Stacey, Lawrence. Forthcoming. “A Data Portrait of Cisgender, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming Populations in the United States: A Research Note.” Demography.
The transgender population is a critically underresearched population in the United States, owing to rare measures on national and state-level surveys that ask about sex and gender or transgender identification. Consequently, we know relatively less about the sociodemographic, socioeconomic, family, and health lives of gender minorities. In this research note, I use population-level data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to provide a data portrait of cisgender, transgender, and gender-nonconforming populations on a range of sociodemographic (e.g., sexual identity, race, ethnicity), socioeconomic (e.g., education, homeownership), family (e.g., union status), and health (e.g., number of poor mental health days) characteristics. Results reveal that gender minorities are younger than cisgender men and cisgender women and are disproportionately sexual minorities and people of color. Gender minority groups also experience lower socioeconomic status, report drastically different family lives, and bear the burden of worse health compared with cisgender people. I conclude by contending that descriptive research of this nature can illuminate compositional differences between cisgender and gender minority populations, provide rationales for adjusting for certain characteristics, and highlight potential explanatory mechanisms to make better sense of well-established findings (e.g., the transgender health disadvantage).
Stacey, Lawrence. Forthcoming. “An Updated Data Portrait of Heterosexuals, Gays/Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Other Sexual Minorities in the United States.” Social Currents.
Sexual minorities are a rapidly growing population, with recent estimates showing a two-fold increase in the percentage of sexual minorities over the past decade. Working with relatively few measures to identify sexual minorities, social scientists have amassed an impressive amount of evidence on inequality by sexuality. Despite this remarkable work, I argue that it is important to take a step back analytically and re-assess sexual minorities from a descriptive standpoint. Using population-level data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, I provide unadjusted estimates of sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and family characteristics by sexual identity. Results reveal that sexual minorities are younger, are more racially diverse, and concentrate in different parts of the country than heterosexuals. Similarly, sexual minorities have remarkably different socioeconomic lives than heterosexuals, who enjoy higher annual household incomes, achieve higher educational attainment, and are more likely to be homeowners. Sexual minorities are also less likely to be married than heterosexuals. I conclude by highlighting that descriptive research can illuminate compositional differences between sexual minorities and heterosexuals; provide rationales for adjusting for certain characteristics that might confound relationships between sexual identity and numerous outcomes; and highlight potential explanatory mechanisms to make better sense of well-established findings regarding sexual minority disadvantage.
Stacey, Lawrence, and Wes Wislar. 2023. “Physical and Mental Health Disparities at the Intersection of Sexual and Gender Minority Statuses: Evidence from Population-level Data.” Demography 60(3): 731-760.
Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) experience detriments across many physical and mental health outcomes compared with heterosexual and cisgender people. But little is known about health outcomes for those who are both gender minorities and sexual minorities. Motivated by theories of double disadvantage and leveraging advancements in data collection and measurement, we examine physical and mental health disparities across sexual and gender minority statuses: cisgender heterosexuals, gender minority heterosexuals, cisgender sexual minorities, and people who are both gender and sexual minorities. Using Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index (N = 93,144) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (N = 543,717), we estimate multivariable logistic regression models to examine how sexual and gender minority statuses are associated with poor/fair self-rated health, functional limitations, and diagnosed depression. Regression models adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics show marked physical and mental health disparities: people who are both gender and sexual minorities report greater odds of poor/fair self-rated health, functional limitations, and depression relative to cisgender heterosexuals and, in some cases, relative to gender minority heterosexuals and cisgender sexual minorities. Our results add to a growing body of research documenting the association between multiple disadvantaged statuses and health and provide novel information on SGM health disparities.
Reczek, Rin, Lawrence Stacey, and Mieke Beth Thomeer. 2023. “Parent-Adult Child Estrangement in the United States by Gender, Race/ethnicity, and Sexuality.” Journal of Marriage and Family 85(2): 494-517.
Population-level research on parent–adult child estrangement is needed to understand the full range of family dynamics in the U.S. We estimate logistic regression models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and accompanying Child and Young Adult supplement to determine estimates of estrangement (and subsequent unestrangement) from mothers (N = 8495) and fathers (N = 8119) by children's gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. We then estimate hazards of first estrangement from mothers (N = 7919) and fathers (N = 6410), adjusting for adult child's and parents' social and economic characteristics. Six percent of respondents report a period of estrangement from mothers, with an average age of first maternal estrangement of 26 years old; 26% of respondents report estrangement from fathers, with an average age of first paternal estrangement of 23 years old. Results further show heterogeneity by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality; for example, daughters are less likely to be estranged from their mothers than are sons, Black adult children are less likely than White adult children to be estranged from their mothers but more likely to be estranged from fathers, and gay, lesbian, and bisexual adult children are more likely than heterosexuals to be estranged from fathers. The majority of estranged adult children become unestranged from mothers (81%) and fathers (69%) in subsequent waves. This study provides compelling new evidence on an overlooked aspect of intergenerational relationships, concluding with insight into the structural forces that may unequally contribute to estrangement patterns.
