Mthatha and Potsdam.</p>
<p>The study’s aim was to explore knowledge and perceptions towards LGBTI students. It asked questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual orientation refers to preference for a romantic or sexual partner. Gender identity, meanwhile, refers to the private or public performance of gender. </p>
<p>Data were collected with a questionnaire administered among students and staff. The findings reflected overwhelmingly negative attitudes.</p>
<p>About 3.2% of the research subjects identified as homosexual, lesbian or bisexual. Respondents were not asked whether they were open about their sexuality.</p>
<p>More than half of the respondents (60.3%) knew a gender non-conforming person whose presentation in terms of their dress code didn’t match cisgender expectations. <a href="http://time.com/3636430/cisgender-definition/">Cisgender</a> refers to a person whose gender identity matches the biological sex description assigned at birth – for instance, a person who was born a male and lives as a man. Just more than 35% of the respondents knew of students or staff who occasionally or regularly had sexual relationships with people of same sex. </p>
<p>And the vast majority of respondents – 74.6% – said they believed sexual intercourse with people of the same sex was abnormal and unnatural. Religion often drove this belief. Many did not question their churches’ stance on homosexuality. They viewed heterosexuality as the only “right” way of living.</p>
<p>There was a glimmer of hope on this front: 25.3% of respondents reported that their religion encouraged them to accept people of any sexual orientation. This is a sign that there are – albeit small – shifts in the religious sector in terms of doctrines around sexual minorities.</p>
<h2>Cultural attitudes</h2>
<p>Culture was another reason people gave for decrying homosexuality. In this study, 70% of participants said their culture did not accept same-sex relationships. This presents culture as lived outside of people’s lives and as something that one can join and or opt out of. But this is not true. There are LGBTI people in every culture, in all societies, and they are embraced to various degrees.</p>
<p>Cultural explanations of sexual orientation and gender identity are not uncommon, as research conducted by Professor Nduna, also in the Eastern Cape though not at a university, has shown. </p>
<p>But if culture is a concept that describes a way of life, then people who identify with a particular culture should take responsibility and publicly contest “their culture” when it misrepresents reality. That’s the premise and stance of the <a href="http://www.aidsaccountability.org/?p=13992">Destabilising Heteronormativity</a> project. It advocates for LGBTI people’s rights, particularly in higher education institutions. It involves heterosexual people in the fight against discrimination of sexual minorities.</p>
<p>Another arm of the project challenges religion and scriptures through the work of the <a href="http://www.houseofrainbow.org/">House of Rainbow</a> and the <a href="http://inerela.org/">International Network</a> of Religious Leaders Living with or personally affected by HIV and AIDS.</p>
<p>There are several other ways to tackle heterosexism and discrimination against LGTBI people. Heterosexism refers to prejudice against sexual minorities by heterosexuals.</p>
<h2>Towards change</h2>
<p>Student organisations can play an important role here. Walter Sisulu University’s LGBTI community is doing <a href="http://www.wsu.ac.za/waltersisulu/index.php/lgbti-community-march-for-social-justice/">good work</a> to mobilise against various forms of prejudice, stigma and heterosexism. </p>
<p>Xolisani Mpama, a peer educator and field worker in the Destabilise Heteronormativity project at Walter Sisulu University has also moved to deal with the “invisibility” of LGBTI students and staff. He’s set up a support group on the university’s Ibika campus.</p>
<p>Changes to the formal university curriculum could make a real difference, too. About 58.7% of the respondents said talks in classes would be valuable and 55.6% believed that community programmes would help to raise awareness about sexual orientation and gender identity. This would help to address the knowledge gap in the university community about same sex relationships.</p>
<p>Sadly the university curriculum, both within and outside of the classroom, is still largely founded on the remnants of draconian colonial and <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Act%2057%20of%201969.pdf">apartheid laws</a>. So it’s very heterosexist and cisgender in its orientation. The binaries of male and female and men and women are evident across courses and disciplines. Course content assumes heteronormativity. </p>
<p>It’s important to remember, while students and others call for curriculum transformation more broadly, that enlightened knowledge about sexual orientation, gender identity and heterosexism should be prioritised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzi Nduna is a Lead Investigator with the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development and a research partner with the AIDS Foundation of South Africa (AFSA) and AIDS Accountability International (AAI).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Targema Abaver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many people use religion and culture as explanations for their homophobic attitudes.Mzi Nduna, Associate professor, University of the WitwatersrandDominic Targema Abaver, Senior Researcher in Public Health, Walter Sisulu UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609772016-06-15T09:51:37Z2016-06-15T09:51:37ZLGBT equality doesn’t exist – but here’s how to fight for it<p>When I came out as gay in my sophomore year of college, I absolutely loved going to Tigerheat – a kitschy 18-and-over gay club in Los Angeles. I mostly remember my nights there as frivolous fun, but they also had deeper meaning. That’s where I first learned how to openly and unabashedly celebrate being gay. </p>
<p>I danced wildly to Britney Spears in the fog and strobe lights, made out with beautiful men and bonded with college friends who came along. After hiding my sexual orientation for nearly a decade, those moments liberated me. After isolating myself from other gay people for years, I was suddenly surrounded by them. Those nights had special meaning to me as someone exploring my newfound identity as an openly gay man. </p>
<p>Such memories make me especially disgusted that a gay club has become the site of the U.S.’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/orlando-shooting.html">deadliest mass shooting ever</a>. An assailant <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/terror-hate-what-motivated-orlando-nightclub-shooter-n590496">who apparently hated gay people</a> shot over 100 people at the Orlando gay club Pulse. A space <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/06/12/pulse-more-than-just-another-gay-club/85785762/">created as a respite from discrimination</a> had turned into the setting for a horrific nightmare. </p>
<p>As this massacre reminds us, violent hatred toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people still remains in the United States. LGBT people also still do not have full equal legal rights under U.S. law, despite winning marriage rights, and face daily stressors and fears that others do not. Fortunately, however, social science research has begun to identify concrete actions to durably erode such hatred and create environments inclusive to LGBT people.</p>
<h1>Injustices against LGBT people</h1>
<p>LGBT people are more likely than any other minority group, including black people and Muslims, to be targeted in a violent hate crime, according to <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/anti-gay-hate-crimes-doing-math">a 2011 Southern Poverty Law Center analysis</a> of FBI statistics. LGBT people of color face <a href="http://www.cuav.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/4379_NCAVPHVReport2011Final_Updated.pdf">particularly high rates of violence</a>. For instance, at least 21 transgender women <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/more-transgender-people-reported-killed-2015-any-other-year">were murdered</a> in the U.S. in 2015, and 19 of those 21 were women of color. </p>
<p>The injustices against the LGBT community extend well beyond unconscionable, violent hate crimes. For instance, in <a href="http://www.glsen.org/article/2013-national-school-climate-survey">a large 2013 national survey</a> of middle school and high school students, 65 percent of LGBT students reported hearing homophobic remarks like “fag” or “dyke” frequently or often, and 30 percent missed at least one day of school in the previous month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. </p>
<p>Compared to the general population, LGBT people also face higher rates of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.012809.103636">homelessness</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2011.02.005">depression</a> and <a href="http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/AFSP-Williams-Suicide-Report-Final.pdf">suicide</a>, especially among transgender people. For instance, <a href="http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/AFSP-Williams-Suicide-Report-Final.pdf">national surveys</a> estimate that between 25 and 43 percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide at some point in their life, compared to 10 to 20 percent of LGB adults and 5 percent of the general U.S. population.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"742435349213896708"}"></div></p>
