Carving sexuality at its joints: Defining sexual orientation in research and clinical practice.

Abstract

In this article, we review basic research on sexual orientation for a clinical scientist-practitioner audience. We present contemporary and evolving approaches to defining and measuring sexual orientation, and we provide suggestions for how to translate psychological theory into best practices (i.e., how to select appropriate sexuality measures in both research and clinical settings). Our focus is on evaluating currently available measures of sexual orientation in terms of comprehensiveness and feasibility: How thoroughly are components of sexuality captured and how feasible it is to use such measures in research and clinical settings? Basic research in sexuality has progressed beyond our current clinical practices and should be used as a guide to more responsibly conceptualize participants and clients. While we determine that the current options are far from perfect, the critical clinician will find that contemporary measures of sexual orientation prove more useful than more simplistic predecessors. This review will elucidate best strategies for translating sexual orientation research and theory into clinical practice and provide clinicians and researchers alike with theoretically grounded support for tools of measurement and assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record

A National Survey of Social Justice Engagement Among Professional Counselors

“…The only demographic variable predictive of more social justice engagement was identifying as a member of the LGBTQ community. Interpretation of these data should be treated with caution as the LGBTQ community is often treated erroneously as a monolithic, homogeneous group (Salomaa & Matsick, 2019). Nonetheless, it makes intuitive sense that identification as a member of the LGBTQ community would increase social justice engagement given the recency of major judicial decisions conferring access to equal rights (e.g., Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015) and current administrative policies attempting to remove such rights (e.g., for individuals who identify as part of the trans community; Directive‐Type Memorandum‐19‐004, 2019).…”

Do same-sex unions dissolve more often than different-sex unions? Methodological insights from Colombian data on sexual behavior

“…This is congruent with previous research that has shown that sexual identities go beyond the options offered in most surveys, including identities that acknowledge gender as a non-binary characteristic, and that the meanings of specific labels vary across socioeconomic status and ethnicity (Goldberg et al 2020;Kim and Fredriksen-Goldsen 2013;Ridolfo, Miller, and Maitland 2012;Viteri, Serrando, and Vidal-Ortíz 2011). In addition, sexual identity changes over time (Katz-Wise et al 2016;Salomaa and Matsick 2019), which complicates combining cross-sectional sexual identity measures with retrospective information on relationships.…”

“…The DHS also contains information on sexual identity, measured by the question "Are you heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual? ", but, as discussed later, many individuals identifying as a sexual minority do not identify with these labels (Salomaa and Matsick 2019;Viteri, Serrando, and Vidal-Ortíz 2011). Therefore, this measure of sexual identity is likely to exclude an important share of individuals who had a same-sex union.…”

Response to Comment on “Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior”

“…For future genetic research on sexuality, if the phenotypic measure does not reflect the structure of the underlying genetic influences, then the precision and accuracy of the findings will be impaired. For this reason, we, like others [e.g., (3)(4)(5)(7)(8)(9)], suggest that sexual attraction, behavior, and feelings toward men and women be measured separately in future research.…”