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Abstract: This paper presents an invitation to feminist and queer sociology to engage more frequently, enthusiastically, and deeply with animals. Feminist and queer sociology that attend to animals and animality stand to develop better knowledge for animals and animal studies and for women, queers, and feminist and queer sociology. Sociologists working from feminist and queer perspectives are also particularly well‐positioned within the discipline of sociology to contribute to and take advantage of the insights of the field of feminist animal studies. After a brief review of what feminist animal studies is, I proceed through three steps to elaborate the imperative for feminist and queer sociology to consider animals. First, I show how feminist animal studies as a theoretical perspective engages with issues that are core to feminist and queer sociology. Second, I center intersectional feminism and lay out how incorporating species can and does enhance our understanding of intersectional processes. Third, I present an ethical call, grounded in the traditions of feminist ethics and ecofeminism, to attend to species in feminist and queer sociology.

This article advances scholarship on the relationship between sexuality, religion, and the law within the United States by analyzing case summaries and court opinions of the federal appellate cases decided between 1990 and 2020 that involve a religion-based claim being used to advance or defend gay and lesbian rights. Contrary to dominant public narratives that position religion uniformly in opposition to progressive sexual values, these cases show how Americans' religious beliefs and practices include diverse sexual identities. We find that the courts' reactions to such cases, however, illustrate the tension within legal discourse and hesitancy for the courts to equate religious and moral values with affirming LGBT identities, people, and rights. Our findings suggest that the courts and litigants define what religion is—and what it is not—by positioning it in relation to sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of groups on the free speech social media platform Gab that were intended to be LGBTQ+-friendly but became spaces of queerphobia. Results indicate that Gab users deployed discourses of difference to situate the platform as heteronormative and to denigrate the LGBTQ+ community. In particular, discourses utilized in the name of free speech were used to establish LGBTQ+ individuals as abominations, undergird hegemonic masculinity, and marginalize queer folk by reducing them to sex acts and sex organs. This study provides a better understanding of the (in)efficacy of "free speech" as a content moderation policy and unpacks how anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech spreads in digital spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the linguistic representations and perceptions of the words queer and kväär within the Estonian LGBT community. The study delves into the evolution of LGBT vocabulary in Estonian, focusing on how kväär, the equivalent of the English queer, is perceived and used. Using corpus analysis and an online survey among the LGBT community, the research reveals nuanced attitudes toward kväär in Estonia. The corpus data shows shifts in usage frequencies of LGBT related words that reflect societal debates. The word kväär is multifaceted, used in various contexts, and represents intentional resistance to societal norms or expectations. It also serves as a lens for observing phenomena from a non-conformist perspective. Additionally, it marks membership in the LGBT community without necessitating a specific critical context. The online survey results show diverse attitudes towards the word kväär among the LGBT community, with a slight tendency towards negative interpretations. Gender and age were identified as significant factors shaping attitudes, with non-binary individuals and those under 30 generally expressing more positive views. Thematic analysis of the survey responses uncovers underlying themes and sentiments associated with the word kväär, elucidating various ways in which it is conceptualized and employed within the community. Themes that surfaced in the survey show the complexities and multifaceted nature of kväär as a linguistic construct, shedding light on its role in identity formation and community dynamics within the Estonian LGBT context.