<p>Though declining over time, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143826">homophobic attitudes</a> are still with us in the U.S. For instance, according to <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx">Gallup poll data</a>, 37 percent of Americans still view “gay or lesbian relations” as morally wrong, compared to 53 percent of Americans in 2001. And despite this modest decline in explicitly stated homophobia, seeing two men or two women kiss <a href="http://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/195070/">still disgusts</a> many people – even well-intentioned people – at <a href="https://contextualscience.org/system/files/Cullen_in_press.pdf">an implicit, automatic level</a>.</p>
<h1>Anti-LGBT bias intersects with others</h1>
<p>These harsh realities remind me how much of a protected bubble I live in as a young white cisgender male graduate student living in Chicago’s largest gay neighborhood. Being physically attacked for my gender presentation or even my sexual orientation is not a daily fear for me, but it can be for <a href="http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Herman-Gendered-Restrooms-and-Minority-Stress-June-2013.pdf">transgender people</a> simply trying to use the bathroom.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vo42M8MdznY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘bathroom predator’ myth fuels anti-LGBT legislation that puts transgender people at risk.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Multiple factors such as gender, race and geographic location <a href="https://theconversation.com/intersectionality-how-gender-interacts-with-other-social-identities-to-shape-bias-53724">intersect to shape prejudice</a> in complex ways. For instance, as photographer and writer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/12/queer-muslims-mourning-orlando-nightclub-shooting">Samra Habib described</a>, many queer Muslims not only fear homophobic attacks but also “have to take extra care walking down the street at night and entering [their] mosques for fear of Islamophobic attacks.” </p>
<p>The racial targeting of the Orlando victims also can’t be overlooked. The assailant who reportedly hated <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/terror-hate-what-motivated-orlando-nightclub-shooter-n590496">races and religions other than his own</a> attacked the gay club on its “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-praise-of-latin-night-at-the-queer-club/2016/06/13/e841867e-317b-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html">Latin Night</a>.” <a href="http://fusion.net/story/313038/orlando-shooting-victims-names-pulse-massacre/">The victims</a>, including Edward Sotomayor, Amanda Alvear, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, Deonka Deidra Drayton and too many others, were primarily Latino, Hispanic or black.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cUT8QCXsXbg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Victims of the Orlando massacre.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h1>Using policy to fight for LGBT equality</h1>
<p>One positive outcome of this tragedy is a sharp, rude awakening that the fight for full LGBT equality is far from over. Even members of the LGBT community such as myself can at times forget and become complacent about this reality. </p>
<p>Part of the fight can be won through policy change. Despite the <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf">Supreme Court’s historic gay marriage ruling</a> in June 2015, LGBT people still do not have equal legal rights in the U.S. For instance, in 28 states, private employers can still <a href="http://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/non_discrimination_laws">legally fire employees</a> based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Those same 28 states also provide no explicit protections against LGBT discrimination in housing; that’s especially dismaying because large field experiments have found bias against gay couples inquiring about <a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/fairhsg/discrim_samesex.html">apartment rentals</a> and <a href="http://www.equalrightscenter.org/site/DocServer/Senior_Housing_Report.pdf">senior housing</a>. </p>
<p>A proposed bill in Congress called the <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/7/23/9023611/equality-act-lgbt-rights">Equality Act</a> would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act and ban LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, public education, access to credit, jury service and public accommodations such as restrooms and stores in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Over 85 percent of Democratic members of Congress have <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1858/cosponsors">formally</a> <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3185/cosponsors">endorsed</a> the bill, but Republicans <a href="http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/10/28/house-panel-blocks-vote-on-equality-act/">have actively blocked it</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"742268888826687488"}"></div></p>
<p>If enacted, such policy changes could have cascading effects on attitudes and behaviors. For instance, a 2013 study in Texas found that city-level bans on employment discrimination based on sexual orientation made employers <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028350">treat presumed gay applicants more favorably</a> in a real or mock interview hiring context. </p>
<p>Those laws influenced behavior not because employers feared punishment, the study’s researchers argued, but instead because the laws set the morals of the community. “Even absent any possibility of tangible punishment, legislation may reduce a given act (discrimination) simply by designating it as illegal, criminal, or deviant,” the researchers suggested. However, researchers haven’t yet empirically verified this psychological mechanism in this context.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"742168786636136450"}"></div></p>
<h1>Using conversations to fight for LGBT equality</h1>
<p>Everyday citizens can fight for LGBT equality by voting for politicians who will push for pro-LGBT policies. However, short face-to-face conversations can also help durably change LGBT attitudes. Although scientists have been suspicious about such claims because of <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/4/7/11380974/reduce-prejudice-science-transgender">an earlier scandal involving faked data</a>, other independent researchers with new data are finding real results.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9713">a recently published study</a> in Science, 10 minutes of conversation about transgender rights reduced transphobic attitudes for at least three months. In the study, 56 canvassers knocked on the doors of 501 voters in Miami. </p>
<p>To avoid effects that are only short-lived, as found in <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2712520">some prior studies</a>, canvassers actively engaged voters in conversation about voters’ personal views and experiences. For instance, voters were asked to consider a time in which they were judged for being different and then consider how transgender people might encounter similar experiences. Compared to passively listening to well-rehearsed arguments, such active learning approaches have often been <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1245936">far more effective</a> at durably reducing prejudice.</p>
<p>This study’s results should be reproduced before they are considered robust. However, if they do replicate and transfer to other prejudices, this method of engaging in conversation and taking others’ perspectives could be a powerful antidote to hatred and ignorance.</p>
<p>The Orlando massacre has left me heartbroken. The hard data further serve as a sober reminder that full LGBT equality is still in the future. However, at the same time, my ability to influence policy by voting in November and change hearts by reaching out to others gives me strength. Scientific studies such as the new one about transphobia give further hope that the hatred toward the LGBT community will erode over time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Miller receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The massacre at an Orlando gay club is a savage reminder that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people still face harsh prejudice in America and lack full equal protections under the law.David Miller, Doctoral Student in Psychology, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/555572016-04-08T09:33:11Z2016-04-08T09:33:11ZWhy teachers are unable to stop bias-based bullying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117871/original/image-20160407-16296-1o15jd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artist's representation of how different people are involved in bullying.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/epsb/8161314959/in/photolist-q1JBeu-drbN4H-8LAheM-drbSAT-sth7r7-rvNtMQ-bWBpd6-5U8YVj-ohACfk-bWBpmZ-5U4C4H-drc4Jj-ohjo54-8CxAAq-bbVHEx-drbTmK-bgsHmH-7SvJQj-bjxpBC-5U4Cj6-drc3Ad-bV8QRk-57rng4-drbMP8-hjhzM7-eopvRf-hjiuJM-2GZ7cv-hjhuBf-dtFwnm-hkXahE-btUfxy-5DWZNM-83XRiZ-d9Bjxj-d9BjF1-EfrZaX-d9Bj2Q-d9Bjnq-d9Bj8f-cpgr5q-F4qkYF-AgZtLR-d9BjsU-d9BiVy-d9Bjgh-uWxKba-pBsZnx-wr7754-6UKSmx">Edmonton Public Schools</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>State and local lawmakers have put policies in place to <a href="http://www.stopbullying.gov/laws/">address and prevent</a> bullying. Many schools too have implemented interventions to improve school climate to reduce bullying behaviors. </p>
