This qualitative study describes the professional experiences and the perceived associations with gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity of a diverse group of primary care clinicians and clinic directors in an underserved rural and agricultural region of California.
Parenthood is an aspiration shared by a majority of U.S. adults. However, previous research has found that sexual minority adults (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual [LGB]) are less likely than heterosexual counterparts to be parents or desire to become parents in the future. To date, few studies have examined how minority stress (i.e., everyday discrimination [ED], felt stigma [FS], and internalized homophobia [IH]) influences parenting desire, parenting likelihood, and expectation a gap between the two. Even fewer studies have examined the parenting aspirations of sexual minority individuals following nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. We analyzed data from 487 childfree lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer participants from two cohorts ("equality cohort": ages 18-25; "visibility" cohort: ages 34-41) from the Generations study, a national probability sample of sexual minority adults in the United States. As expected, we found that the visibility cohort adults had significantly lower parenting desire and parenting likelihood, and a greater parenting expectation gap than the equality cohort adults. Additionally, while everyday discrimination (ED) did not predict parenting aspirations, IH and FS predicted higher parenting desire and lower parenting likelihood, respectively. We found a cohort by FS interaction such that FS predicted even lower parenting likelihood in the visibility cohort adults. Our findings contribute to a growing body of research on sexual minority parenthood and may inform community practice and clinical support for sexual minority adults who pursue parenthood.
As a fundamental aspect of the human experience, sexuality is experienced at every stage in the life span. Sexual values, behaviors, and health are important components of individual and family well‐being. Educating about such a fundamental aspect of life is both obvious and crucial. In this article, we consider the potential of sexuality education in the field and profession of family life education (FLE). We critique sexuality education in the United States and the marginal place of human sexuality in the FLE field. We then offer recommendations for incorporating life span, socioecological, family systems, and intersectionality perspectives into sexuality education, and recommendations for FLE and sexuality education research and practice. We argue that educating about sexuality in the context of FLE—and activating the profession of FLE for sexuality education—will strategically advance sexuality education, sexual health, and the field of
FLE.
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