Sexual minority individuals often have complicated relationships with conservative religion, including conflicts between their sexual and religious identities. Sexual minority members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (CJCLDS) experience unique struggles, given the policies and doctrine of the CJCLDS and its commitment to heteronormative family structures and gender roles. A better understanding of the identity development trajectory for sexual minority individuals formerly involved in the church can deepens our understanding of sexual identity development in constrained contexts and help promote successful identity integration within this subpopulation. Transcripts from semi-structured interviews with thirty-four sexual minority individuals who identified as former members of the CJCLDS were analyzed using an inductive thematic approach, followed by a deductive theory-building process in which Cass's Homosexual Identity Formation Model and Genia's Religious Identity Development Model were overlaid on themes. We present a model that captures the trajectory of sexual and religious identity development that captures the experiences of sexual minority adults within the constraints of the CJCLDS, a non-affirming religious denomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the linguistic representations and perceptions of the words queer and kväär within the Estonian LGBT community. The study delves into the evolution of LGBT vocabulary in Estonian, focusing on how kväär, the equivalent of the English queer, is perceived and used. Using corpus analysis and an online survey among the LGBT community, the research reveals nuanced attitudes toward kväär in Estonia. The corpus data shows shifts in usage frequencies of LGBT related words that reflect societal debates. The word kväär is multifaceted, used in various contexts, and represents intentional resistance to societal norms or expectations. It also serves as a lens for observing phenomena from a non-conformist perspective. Additionally, it marks membership in the LGBT community without necessitating a specific critical context. The online survey results show diverse attitudes towards the word kväär among the LGBT community, with a slight tendency towards negative interpretations. Gender and age were identified as significant factors shaping attitudes, with non-binary individuals and those under 30 generally expressing more positive views. Thematic analysis of the survey responses uncovers underlying themes and sentiments associated with the word kväär, elucidating various ways in which it is conceptualized and employed within the community. Themes that surfaced in the survey show the complexities and multifaceted nature of kväär as a linguistic construct, shedding light on its role in identity formation and community dynamics within the Estonian LGBT context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals generally hold multiple, and sometimes stereotypically contrasted, group memberships which may change depending on uncontrollable contextual factors. For instance, if someone is a foreigner, there exist certain social stereotypes regarding their nationality which may influence others' conceptualizations. However, how might an intersection of memberships, such as being both foreign and gay, affect natives' perceptions of them when these stereotypes may not converge? Across four experiments, the stereotypes attributed to generalized and specific groups were examined to better understand intersectional prototypicalities. Results indicated certain cases in which immigrants may be "de-immigrantized", or, perceived as less stereotypically immigrant. More specifically, Portuguese participants viewed gay immigrants as less prototypically immigrant, but did not view lesbian immigrants as less prototypically immigrant, bringing into question the complexity of double minority conceptualizations. Additionally, individuals from nationalities with a higher perceived percentage of gays or lesbians in their population (e.g., Brazil and France) were generally viewed as less prototypically immigrant than individuals from nationalities with a lower perceived percentage of gays or lesbians in their population (e.g., India and Japan). Conclusions provide support for intersectional theories and yield additional insights into the categorization of multiple minority groups on the basis of sexuality and nationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What's on the gay (legal) agenda? This study addresses this question by examining the press releases of national LGBT legal advocacy organizations in response to both new opportunities, after decisions such as U.S. v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), and significant challenges such as the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and his subsequent conservative judicial appointments. Using original data from more than 2,800 press releases filed by the largest LGBT legal advocacy organizations from 2010 to 2019, we analyze the LGBT legal agenda and explore how it evolved throughout this period in reaction to changes in the legal opportunity structure. We find that LGBT legal advocacy organizations are strategic and adapt their agendas to shifts in their legal opportunities to achieve social movement goals. Specifically, we find that after marriage equality was achieved, significant shifts in the legal opportunity structure, including conservative countermobilization and new cultural and legal frames, placed transgender rights at the top of the LGBT legal agenda. These findings shed light on the politics of LGBT legal advocacy organizations, provide insight into LGBT politics after Obergefell, and contribute to our understanding of how legal advocacy organizations respond to changing legal opportunities in social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