<p>Despite these efforts, in my research and experiences in schools as a counselor educator and school counselor, I have found bullying based on bias <a href="http://ecx.sagepub.com/content/81/2/176.short">continues to be an issue</a> in school settings. </p>
<p>“Bias-based” or “identity-based” bullying, defined as students being bullied specifically based on their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, socioeconomic status or weight, is far <a href="http://www.stopbullying.gov/at-risk/groups/index.html">more difficult to recognize</a> or address when compared to traditional forms of bullying. </p>
<p>Teachers too may fail to notice and address such behaviors and, at times, may even be involved in them. </p>
<h2>Response to bullying</h2>
<p>Bias-based bullying incidents involve explicit and implicit forms of racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice or discrimination. They are not only harmful emotionally, socially and psychologically to students, but are also a violation of a student’s civil rights.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights urges schools <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html">to be vigilant</a> in the identification and prevention of bias-based bullying and provides guidance on specific laws that prohibit bias based harassment such as Title IX, a federal law, that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, Section 504 or Title II, which protects individuals with disabilities, and Title IV, which protects individuals from harassment based on religion, ethnicity or shared ancestry. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117876/original/image-20160407-16256-7d2nmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bias-based bullying behaviors can go unnoticed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/53771866@N05/7040908861/in/photolist-bJbuUn-oE1fBx-dn6K1e-8QXvJK-s8Eqqg-9weeTB-wp52-joGj1P-aAheJx-8ri67Q-aC7hrm-5DTGS9-4PNEem-gwmN7H-4eq6FR-pnKjBx-9Syz5f-fCyQ9N-gwmAC2-jGzhyq-6aYwEG-8QXvSn-nJmzo2-96K3iL-kt2F9Q-6JMMkb-boA4g9-dnP5Ht-bF81rm-7yBNfo-2RrvKj-9RJVJ9-ekUa9-anEUeX-n6ptpk-Nqqpz-4SwDCY-p7q2cL-e6Z13z-8qhRSN-bqLpCT-9iuxFC-anHG1E-dDmRZ7-9chSab-hFhnAV-5PKf61-ff6qQN-fQJXYE-nsdYdu">Twentyfour Students</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite this protection, however, bias-based bullying behaviors persist and can go unnoticed, or even be endorsed, by teachers in the field. </p>
<p>For example, a recent study investigated physical education teachers failing to respond to bullying behaviors against students being <a href="http://www.uconnruddcenter.org/resources/upload/docs/what/bias/PhysicalEducatorsAttitudes_JSH_9.12.pdf">targeted due to their weight</a>. Studies have also highlighted teachers failing to respond to students being bullied due to their <a href="http://doi.org/10.3390/bs5020247">sexual orientation</a>. </p>
<p>Failure to recognize bias-based bullying behaviors can lead to tragic consequences.</p>
<p>Ryan Halligan, a 13-year-old student who committed suicide in October 7, 2003, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-halligan-ryan-suicide_us_57043f13e4b0537661880e93">was targeted primarily with homophobic slurs</a>. A more recent case was that of Kennedy LeRoy, a teen who committed suicide in June 2015 <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Kennedy-LeRoy-Bullied-Teen-With-Aspergers-Commits-Suicide-Ayala-High-School-308013731.html">after he was bullied</a> partly due to having Asperger’s syndrome.</p>
<h2>Bullying by teachers</h2>
<p>Worse still, some students report being victimized not just by their peers but by their teachers as well. </p>
<p>In a study titled <a href="http://www.youthvoiceproject.com/">The Youth Voice Project</a> published by my colleagues, <a href="https://psbehrend.psu.edu/school-of-humanities-social-sciences/faculty-staff-directory/psychology/charisse-nixon-ph-d">Charisse Nixon</a> and <a href="http://stopbullyingnow.com/about-stop-bullying-now-and-stan-davis/">Stan Davis</a>, students in special education testified that their teachers were more abusive toward them than toward their peers in general ed.</p>
<p>Although this information may seem surprising, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0013124507304487">teacher involvement in bullying</a> students extends beyond special education settings to general and alternative education settings. </p>
<p>A 2011 study, for example, by researchers <a href="http://franklinpierce.edu/academics/bios/zerilloc.htm">Christine Zerillo</a> and <a href="https://people.hofstra.edu/Karen_F_Osterman/">Karen F. Osterman</a> indicates that, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1365480211419586">although teachers were aware</a> of colleagues who bully students, they felt more accountable to report peer bullying.</p>
<h2>When teachers think they are outsiders</h2>
<p>Although most schools are preparing educators and staff to recognize and respond to bullying, behaviors that are based on bias are often overlooked. </p>
<p>The results of a study I conducted indicated that educators may lack the knowledge of and skills to respond to bias-based bullying. </p>
<p>I <a href="http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5203&context=etd">investigated perceptions</a> of undergraduate students in teacher education programs. I asked participants about their perceptions of their role when faced with a situation involving bias based bullying. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117874/original/image-20160407-16254-lvy9no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most people consider themselves outsiders and do not respond to bullying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsdkrebs/8102566844/in/photolist-dkZLQm-6fdTdo-ehePoo-e623Wx-e62aWx-eh9dup-eh99oP-8tikVn-6KCXbJ-e62jo6-eQSKAp-eh9cnH-e67pD3-e62keM-e67XYA-cZCCay-gSfaZY-e67JoA-e62nD6-79UwjF-ehePRq-e62bgT-eh9b86-e67jY9-e61JQH-2qnVfz-eheUCd-e67sgL-e61PAF-e67EwW-bz5f9U-bz5fD9-e61QiR-eheYgj-e67FLu-e624sK-e62kJH-e62dhn-e67RSo-e61LY8-bz5mSq-eheXef-5TaHVj-dnP5Ht-e67PYq-8qhRSN-e62ima-e62eTZ-e67Sdo-e629nR">Denise Krebs</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Approximately 50 percent of participants considered themselves to be outsiders or not involved in situations involving bias-based bullying. Additionally, participants believed that they lacked the knowledge and skills to respond to situations involving bullying and prejudice. </p>
<p>There was one encouraging finding, however. After participating in a full-day workshop that included bullying prevention and prejudice reduction, participants reported significant changes in attitude. Their knowledge and skills to respond to situations involving bullying and prejudice improved. And they also changed how they perceived their role – from considering themselves to be outsiders (57 percent pre-workshop, 20 percent post-workshop) to defenders of victims of bias based bullying (20 percent pre-workshop; 78 percent post-workshop). </p>
<h2>Training teachers</h2>
<p>So how can schools respond to bias-based bullying?</p>
<p>School administrators can include questions regarding bias-based bullying on their school environment, assessments and evaluations. This can help schools gain a better understanding of what forms of bias-based bullying are most common in their schools. Training teachers to recognize and respond to bias-based bullying could also improve the likelihood that they would intervene when they saw bullying. </p>
<p>These initiatives can be effective when implemented as a part of an intervention that includes the whole school, parents and the community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>SeriaShia J. Chatters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that teachers either overlook bullying behaviors or even endorse them.SeriaShia J. Chatters, Assistant Professor of Education (Counselor Education), Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/537242016-02-04T11:07:51Z2016-02-04T11:07:51ZIntersectionality: how gender interacts with other social identities to shape bias<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110235/original/image-20160203-5865-yz096.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Everyone ticks multiple demographic boxes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=50008087">Form image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Actress Patricia Arquette’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgOxjdtRwWY">comments at the 2015 Oscars award night</a> drew criticism for implicitly framing gender equality as an issue for straight white women. She insisted that, “It’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”</p>
<p>Among other concerns, critics argued she <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/02/25/what-patricia-arquette-got-wrong-at-the-oscars/">overlooked the unique challenges</a> faced by queer women, women of color and other women at the intersection of multiple minority groups. This sentiment reflects <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/">a growing movement</a> within feminist circles to understand how people simultaneously face bias along multiple identity dimensions such as gender, race, and sexual orientation – an idea called intersectionality.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ROwquxC_Gxc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw defines and discusses ‘intersectionality’ – a term she coined in the late 1980s to describe how individuals may experience multiple forms of prejudice simultaneously.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social psychologists have recently joined in this movement, but have also reframed the discussion. The politics on intersectionality can “resemble a score-keeping contest between battle-weary warriors,” argued social psychologists Valerie Purdie-Vaughns and Richard Eibach in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4">an influential 2008 review article</a>. “The warriors display ever deeper and more gruesome battle scars in a game of one-upmanship.”</p>