Stacey, Lawrence, Rin Reczek, and R Spiker. 2022. “Toward a Holistic Demographic Profile of Sexual and Gender Minority Well-being.” Demography 59(4): 1403-1430.
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations experience disadvantages in physical health, mental health, and socioeconomic status relative to cisgender heterosexual populations. However, extant population research has tended to use objective measures and ignore subjective measures, examined well-being outcomes in isolation, and lacked information on less well studied but possibly more disadvantaged SGM subgroups. In this study, we use Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index, which permits identification of gay/lesbian, bisexual, queer, same-gender-loving, those who identify as more than one sexual identity, transgender men, transgender women, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. We estimate bivariate associations and ordinary least-squares regression models to examine differences along five dimensions of well-being: life purpose, residential community belonging, physical and mental health, financial well-being, and social connectedness. The results reveal that most SGM groups experience stark disadvantages relative to heterosexuals and cisgender men, which are most pronounced among bisexual, queer, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. Intergroup and intragroup variations illuminate even greater disparities in well-being than prior research has uncovered, bringing us closer to a holistic profile of SGM well-being at the population level.
Thomeer, Mieke Beth, Rin Reczek, and Lawrence Stacey. 2022. “Childbearing Biographies as a Method to Examine Diversity and Clustering of ChildbearingExperiences: A Research Brief.” Population Research and Policy Review 41(4): 1405-1415.
Due to increasing heterogeneity in if, when, and under what conditions women have children, the timing, spacing, and other demographic aspects of childbearing have drastically changed in the US over the past century. Existing science tends to examine demographic aspects of childbearing separately, creating an incomplete understanding of how childbearing patterns are distributed at the population level. In this research brief, we develop the concept of childbearing biographies to emphasize that multiple childbearing characteristics cluster together. We analyze nationally representative US data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79; N = 4052). Using eight childbearing variables (e.g., age at first birth, number of children, whether unmarried at any birth), we use Mixed-Mode Latent Class Analysis (MM-LCA) and identify five classes, or childbearing biographies: (1) early compressed childbearing, (2) staggered childbearing, (3) extended high-parity childbearing, (4) later childbearing, and (5) married planned childbearing. A childbearing biography approach highlights the increasingly heterogeneous contexts of parenthood today, showing how women with similar characteristics around one aspect of childbearing (e.g., early age at first birth) can also be highly divergent from each other when taking into consideration other childbearing characteristics. In showing this complexity, we highlight that a childbearing biography approach has the potential to shed new light on widening inequality among contemporary midlife women, with implications for aging and population health and well-being.
Reczek, Rin, Lawrence Stacey, and Chloe Dunston. 2022. “Friend, Foe, or Forget ‘Em?: The Quality of LGBTQ Adult Sibling Relationships.” Journal of Marriage and Family 84(2): 415-437.
The present study aims to understand how LGBTQ adults characterize the quality of their adult sibling ties, and how the type of sibling relationship (e.g., full, step, half, chosen) informs this characterization. An intragenerational conflict-solidarity-ambivalence frame is developed to theorize and empirically examine sibling relationships. Drawing on an intragenerational conflict-solidarity-ambivalence frame, we analyze qualitative in-depth interview data from 67 LGBTQ adults who identify as having a siblings. The quality of sibling ties was characterized in three primary ways: solidary, wherein an adult sibling perceived their sibling bond(s) as high quality due to exchanges of social/emotional/financial/instrumental support and connection, including LGBTQ support; conflictual, wherein the adult sibling tie is painful because a sibling is problematic, is unsupportive of an LGBTQ identity, or because a sibling creates conflict in a relationship with a parent; and tangential, wherein the sibling relationship was never bonded, is distanced, or siblings have their “own” families and are thus deemed inconsequential. Only full siblings were typified as conflictual, while all sibling types were solidary. Full, step, and half siblings only are characterized as tangential. Differences in sibling quality across gender and sexuality are discussed. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the quality of family ties in adulthood, providing further insight into how a socially marginalized group is supported, harmed, or perhaps unfazed by their sibling relationships.
Forbes, TehQuin D., and Lawrence Stacey (equal authorship). 2022. “PersonalPreferences, Discursive Strategies, and the Maintenance of Inequality on Gay Dating Apps.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 51(5): 2385-2397.