eHealth is promoted as a viable platform for health service provision, as it can deliver relevant information instantaneously and anonymously, whilst circumventing geographical and discriminatory barriers that can occur in face-to-face settings. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) communities stand to benefit greatly from eHealth services, however, the way in which culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) LGBTIQ+ users are included within eHealth service provision is currently unknown. The current study observed the way in which Australian LGBTIQ+ health service websites are inclusive of CALD users. Quantitative content analysis was performed on 19 Australian LGBTIQ+ health service websites, with a focus on translation of services and materials, English and digital literacy, and CALD specific resources. Results showed limited translated information across all websites, an absence of translation tools embedded in the home page, as well as moderate to high levels of digital and English literacy required, and largely absent CALD specific resources. These results suggest that Australian LGBTIQ+ health service websites are not currently meeting the unique needs of their CALD constituents. Increased availability of translation services, navigation tools, and CALD LGBTIQ+ stakeholder inclusion during website development is recommended to ensure more equitable access for CALD LGBTIQ+ communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 20 years, Québec has seen significant legislative changes that have led to an increase in the number of families with LGBTQ+ parents. Moreover, Québec has been a pioneer in recognizing LGBTQ+ families since 2002 with Bill 84. In fact, no nation had gone as far in terms of recognition. However, despite this avant-garde legal context, which has made it possible for many same-sex couples to establish their families with greater ease and recognition, unequal access to this institution still affects LGBTQ+ parents. In fact, these parents do not all experience the same realities, and the possibilities for forming a family remain complex for many, especially for trans and non-binary parents. Based on 38 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ parents, this article explores the multiple forms of families and the different experiences of oppressions these families encounter based on their different social locations. These data are part of the important SAVIE-LGBTQ research partnership (SSHRC 2016–2023), which aims to identify the different experiences of inclusion and exclusion encountered by LGBTQ+ communities in Québec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article has two objectives. The first is to describe the procedures, characteristics, and, above all, the rationalities present in three Chilean State institutions in matters of filiation. The second is to analyze how these rationalities impact families that are not represented in public policies, such as LGBTIQ+ families. Method: A documentary analysis was used. The analysis focused on official documents, freely accessible, from three public institutions, understood as local centers of experience. Specifically: (a) the Assisted Reproduction Program of the National Health Fund (FONASA); (b) the State Adoption Office "Mejor Niñez" [Better Childhood]; and (c) the Civil Registry. For the above, approaches to governmentality and post-structuralist analysis of public policies within a documentary analysis methodology were considered to be theoretical–conceptual supports. Results and analysis: The findings reveal a general lack of mention of LGBTIQ+ families and a heteronormative structure in the process of designing official documents from the State. This may exclude these families from public policies. Conclusions: It is concluded that a broader and more diverse understanding of the problems that the State should seek to represent would contribute to a greater representation of diversity in public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes how sex and gender dissidence is represented in the first season of the Mexican television series La casa de las Flores (Netflix, 2018), created and directed by Manolo Caro, which includes, among others, gay men, transvestite characters, and trans women. In the month of its premiere, the series generated an audience of 7.4 million people and became the most watched in Mexico. From the series understood as generator of the social transformations and diffuser of a discourse of normality (Carrión 2011), a Model of analysis of sex and gender dissidence from performativity and gender subversion is designed for fictional series in Spanish that allows to identify the performative acts, resistances subversive, insults and logics of power that govern gender and sexuality in a narrative system understood from the narratology postulates of Mieke Bal (1990) and observed from the theory of performativity of Judith Butler (1997, 2001, 2007, 2009). This analysis identifies that, more than a subversive example, the series is a powerful beginning in which gender-sex dissidence is represented with strong traditional and performative overtones of gender, and tenuous but powerful subversions of discourse, critical subversions, and quotidian subversions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article has two objectives. The first is to describe the procedures, characteristics, and, above all, the rationalities present in three Chilean State institutions in matters of filiation. The second is to analyze how these rationalities impact families that are not represented in public policies, such as LGBTIQ+ families. Method: A documentary analysis was used. The analysis focused on official documents, freely accessible, from three public institutions, understood as local centers of experience. Specifically: (a) the Assisted Reproduction Program of the National Health Fund (FONASA); (b) the State Adoption Office “Mejor Niñez” [Better Childhood]; and (c) the Civil Registry. For the above, approaches to governmentality and post-structuralist analysis of public policies within a documentary analysis methodology were considered to be theoretical–conceptual supports. Results and analysis: The findings reveal a general lack of mention of LGBTIQ+ families and a heteronormative structure in the process of designing official documents from the State. This may exclude these families from public policies. Conclusions: It is concluded that a broader and more diverse understanding of the problems that the State should seek to represent would contribute to a greater representation of diversity in public policies.