<p>Setting aside these “oppression Olympics,” intersectionality is a fertile area for scientific research, argued Rutgers University psychologist <a href="http://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-profiles-a-contacts/112-diana-sanchez">Diana Sanchez</a> at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (<a href="http://www.spsp.org/">SPSP</a>) conference last week. At this academic gathering, intersectionality was a major topic at a <a href="http://meeting.spsp.org/gender">daylong session about gender</a>.</p>
<p>Here are three lines of research illustrating how gender interacts with other social identities to shape bias in often surprising ways. People of multiple minority groups face both distinct advantages and disadvantages. Biases based on gender and race do not always simply pile up to create double disadvantages, for instance. </p>
<h2>When stereotypes can both help and hurt black women leaders</h2>
<p>Women are often viewed negatively for exhibiting <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.00454.x">traditionally masculine behavior</a>. Assertive female leaders <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00239">are disliked</a>, while assertive male leaders <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.109.3.573">gain respect</a>, for instance. However, could this distaste for assertive female leaders vary by race?</p>
<p>Unlike white women, black women <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361684312464203">are often stereotyped</a> as being assertive, confident and not feminine. These masculine traits are not only expected for black women but also <em>allowed</em>, at least in leadership roles, according to research presented at the SPSP conference.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/robert-livingston">Robert Livingston</a>, lecturer of public policy at Harvard University, presented <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611428079">an experiment</a> about how 84 nonblack participants responded to a corporate executive described as either “tough, determined” or “caring, committed.” The race and gender of the fictitious leader were also varied across conditions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DYtL_QFnlsA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Livingston discusses his research on how gender and race interact to influence evaluations of corporate leaders.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both white female and black male leaders were rated more negatively when described as tough rather than caring. In contrast, black women faced no such penalty for behaving assertively and were instead rated similarly to white men. Livingston concluded black women “were able to show dominance, assertiveness, agency without the same penalty that either white women or black men suffered.” </p>
<p>He suggested that white women get knocked for being “tough, determined” because they are expected to be warm and caring. Black men are penalized because they are feared by others and activate other stereotypes such as being dangerous. In contrast, black women are expected to be assertive and confident, unlike white women, and they’re not feared in the same way as black men, Livingston suggested.</p>
<p>Livingston, however, emphasized that these evaluations are complex and likely depend on context. In <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.05.002">a follow-up experiment</a> led by Duke University associate professor of management and organizations <a href="http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/faculty_research/faculty_directory/rosette/">Ashleigh Rosette</a>, black female leaders were evaluated especially harshly if their corporation had performed poorly during the past five months. Under those conditions, black women were rated more negatively than white women or black men for the exact same business scenario.</p>
<p>If you are a black woman, you can be an assertive leader as long as you don’t make any mistakes, Livingston argued. “But the first time you make a mistake, your competence is called into question well before the white woman or the black man.”</p>
<h2>When multiple minority identities render groups invisible</h2>
<p>Individuals of multiple minority groups may be overlooked and marginalized for not being prototypical of their respective groups, argued <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Erim2109/Rebecca_Mohr/Home.html">Rebecca Mohr</a>, doctoral psychology student at Columbia University. For instance, white women are seen as prototypical of “women.” Black men are seen as prototypical of “black people.” But black women are seen as neither prototypical of “black people” nor “women,” Mohr argued based on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4">prior research</a>.</p>
<p>Racial minority women can therefore be rendered metaphorically invisible. Along with Columbia Associate Professor of Psychology <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/fac-bios/PurdieVaughnsV/faculty.html">Valerie Purdie-Vaughns</a>, Mohr tested whether racial minority women are featured in mass media less frequently than more prototypical others.</p>
<p>In a currently unpublished study, the researchers analyzed covers of <em>Time</em> magazine published from 1980 to 2008. They chose <em>Time</em> because it’s one of the longest-running U.S. publications and is published weekly, offering a large archive of covers. It’s also a general interest magazine, meaning that people on the covers should presumably “appeal to a wide swath of Americans,” Mohr pointed out.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110232/original/image-20160203-5850-7qdsco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photos of racial minority women, like this one of Condoleezza Rice, were underrepresented over the 28 years of analyzed <em>Time</em> covers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Time</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The study found that racial minority women were underrepresented when racial minorities were on the cover of <em>Time</em>. For instance, women were only 20 percent of the covers that featured racial minorities. Conversely, when women were on the cover, racial minority women were underrepresented relative to their share of the U.S. population. </p>
<p>Mohr suggested that these results reflect the broader invisibility of racial minority women in American society. For instance, even though three black queer women <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/">started the Black Lives Matter movement</a>, most media attention <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/05/black-women-police-killing-tanisha-anderson">has focused</a> on black men killed by police. In contrast, black women killed by police such as Meagan Hockaday, Tanisha Anderson and Rekia Boyd are invisible, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/black-women-matter_n_7363064.html">critics argue</a>. </p>
<h2>How gender gaps in STEM participation vary by race</h2>
<p>Gender gaps in pursing natural science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields surprisingly sometimes vary by race, noted <a href="https://tulane.edu/sse/psyc/faculty-and-staff/faculty/obrien.cfm">Laurie O’Brien</a>, associate professor of psychology at Tulane University. Women of color in STEM may sometimes face “<a href="http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopardy-report.pdf">double jeopardy</a>” because of both racial bias and gender bias in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.2.t022245n7x4752v2">some contexts</a> such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167202288010">gaining influence over others</a> in academic departments.</p>
<p>However, “double jeopardy” is not the full story, O’Brien argued in her SPSP talk. For instance, when entering college, black women are more likely than white women to intend to major in STEM. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037944">Her research</a> shows that black women hold weaker gender-STEM stereotypes than white women, helping explain that difference.</p>
<p>O’Brien also pointed to research by psychologists Monica Biernat and Amanda Sesko about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.01.008">bias favoring male computer engineers</a>. This bias was found only when undergraduates evaluated fictitious white, but not black, employees. Black women were instead evaluated similarly compared to white men. </p>
<p>In one large nationally representative experiment, gender bias in STEM even <em>reversed</em> by race and ethnicity. <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-0000022.pdf">STEM faculty responded less often</a> to emails from white female than white male prospective graduate students. However, STEM faculty consistently responded <em>more</em> often to Hispanic women than Hispanic men.</p>
<p>O’Brien emphasized these data are complex. For instance, even though black women start out in college more interested in STEM than white women, black women <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/09/women-stem-majors.aspx">may face unique barriers</a> such as race-based stereotypes to completing college with a STEM degree. In her current research, O’Brien studies how the effects of interventions to bring girls into STEM may vary by race. </p>
<h2>Thinking beyond ‘double jeopardy’</h2>