Scholars have noted how online dating technologies are one important arena in which racism, classism, heteronormativity, and other systems of domination are reproduced. This often materializes via a “personal preference” discourse—a framing of desire as unique, individual, and untethered from systems of domination. Yet underexplored is how such a discourse, which fosters prejudice in preferences, is framed as socially acceptable. This paper draws on a content analysis of 858 unique profile screenshots and in-depth interview data of 26 users of Grindr, Scruff, and Jack’d to examine how users voice their “personal preferences.” The content analysis results indicated that 24 percent of profiles listed a preference, and that most were framed in “positive” or polite ways (e.g., “I’m into…”). Analysis of interview data demonstrated that respondents engaged in what we call blatant exclusion and positive reframing in their interactions with other users to voice their “personal preferences.” Users who did not state preferences still allowed their preferences to infuse their experiences on the app. We document how users negotiated racist, classist, and heteronormative preferences and, to an extent, how these users are understanding others’ preferences. This study has implications for understanding the logic behind “personal preference” discourse and why it remains socially acceptable even as other systems of domination do not.
Stacey, Lawrence, and TehQuin D. Forbes (equal authorship). 2022. “Feeling Like a Fetish: Racialized Feelings, Fetishization, and the Contours of Sexual Racism on Gay Dating Apps.” The Journal of Sex Research 59(3): 372-384.
Whom we date and are intimate with is structured by race and racism. Recent research has focused on “personal preference” discourse and sexual stereotyping to highlight how and why race and racism affect online and offline interactions. Yet relatively less work focuses on racial fetishization – race-based fixation on a bodily part or characteristic that involves both idolization and demonization of racial difference. Drawing on recent theorizing around racialized feelings, we investigated how racial fetishization materializes and makes men of color feel. We used two sources of data: 858 unique profile screenshots and 26 in-depth interviews with users of Grindr, Scruff, and Jack’d – three popular dating apps for sexual minority men. We found that while instances of racial fetishization were rare in public profiles, a majority of men of color discussed its prevalence. As a result of racial fetishization, men of color described feeling: (1) objectified; (2) that it hindered the formation of platonic or intimate connections; and (3) boxed in and minimized to a stereotype. Our results suggest that racial fetishization induces particular racialized feelings in men of color, and we suggest ways that these racialized feelings might be connected to the reproduction of racial and sexual inequality.
Stacey, Lawrence. 2022. “(Bio)Logics of The Family: Gender, Biological Relatedness, and Attitudes toward Children’s Gender Nonconformity in a Vignette Experiment.” Sociological Forum 37(1): 222-245.
Family is one of the most influential institutions when it comes to the production and reproduction of gender. Yet despite the prevalence of families in which children are not biologically related to parents in the U.S. today, little research has explored the role of the biological connection in parents’ beliefs about children’s gender nonconformity. Using original data collected through an online survey experiment (N = 712), I examine the extent to which parents’ beliefs toward a biological child or stepchild’s, and son or daughter’s, gender nonconformity differ. After reading a short vignette about a child acting in a gender non-normative way, respondents were asked a series of questions, ranging from whether they would be upset, supportive, and most importantly, feel accountable to others, that gauged beliefs about the child’s gender nonconformity. Results showed greater upset and heightened accountability for biological children (vs. stepchildren). Results revealed that parents overwhelmingly indicated greater upset, less support, and heightened accountability for sons (vs. daughters). These findings illustrate the mutability of accountability structures in the face of the biological connection and gender between parents and children.
Stacey, Lawrence. 2021. “The Family as Gender and Sexuality Factory: A Review of the Literature and Future Directions.” Sociology Compass 15(4): e12864.
Early theorists understood the family as a key institution in the production of gender and sexuality. In this paper, I trace the development of this line of thought and review parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality over the life course. I first describe the three most prominent theoretical frameworks used to locate parents in these studies: psychoanalysis, socialization, and interactional approaches. In doing so, I illuminate the contributions of each theory to sociological thought on children's gender and sexuality while pointing to weaknesses with psychoanalysis and socialization. I then discuss how parents influence children's development and performance of gender and heterosexuality, paying attention to variations based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Based on the current state of the literature, I suggest that we sociologists should diversify our methodological approaches in this area, attend to how changes in families correspond to changes in parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality, and grapple with how children's performances of gender and sexuality influence parents' performances of gender and sexuality.
Stacey, Lawrence, and Irene Padavic. “Complicating Parents’ Gender and Sexual Expectations for Children: A Comparison of Biological Parents and Stepparents.” Sexualities 24(1-2): 191-207.
When social scientists argue that “families” reproduce and sometimes challenge gender and sexual norms, they tend to refer to biological, cisgender, and heterosexual families. We consider how one alternative family form—stepfamilies—might, like gay and lesbian families, challenge these norms. Interviews with 20 biological and stepparents reveal that whereas biological parents held relatively intense feelings about their children’s gender and sexual conformity, stepparents were indifferent and far less inclined to police their children’s behavior. We conclude that stepfamilies, similar to gay and lesbian families, might be a source of less rigid expectations and greater liberty than biological families, and we consider the implications for the future of traditional gender and sexual norms in the face of the proliferation of alternative family forms.