Women's Studies is first introduced in Indian academia in the 1970s. There are now more than 150 centres conducting research on women and gender as well as numerous teaching programmes on these topics in India. Research on sexualities and non-heterosexual identities and practices, while less developed, also emerged in the 1990s. As in any academic field, research on Women's Studies, gender, and sexuality has been marked by epistemic debates, in particular "terminology debates" (i.e., debates about the proper concepts for discussing gender and sexuality in India). Using a corpus of academic texts, course syllabi, and other academic documents as well as 15 interviews with academics involved in Women's Studies, Gender Studies, and/or research on sexuality in India, this article examines two of these terminology debates. The first concerns the use of the term "Gender Studies" rather than "Women's Studies", and the second looks at the relevance of terms such as LGBT and queer to designate non-heterosexual individuals, groups, and practices. In both debates the question of North/South domination and (post)colonialism are central and are also connected to issues of gender, class, and caste domination. Moreover, both debates question the link between academia and feminist/LGBT/queer activism. This article shows that the process of defining the subject of academic knowledge is highly political and embedded in complex power dynamics that are both localized and globalized. It also highlights the epistemic creativity of the knowledge produced in India to discuss women, gender, and non-heterosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial

Previous scholarship on queer youth in small town and rural educational contexts has primarily documented educators' perspectives and experiences of youth victimization. Drawing from a broader, interview-based teacher inquiry project, I extend this research by considering a queer youth's voice and agency. Using queer theorizations of time and space, I examine the telling case of Sylvia, a queer young woman in a semi-rural, small Midwestern US town. Through her participation in the educational context of an interdenominational Christian youth group, she experienced pedagogical encounters that helped her challenge and reconfigure normative constructions of time, space, and queerness, which facilitated movement toward greater healthiness and happiness, even as she reproduced racial and class normativities through a politics of respectability. Sylvia's experiences suggest the need to attend to heterogeneity and agency in working with queer rural youth and the importance of considering constructions of time, space, and queerness in queer-inclusive curricular texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is at the global forefront in providing legal recognition to queer parents. To date, three of its ten provinces (British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan) will grant parental status to three or more intentional parents and enable their identification on birth registration. All provinces and territories permit the registration of an “other parent” on birth registration, and all jurisdictions enable queer couples to adopt. Notably, these legislative accomplishments have not attracted a great deal of political resistance. The relatively slow process of reforming parentage law to adapt to same-sex marriage and common law relationships, favourable court rulings, and the combination of the need to address parentage in situations involving both assisted reproduction and queer families have been significant factors in the Canadian story. Moreover, the terms of the legal provisions continue to rely largely on conjugality and biology as the basis of parentage claims. These developments have clearly been important for some queer families, but they exist within fairly conventional parameters, begging the question as to how queer Canada’s parentage recognition really is.

Introduction Despite several recent studies documenting high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among gay and bisexual men (GBM), the literature is silent regarding GBM’s perceptions of IPV within their community. We examine GBM’s perceptions of same-sex IPV: its commonness, its severity, and the helpfulness of a hypothetical police response to a GBM experiencing IPV.Methods: We drew data from a 2011 survey of venue-recruited GBM (n¼989). Respondents were asked to describe the commonness of IPV, severity of IPV, and helpfulness of a hypothetical police response to IPV among GBM and among heterosexual women. We fitted a logistic model for the outcome of viewing the police response to a gay/bisexual IPV victim as less helpful than for a female heterosexual IPV victim. The regression model controlled for age, race/ethnicity, education, sexual orientation, employment status, and recent receipt of physical, emotional, and sexual IPV, with key covariates being internalized homophobia and experiences of homophobic discrimination.Results: The majority of respondents viewed IPV among GBM as common (54.9%) and problematic(63.8%). While most respondents had identical perceptions of the commonness (82.7%) and severity (84.1%) of IPV in GBM compared to heterosexual women, the majority of the sample (59.1%) reported perceiving that contacting the police would be less helpful for a GBM IPV victim than for a heterosexual female IPV victim. In regression, respondents who reported more lifetime experiences of homophobic discrimination were more likely to have this comparatively negative perception (odds ratio: 1.11, 95% confidence interval: 1.06, 1.17).Conclusion: The results support a minority stress hypothesis to understand GBM’s perceptions of police helpfulness in response to IPV. While IPV was viewed as both common and problematic among GBM, their previous experiences of homophobia were correlated with a learned anticipation of rejection and stigma from law enforcement. As the response to same-sex IPV grows, legal and health practitioners should ensure that laws and policies afford all protections to GBM IPV victims that are afforded to female IPV victims, and should consider methods to minimize the negative impact that homophobic stigma has upon GBM’s access of police assistance. [West J Emerg Med. 2013;14(4):354–362.]