<p>This research on intersectionality challenges the simple narrative that prejudices such as sexism and racism always combine to create “double jeopardy.” For instance, racial minority women can be rendered “invisible.” But this invisibility may also <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4">protect them</a> in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.01.008">some cases</a> by making them less prototypical targets of common forms of bias. </p>
<p>This research is still in its early stages. For instance, more studies are needed to test how evaluations of black female leaders found in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611428079">small laboratory experiments</a> generalize to real world settings. Attendees at the SPSP conference also emphasized the need to develop theoretical frameworks that can help explain the nuanced results. The emerging data show that gender can interact with other social identities to shape perceptions and evaluations in complex and often surprising ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Miller receives funding from National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>No one is only their sex or only their race or only their sexual orientation. Social psychologists are starting to investigate how people of multiple minority groups are perceived.David Miller, Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/427782015-06-09T04:18:34Z2015-06-09T04:18:34ZGay students still not welcome at South African universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84191/original/image-20150608-8704-wmvshx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C307%2C2182%2C1545&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young LGBTI students go to university hoping that they would be accepted, but are discriminated against instead. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex are more likely to hide their sexual orientation until they <a href="http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=97226">graduate from high school</a> and leave home to study at university or other institutions. In most African countries, these institutions are invariably located in urban centres. </p>
<p>Leaving their homes before “coming out”, these young people hope their orientation would be less conspicuous in the urban cities and people will be more tolerant. In this way, they will be able to express their <a href="http://www.genderandeducation.com/issues/what-is-heteronormativity/">non-heteronormative identities</a> as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or intersex (LGBTI). </p>
<p>But they find that their tickets to freedom are not as they envisioned.</p>
<h2>Is it really freedom at last?</h2>
<p>Gay students see universities as spaces of intellectual freedom and believe these institutions are progressive and inclusive spaces – unlike their communities back home. This rural-urban migration of <a href="http://www.feministafrica.org/index.php/the-women-s-movement-and-lesbian-and-gay-struggles-in-south-africa">“going out-before coming out”</a> has benefits and pitfalls. </p>
<p>Research shows institutions are often an extension of some of the <a href="https://www.sbp-journal.com/index.php/sbp/article/view/1887">general population’s</a> homophobic attitudes. Their fellow students are homophobic and discriminate against them in their residences, on the sport fields, during lectures and when they access other support services <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/240543430_Sexual_Identity_and_Transformation_at_a_South_African_University">on campus</a>. </p>
<p>During sports activities or physical education, the LGBTI students are harassed, bullied or assaulted based on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908102">their sexual orientation</a>. And during lectures, their lecturers create a hostile environment by calling them names and verbalising their hatred and disapproval of homosexuality. </p>
<p>Their dormitories are hostile with heterosexual students often violently attacking, ridiculing and forcing them out of <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/15783182/coming-out-south-african-university-campus-adaptations-gay-men-lesbians">residences</a>. University administration dismiss complaints of harassment, prejudice and <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/15783182/coming-out-south-african-university-campus-adaptations-gay-men-lesbians">discrimination from students</a> and campus-based health care workers perpetuate discrimination by denying the students services.
Health care workers also offer <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25732232">“corrective counselling”</a>. </p>
<p>In one South African university, the negative attitudes even come from students who attend the anti-stigma and <a href="http://www.unisa.ac.za/contents/colleges/col_humanities_social_sciences_education/docs/THE-EXPERIENCE-OF-LGBTI-STUDENTS-IN-A-RURAL-BASED-UNIVERSITY-A-CASE-STUDY-OF-A-UNIVERSITY-IN-LIMPOPO-PROVINCE.pdf">discrimination campaigns</a>. Research shows the homophobic practices are influenced by selective readings of religious scriptures and particular interpretations of African culture.</p>
<h2>Survival strategies</h2>
<p>To avert stigma and discrimination, LGBTI students have found several ways to protect themselves. One is to live double lives, where they publicly engage in heterosexual relationships during the day and privately enjoy the partner of their choice. </p>
<p>Students at South African universities such as <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/15783182/coming-out-south-african-university-campus-adaptations-gay-men-lesbians">Stellenbosch University</a>, <a href="http://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/614">University of the Western Cape</a>, <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S0256-01002013000400011&script=sci_arttext">University of Kwa-Zulu Natal</a> seek acceptance by “acting straight” to pass as heterosexual. </p>
<p>This is by no means exclusive to these universities, But involving themselves in concurrent sexual relationships puts them at risk of contracting or transmitting HIV. Their so-called “public partners” are also at risk of being infected with HIV. </p>
<p>Apart from the increased risk of HIV infection, both the students and their “trophy partners” are at risk of emotional trauma. In some cases, some end up impregnating their partners without any commitment. This, at the end, affects the child, who is conceived as an act of “convenience”</p>
<p>Other LGBTI students try to avert stigma by avoiding public spaces and their classes. But this leads to poor academic performance, and them dropping out of university. Or they resort to drug and alcohol abuse. </p>
<p>Studies conducted in 14 South African universities show that men who have sex with men and LGBTI students have increased level of drug and alcohol abuse <a href="http://www.unisa.ac.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Finalised-MSM-publicatiion-28042015.pdf">compared to other university students</a>. </p>
<p>Continuous exposure to homophobic and transphobic attacks has a negative impact on the LGBTI students’ mental and social health in general. Some end up being depressed while others commit suicide. Their academic performance suffers and the continued stigma contributes to increased student drop-outs.</p>
<p>However, there are LGBTI students that are tired of being in the closet and end up “coming out” publicly, displaying “exaggerated behaviour” so that their sexual orientation can be openly seen instead of them being asked. Feminine gays or transgender males dress up to surpass as females. Similarly, masculine lesbians and transgender females dress to surpass as males. </p>
<p>Most of the students end up advocating for the rights of other LGBTI students. They do, however, also become easy targets for further homophobic and transphobic attacks. </p>
<h2>How to normalise homosexuality</h2>
<p>Apart from belonging to LGBTI community, these students deserve equal rights like all other students. Their treatment shows that university administrations, the government and civil society need to rise in defence of LGBTI students’ rights.</p>
<p>To address the hatred towards LGBTI persons, the AIDS Accountability International has a campaign to break down the hierarchies within sexual orientation and <a href="http://www.aidsaccountability.org/?page_id=13153">normalise homosexuality in Africa</a>. </p>
<p>As part of this campaign, several universities in the Southern Africa Development Community are planning research into LGBTI challenges in institutions of higher learning. Research reports from various researchers in the region will be published in special edition journals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzi Nduna receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) and AIDS Accountability International (AAI) to conduct research on sexual and reproductive health right. Mzi is also a research partner with AIDS Foundation of South Africa (AFSA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Azwihangwisi Helen Mavhandu-Mudzusi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>LGBTI students at South Africa’s universities are living double lives to protect themselves from heterosexual students who ridicule and attack them.Mzi Nduna, Associate Professor in Public Health, University of the WitwatersrandAzwihangwisi Helen Mavhandu-Mudzusi, Associate Professor, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/401212015-04-21T10:26:11Z2015-04-21T10:26:11ZBorn this way? How high-tech conversion therapy could undermine gay rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77974/original/image-20150414-24648-1qcsga1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If sexual orientation is not static, where does that leave 'Born This Way?'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/littlebiglens/8262793760">Steve Baker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the death of 17-year-old <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/24/us/ap-us-transgender-teen-suicide.html">Leelah Alcorn</a>, a transgender teen who committed suicide after forced “conversion therapy,” President Barack Obama <a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/response-your-petition-conversion-therapy">called for a nationwide ban</a> on psychotherapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. The administration argued that because conversion therapy causes substantial psychological harm to minors, it is neither medically nor ethically appropriate. </p>
<p>We fully agree with the President and believe that this is a step in the right direction. Of course, in addition to being <a href="http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf">unsafe</a> as well as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">ethically unsound</a>, current <a href="http://www.apsa.org/content/2012-position-statement-attempts-change-sexual-orientation-gender-identity-or-gender">conversion therapy</a> approaches <a href="http://www.psychiatry.org/lgbt-sexual-orientation">aren’t actually effective</a> at doing what they claim to do – changing sexual orientation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wV1FrqwZyKw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Lady Gaga’s Born This Way includes sentiments supportive of the LGBTQ community.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But we also worry that this may be a short-term legislative solution to what is really a conceptual problem.</p>
<p>The question we ought to be asking is “what will happen if and when scientists <em>do</em> end up developing safe and effective technologies that can alter sexual orientation?” </p>
<p>Based on current scientific research, it is not unlikely that medical researchers – in the not-too-distant future – will know enough about the genetic, <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/">epigenetic</a>, neurochemical and other brain-level factors that are involved in shaping sexual orientation that these variables could in fact be successfully modified.</p>
<p>And here is the important point. If such neuro-interventions are developed, they will have serious implications for a gay rights movement that is largely centered around a “born this way” response to discrimination – and the idea that sexual orientation isn’t something one can choose.</p>
<h2>Where the science stands</h2>
<p>With Oxford University colleagues Julian Savulescu and Anders Sandberg, one of us – Brian Earp – <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">has proposed</a> dividing potential neuro-interventions into sexual orientation into two categories. </p>
<p>On the one side, there are current and emerging technologies that could <em>diminish</em> (but not necessarily re-orient) same-sex love and desire. These would work by interfering with brain-level systems involved in lust, attraction and attachment that have evolved among mammals including humans. These could be called “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">anti-love biotechnologies</a>.” </p>
<p>Today, most <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-case-for-using-drugs-to-enhance-our-relationships-and-our-break-ups/272615/">“anti-love” technologies</a> work by regulating testosterone levels. Some target testosterone directly, such as anti-androgen drugs that are <a href="http://www.neulaw.org/blog/1034-class-blog/4034-chemical-castration-is-it-ethical">sometimes administered</a> to <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/02/25/chemical-castration/">sex offenders</a> as a condition of parole, while others work more indirectly. </p>
<p>For example, a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), typically used as anti-depressants, can have the “side effect” of a diminished libido. Disturbingly, there are <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/rabbi-s-little-helper-1.422985">reports out of Israel</a> of ultra-religious Jewish groups prescribing SSRIs to yeshiva students – not to treat depression, but to harness the “side effect” of a reduction in sex drive. The point in these cases is to chemically blunt any same-sex desires or even the urge to masturbate. </p>
<p>However, the effects of these drugs are global. That is, they have a dampening effect on one’s entire libido – whether one has homoerotic desires or otherwise – rather than blocking attraction to a specific person or group of people based on their outward sex-based appearance. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77978/original/image-20150414-24635-1is16ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The more we learn about what’s going on in there, the more feasible it becomes to manipulate what’s going on in there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/killermonkeys/304439098">Kenny Stoltz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other side, then, are what might be called “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">high-tech conversion therapies</a>.” These are interventions that <em>would</em> change a person’s orientation from predominately same-sex attraction to predominately opposite-sex attraction – or, indeed, the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11384105/Make_Me_Gay_Neurointerventions_on_Sexual_Orientation">other way around</a>. </p>
<p>While these kinds of technologies are not currently available, based on the trajectory of scientific investigation, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">one of us has argued</a> that “there is no good reason to think that such conversion may not one day be achievable.”</p>
<p>The upshot is <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/">this</a>. All animal behavior — including human behavior — is at least in principle <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1477175614000128">reducible to brain states</a>. It then becomes a matter of figuring out which specific brain-based manipulations would work to alter the higher order drives and capacities that govern one’s sexual orientation. </p>
<p>We know that hormones and genetics play a large role in determining sexual desires. In 1991, Bailey and Pillard <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1991.01810360053008">found</a> that 52% of male identical twins compared to 22% of male non-identical twins had the same nonheterosexual orientations. </p>
<p>Hormonal studies have found that for many traits that differ between the sexes, gay men share similar characteristics with heterosexual women – including the index finger to ring finger <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9171-6">length ratio</a> and certain aspects of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2003.07.003">bone structure</a>. These are characteristics that appear to be influenced by in utero exposure to androgens and other aspects of the amniotic environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77979/original/image-20150414-24642-nhpmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The prenatal environment can have lasting implications for life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/justbecause/319281356">Bonbon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, it is no small step to get from learning about how genes and prenatal exposures affect the development of a fetus’s later sexual desires, to determining how we can manipulate those desires in adolescents or adults. But as the ethicists <a href="http://philpapers.org/rec/DECPEA">Decamp and Buchanan</a> have pointed out, it is important to “explore a range of possible issues, some of which may not arise, than to be overtaken by events owing to the failure to think ahead.”</p>
<p>So what does thinking ahead about high-tech conversion therapy tell us?</p>
<p>Put simply, the more we learn about the biological processes that underlie sexual orientation, the more likely it is that someone will figure out how to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">influence</a> those processes directly. </p>
<h2>I can’t change, even if I tried?</h2>
<p>The advent of high-tech conversion therapy would be disastrous for the “born this way” gay rights movement.</p>
<p>This movement uses a variety of evidence, such as the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1991.01810360053008">twin studies mentioned above</a>, as well as the <a href="http://www.apa.org/about/policy/sexual-orientation.aspx">inefficacy</a> of Christian conversion camps, to argue that being gay is biological and – hence – unchangeable. If one is born gay, <a href="http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/01/can-you-be-gay-by-choice/">this argument runs</a>, then one cannot change this fact anymore than one can change one’s height or skin color. This is an idea that has been movingly expressed in the chorus of a recent pop song by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. As the singer says, “I can’t change, even if I tried, even if I wanted to.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hlVBg7_08n0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Same Love is another popular song supportive of all types of love.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This has become a lynchpin in the fight for gay rights. “Since I can’t change who I am,” many gay people have argued, “it isn’t fair to discriminate against me.” On this kind of view, sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic like race – a highly protected category. Yet if biotechnologies of the future do allow people to change their sexual orientations, then the gay rights movement would lose one of its central arguments. </p>