Fashion, Identity, Performance, and Culture: The Queer Studies Conference 2011, a two day event organized by the UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender program, succeeded in creating an intellectually stimulating, aesthetically pleasing, and singular experience. The organizers of this year’s conference chose to focus on concepts, practices, aesthetics, and ideas about fashion from the LGBT perspective.

In recent years, in Spain, several juridical and political measures have been deployed against which has been tagged as «hate crimes». The aim of these initiatives has been to try to put a stop to discrimination towards certain social groups particularly vulnerable, which are the object of different forms of violence, as is the case of lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual people (LGBT), among others. In this article, these measures are analysed from a social perspective which problematises the limits of juridical conceptions of hate crimes, in the sense that they tend to individualise social practices rooted in the social and cultural Spanish (and European) model. In it we critically reflect upon the juridical report as a favourite measure to face anti-LGBT violence, and finally we discuss the limitations in the forms of assistance of anti-LGBT people hate crime victims. For this reason, we carried out a qualitative research based in 28 in depth interviews to LGBT people as well as stakeholders, as well as two focus groups.

The two leading scholars for gender and queer studies, Susan Stryker, Associate Professor in the Gender Studies Program at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Kara Keeling, Associate Professor in the Critical Studies Program of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, were the featured speakers in the plenary session of this year's UCLA Queer Studies Conference. Organized by UCLA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program the annual conference showcases a rich variety of queer research and provides a chance for students, faculty and independent researchers to share work and insights. Stryker and Keeling were critical of existing paradigms or ontologies but were also optimistic, engaging with the liminal spaces of queer- and trans- potentialities situated within a broader context of current political and social discourses concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.

My group learned how current media creates problematic and often harmful stereotypes that are essentially harmful to the community. Our group decided that the central topic of our project, "Inside the Digital Closet" would be the misrepresentations of queer people in the corporate mass media. We wanted to distinguish what it means to be queer, queer theory and LBGT (Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Gay and Transgendered)

The objective of this study is to enlarge the concept of translation with the theoretical basis of the proposals from Edwin Gentzler's "post-translation studies" (2017) and Susan Bassnett's "outward turn" (2017). These contributions represent a turning point in the field of translation studies due to the opportunities they present to discover new discursive limits in the rewriting process. Based on this extended concept of translation, this article analyzes the body as a text which is determined by acts of rewriting and, at the same time, as a subversive element that allows us to bring into question the social and cultural rules that define the normativity of sexuality. This article refers to feminist currents including LGBTIQ studies and queer theory, in order to build the necessary theoretical structure to analyze the power of (translated) discourses in the construction of the body and its sexuality. Finally, this article applies this proposal to the analyses of specific cases of non-normative bodies so as to observe the power and the influence of translation on the definition and classification of sexual identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This dossier seeks to make the Indian Caribbean more visible and more pertinent to critical debates within Caribbean discourses. Few studies have undertaken serious analyses of Indian Caribbean creative expression, and most ignore the newness and complex fusions that characterize music, dance, and visual cultures in the postindenture diaspora. We endeavor to nuance conversations around marginalized Caribbean cultural production and multilocal identity, understanding the arts as useful historical archives. An overview of Indian indentureship precedes the presentation of the articles, which provide deep analyses that critically address these issues: how Indian identity is expressed and debated in performative and artistic practices, including LGBTQ challenges to categories of race and gender; what comparative analyses reveal about continuity, change, and exchange across the Indian Caribbean diaspora; how racial and cultural alterities are resolved within an African "creole" and/or multicultural framework; and how orientations to India, citizenship, and transnational belonging are expressed and processed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big cities have become the preeminent area for studies on sexual and gender diversity. Major Western cities dominate the panorama of stories, discourses and practices regarding sexual and gender diversity in urban studies. However, many LGBT people reside outside of large cities. This paper intends to challenge the hegemony of the 'big city' as the intrinsic center of production of discourse on what is meant by 'LGBT' and to analyze how social relationships among LGBT people emerge in the environment of a medium-sized city. To this end, ethnographic research, including interviews and participant observation, was conducted for my research. One of the main conclusions from this work is that, despite the fact that big cities play a dominant role in the construction of LGBT lifestyles, aspirations and desires, there are other LGBT narratives outside of big cities that deserve to be considered in order to provide a more complex and nuanced understanding of sexual and gender diversity. This research challenges the assumption that LGBT life outside the big city is associated with isolation, loneliness and discomfort, as we demonstrate that many LGBT people who live outside the big city are content about their everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questo numero di “Fuori Luogo” si apre con due saggi sul tema della comunità omosessuale. Sono sempre più numerosi e diffusi i lavori sociologici su Gay, Lesbiche, Bisessuali e Transessuali. Persone le cui identità, rivendicazioni e peculiarità si compongono e ricompongono nell’acronimo LGBT. I primi due saggi della nostra rivista offrono alle lettrici e ai lettori la risposta ad alcune delle domande sociologiche poste sulla comunità LGBT in tema di consumi culturali, attraverso dati inediti di ricerca su campo. Il contributo di Roberta Bartoletti e Lorenzo Giannini inaugura la sezione tematica con un saggio, di taglio empirico, sul turismo LGBT. Vengono presentati i dati di un’indagine esplorativa su giovani turisti italiani omosessuali, finalizzata a raccogliere narrazioni delle loro esperienze di viaggio con una focalizzazione su opportunità e limiti di un’inclusione sociale delle identità di genere non eterosessuali mediata dal mercato. Viene restituito un quadro delle pratiche di consumo, messe in atto dalle persone omosessuali che intrecciano rappresentazioni sociali dell’omosessualità e stigma, comportamenti autodiretti e prassi comportamentali che connotano talune differenze negli stili di viaggio e di vacanza delle persone omosessuali rispetto ai comportamenti della popolazione mainstream. [...]