<p>So we think that better arguments are needed – and ones that are not dependent on the current state of technology. Surely, we don’t want to say that if sexual orientation <em>could</em> be changed, it would be therefore OK to discriminate against people who identify as gay!</p>
<p>There are two avenues of response worth considering. First, we can develop – and enforce – strict legal measures to prevent the (future) use of high-tech conversion therapies on children and other minors. As <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2013.863242">one of us has argued</a>, “When it comes to protecting vulnerable children from the misuse of love- or sexuality-altering technologies, the strong arm of the law could go a long way” in reducing the potential for harm. </p>
<p>Second, we can take a closer look at our concepts about <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11384105/Make_Me_Gay_Neurointerventions_on_Sexual_Orientation">what it means to be gay</a> in the first place, and ask whether being “born this way” is actually necessary to defend against discrimination. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77980/original/image-20150414-24615-11hlaeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-gay discrimination typically takes a different form than what was once common around race.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/32278094@N04/3017185035">shizzy0</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Changeability and discrimination</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-prison-gay-choice">notorious interview</a> recorded earlier this year, Ben Carson, a Republican physician (and possible 2016 presidential candidate), was asked if he thought that being gay is a choice. He answered, “absolutely,” with the implication being that this could be a reason for failing to extend marriage rights to homosexual couples.</p>
<p>Progressive commentators were outraged. In a typical line of response, they took issue with Carson’s empirical claim: being gay <em>isn’t</em> a choice, <a href="http://time.com/3733480/ben-carson-gay-choice-science/">they insisted</a>, often pointing to studies that seem to show a biological basis for sexual orientation.</p>
<p>But there are at least two problems with this kind of reaction. First, it mixes up “being gay” (which is a question of how one self-identifies, and therefore something about which individuals <em>do</em> have some <a href="http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/01/can-you-be-gay-by-choice/">measure of choice</a>) with “having a same-sex sexual orientation” (in other words, being predominately or exclusively attracted to members of the same sex), only the latter of which is – currently – largely outside of one’s control. But why should we think that a person’s sexuality has to be unchangeable in the first place in order to serve as a basis for equal rights? The activist and author Dan Savage has pointed out the flaws in this line of thinking: </p>
<p>“[R]eligious conservatives knock on doors,” <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/03/04/21827375/republican-idiot-being-gay-is-a-choice-and-prison-proves-it">he writes</a>, “distribute pamphlets, proselytize, and evangelize all over the country in an effort to get people to do what? To change their religions. To choose a different faith.” In other words: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[F]aith – religious belief – is not an immutable characteristic. You can change your faith. And yet religious belief is covered by civil rights laws and anti-discrimination statutes…. The only time you hear that a trait has to be immutable in order to qualify for civil rights protections is when [conservatives] talk about [being] gay.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77981/original/image-20150414-24654-smid56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How would the ability to change sexual orientation change what it means to be gay?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/70flats/4926953521">Flats!</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Choice and equality</h2>
<p>Savage is right: if it’s unjust to discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs, which – while not necessarily immutable – are certainly central to many people’s sense of self as well as how they engage with the world, then it’s also unjust to discriminate against people because of their innermost sexual desires and orientation (whether these turn out to be immutable or not).</p>
<p>The lesson here is that “choice” is not the point. Whether you’re gay, straight, bisexual – or whether you reject such simplistic labels altogether – you should be free to form consensual relationships with whomsoever you please. And so long as the state is involved in regulating marriage, it should not be allowed to deny its citizens equal treatment before the law, whatever their orientation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Current conversion therapies can’t effectively switch someone’s sexual orientation. But there could be a time down the road when neuroscience can do what they can’t. Where does that leave gay rights?Andrew Vierra, Neurophilosophy Graduate Student, Georgia State UniversityBrian D Earp, Research Associate in Science and Ethics, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/331202015-01-23T12:51:03Z2015-01-23T12:51:03ZExplainer: what is sexual fluidity?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69616/original/image-20150121-29751-f2qe5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Love is blind.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pyty</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sexual preferences are not set in stone and can change over time, often depending on the immediate situation the individual is in. This has been described as <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032262">sexual fluidity</a>. For example, if someone identifies as heterosexual but then finds themselves in an environment with only people of the same gender, they might feel increased sexual or romantic attraction to those same-gender partners. Like any other social trait, sexual preferences, attitudes, behaviours and identity can be flexible to some degree. </p>
<p>Another related concept, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10825779">erotic plasticity</a>, is defined as change in people’s sexual expression – that is, attitudes, preferences and behaviour. In other words, someone’s sexual response can fluctuate depending on their surrounding environment.</p>
<p>Simply because change occurs does not mean that women’s, or men’s, sexuality is strange, or, as has been argued in <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/09/26/why_the_sexual_fluidity_trope_is_sexism_in_disguise.html">Slate</a>, “confusing, mysterious, or overly complicated”. </p>
<p>Some people have been upset by researchers who study “sexual fluidity”, because the use of the term “variability” in the English language is a synonym for “erraticism” and “capriciousness”, which when used to describe women, can sound sexist. But a careful reading of the scientific literature reveals that there is no implication of women being any more puzzling than men when discussing sexuality.</p>
<h2>Not the same as bisexuality</h2>
<p>Most people would say they have a sexual orientation. But the degree to which a person is sexually fluid is a separate variable that operates alongside sexual orientation. Some people are highly fluid, while others are less so.</p>
<p>Sexual fluidity can occur in people who are definitively heterosexual or homosexual, but simply experience a change in their sexual response. For example, you may have a preference for a more feminine type of person, but then discover someone who pushes your buttons in a new and exciting way. You may still prefer partners of the same gender with the same feminine leanings as before, but with more masculine features.</p>
<p>Or maybe you crave a different type of sex. Consider a person who usually wants only missionary-position sex with one partner but then moves to a different environment where others around have multiple partners and engage in more adventurous sex acts, and now wants to engage in them. That person has also experienced sexual plasticity.</p>
<p>Bisexuality is defined as the romantic or sexual attraction to other people who identify as either male or female (“bi” meaning two genders). If you ask people who identify as straight, but then have sex with someone else of the same gender, this experience does not necessarily make them “bisexual”, but it does make them sexually fluid.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/401478.article">Research by Lisa Diamond</a> contains examples of women who identify as predominantly heterosexual in their lives, but find themselves falling deeply in love with one particular woman, while continuing to identify as straight. It does not mean these women are bisexual. They have developed such infatuation only for an individual person who happens to be of the same gender.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10825779">Longitudinal research</a> shows that people sometimes change their sexual orientation. This is a very important point, because it means that we can’t lump everything together and call it “bisexuality.” It would be counterproductive to label all of these different behaviours “bisexual,” because it would impede scientific research on the true origins and varieties of sexual orientation, as well as sexual outcomes and expressions.</p>
<p>Also, romantic bonding is fundamentally different from sexual desire. In the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12585809">words</a> of Diamond, “one can fall in love without experiencing sexual desire”. </p>
<h2>Men vs women</h2>
<p>If you look at the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10825779">data</a>, a picture starts to emerge that women as a group tend to be more sexually fluid than men. For example, lesbian-identifying women are significantly more likely to have heterosexual sex compared to gay-identifying men having heterosexual sex. Heterosexual women are significantly more likely to have consensual sex with female partners in prisons compared to heterosexual men in prison. </p>
<p>But certainly these are statistical associations that are entirely relative, and the results say nothing about all women or all men. There are many men and women who show no signs of sexual fluidity at all. </p>
<p>There is some <a href="http://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2014/2/24/women-arent-the-only-ones-who-are-sexually-fluidmen-have-a-pretty-flexible-sexuality-too">recent work</a> that addresses male sexual fluidity. Consider <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story%3Fid=2465177">a 2006 study</a> that asked men to report their sexual experiences over the past 12 months. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16983129">Results</a> showed that among men who had sex with men, a higher percentage identified as “straight” compared to “gay,” and almost none identified as bisexual. This may be another example of male sexual fluidity.</p>
<p>Human sexuality is not supposed to be simple and straightforward. If psychologists claimed that people’s levels of introversion or neuroticism – two of the “Big Five” personality traits – fluctuate over time, that would perhaps seem intuitively obvious and uncontroversial. But because we are talking about sexual variables, some may assume they are stable over time. That, however, is an unscientific way of looking at the subject.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Selterman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sexual preferences are not set in stone and can change over time, often depending on the immediate situation the individual is in. This has been described as sexual fluidity. For example, if someone identifies…Dylan Selterman, Lecturer, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/259372014-05-09T10:05:29Z2014-05-09T10:05:29ZWe need a new sexuality education – and all schools should have to teach it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48081/original/36mcrcfz-1399563136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Section 28? Never heard of it. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lewishamdreamer/3689853042/sizes/l">lewishamdreamer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/section-28style-bans-on-promoting-homosexuality-on-the-rise-in-uk-schools-teachers-say-9275422.html">reports</a> have suggested that Section 28-style bans on the promotion of homosexuality are on the rise in UK schools, causing concern among teachers’ unions. </p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/2013/08/19/bha-identifies-44-schools-that-continue-to-have-section-28-like-policies/">research</a> by the British Humanist Association in 2013, a small minority of schools have been using an out-of-date policy template for sex education, harking back to the Section 28 clause introduced in the 1988 Local Government Act which forbade schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality. The clause was overturned in Scotland in 2000 and in the rest of the UK in 2003. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether the schools intended to have such a policy, it is a serious concern that schools could forbid “the promotion of homosexuality” in contemporary Britain. While it seems that only a marginal number of schools actually have such a policy – and most did so inadvertently – the incident highlights issues around the school system and sex education more generally.</p>
<h1>No return to Section 28</h1>
<p>It is first important to recognise that we are not returning to a Section 28 era. The vast majority of schools have anti-bullying policies that condemn homophobic bullying and equalities policies that protect sexual orientation and gender identity – as required by Ofsted and the 2010 Equalities Act.</p>
<p>With the introduction of <a href="https://theconversation.com/same-sex-marriage-once-more-down-the-aisle-but-now-is-the-time-to-celebrate-24995">same-sex marriage</a> this year, homophobic perspectives are no longer enshrined in English law. Furthermore, the majority of those schools that were found to be in contravention of these requirements swiftly altered their <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/2013/08/21/schools-remove-section-28-like-policies/">policies</a>.</p>
<p>The response to this debate is also instructive of improving attitudes toward homosexuality. Whereas Section 28 was popular among members of the public and politicians at the time, there has been an outcry related to the return of similar policies, with senior politicians across all major parties <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-return-of-section-28-schools-and-academies-practising-homophobic-policy-that-was-outlawed-under-tony-blair-8775249.html">condemning</a> them. </p>
<p>Conservative ministers state that homophobic bullying is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLB3_3pMne0">unacceptable</a> and the government has recently funded a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/homophobic-bullying-in-schools-project-gets-underway">large-scale project</a> to combat homophobic, bi-phobic and trans-phobic bullying in schools.</p>
<h2>Different rules for different schools</h2>
<p>Yet while we are not approaching a return of Section 28-style prohibitions, two key implications deserve further scrutiny.</p>
<p>There is an inherent problem in having a segmented educational system under which some schools are compelled to teach sex education and others are not. </p>
<p>At the moment, maintained secondary schools <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sex-and-relationship-education">must teach sex education</a> with a curriculum that includes information about puberty, anatomy, reproduction, and HIV and AIDS, in a manner that promotes inclusive attitudes and supports diversity. Maintained schools are also encouraged to teach these topics within a context of relationships and social interaction.</p>
<p>However, academies, free schools and faith schools <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN06103/sex-and-relationship-education-in-schools">are currently exempt from these laws</a>, and they have a great deal of freedom on how to teach sex education. </p>
<p>In addition to polling <a href="http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/117450/faith-schools-must-teach-sex-say-82">evidence</a> showing that this policy is opposed by the public, it cannot be acceptable that a child’s education about sex and relationships is determined by the chance factor of what type of school they attend. </p>
<p>Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are not able to select a school based on the type of sex education that is available. It is essential that all schools protect and support their sexual minority students.</p>
<h2>New curriculum needed</h2>
<p>While it is vital that sex education is taught in schools, it is also evident that the sex education that we currently have is not fit for purpose. With this in mind, <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/education-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/pshe-and-sre-in-schools/">a national inquiry into sex and relationships education in schools</a> has just been launched by parliament. </p>
<p>The recommendations of this inquiry must, however, move beyond a “prevention and plumbing” model of sex education that is based upon a medicalised framework of risk, where sex is seen as risky and sexuality an inherent threat to a fanciful notion of childhood innocence. </p>
<p>It is not enough, for example, for a new sex education curriculum to simply include discussion of porn and sexting, and how to navigate the supposed dangers of these phenomena. Rather, it needs to recognise the pleasurable aspects of sex, sexuality and desire, in a manner that does not solely measure the risks of sexual activity without acknowledging the rewards. </p>
<p>But more than this, we need to move beyond sex education to sexuality education that engages with the centrality of sexuality to social life. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to episodes of Eastenders, and from Rihanna’s latest single to a Tchaikovsky symphony, we are more rounded, fully realised people when we are able to engage with sexuality in a mature and sophisticated manner. </p>
<p>We are no longer in a world of straight and gay, but one where sexual diversity incorporates bisexuals, transgender people, <a href="http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/mostly-straight/">mostly straights</a>, and many more. In contemporary Britain, we know that a return to Section 28 would be pernicious and akin to the homophobia of Putin’s Russia. The next step is for us to realise that open and informed discussion of sexuality benefits us all – and that such education needs to start at school.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark McCormack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent reports have suggested that Section 28-style bans on the promotion of homosexuality are on the rise in UK schools, causing concern among teachers’ unions. Based on research by the British Humanist…Mark McCormack, Lecturer in Sociology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.