Our article tackles gender and sexual diversity scholarship in Colombia and Perú, two countries without institutionalized LGBT studies programs. By analyzing the impact of literary works in Perú and an annual conference in Colombia's capital, we show how LGBT-related scholarship (and activism) has been advanced in these Andean countries with tactful maneuvering, as they offset contemporary violence—and a strong religious influence. Our comparison allows us to showcase two of the most common ways through which these countries have engaged in LGBT research and activism. This region-centered, dual-country approach underscores the broader need of researching and documenting these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asks, What are the material conditions under which queer studies is done in the academy? It finds a longstanding association of queer studies with the well-resourced, selective colleges and flagship campuses that are the drivers of class and race stratification in higher education in the U.S. That is, the field of queer studies, as a recognizable academic formation, has been structured by the material and intellectual resources of precisely those institutions that most steadfastly refuse to adequately serve poor and minority students, including poor and minority queer students. In response, "poor queer studies" calls for a critical reorientation of queer studies toward working-poor schools, students, theories, and pedagogies. Taking the College of Staten Island, CUNY as a case study, it argues for structural crossing over or "queer-class ferrying" between high-status institutions that have so brilliantly dominated queer studies' history and low-status worksites of poor queer studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the need to understand lesbian and bisexual women's vulnerability to mental health affections in connection with expressions of stigma, LGBT studies in Mexico often do not take them into consideration. Current data show that among lesbians and bisexual women, variables such as internalized homonegativity and community connectedness correlate with mental health indicators. The specific relationship between mental health outcomes, community connectedness, and stigma in the forms of internalized homonegativity, discrimination, and violence has not been explored for Mexican lesbian and bisexual women. This paper attempts to identify if this relationship exists through the participation of 150 lesbian and bisexual women who were asked to answer a survey at the annual Sexual Diversity and Pride March in Mexico City 2015. The same survey was available online; both explored internalized homonegativity, community connectedness, discrimination, violence, depression, and alcohol use and abuse. Results show that internalized homonegativity and community connectedness are the strongest predictors of mental health. These results are indicative of how lesbian and bisexual women suffer from the cognitive and emotional consequences of homonegativity in connection to mental health rather than direct discrimination and violence. Lastly, it is recommended that more research be undertaken on this relationship to find interventions that focus on the eradication of discrimination and violence against non-heterosexual women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This analysis focuses on a series of industry scandals that created a need for and the development of a lesbian story line on Grey's Anatomy (ABC, 2005–), resulting in the creation of a lesbian-focused fan group dedicated to the lesbian pairing, Erica_Callie on LiveJournal. The resulting constructed representation portrays authentic lesbian and bisexual characters on mainstream broadcast television, promising inclusion to those who identify with these characters.