Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression in Social Work Practice

Working with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People

Deana Morrow, Lori Messinger

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780231501866
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume offers an invaluable resource for both social work educators and practitioners working with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) clients and their families. It is the first such work to specifically address issues affecting bisexual and transgender people as well as the larger concerns of the GLBT community.

Contributors present specific, practical suggestions for effective knowledge-based and skills-based practice with GLBT clients. Topics include heterosexism and homophobia, identity development, coming out, GLBT adolescents and older adults, health-care concerns, relationships and families, workplace issues, the history of the GLBT civil rights movement, sex reassignment, AIDS, and the role of spirituality in the lives of GLBT individuals. The contributors also consider intragroup issues of race, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status.

PART ONE

A CONTEXT FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

1

SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY EXPRESSION

Deana F. Morrow

NASW encourages adoption of laws that recognize inheritance, insurance, same-sex marriage, child custody, property, and other rights in lesbian, gay, and bisexual relationships…. NASW encourages the adoption of laws that will facilitate individuals in identifying with and expressing their gender choice without discrimination against them and their civil rights in education, housing, inheritance, health and other types of insurance, child custody, property, and other areas.

—NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS, 2003

MANY SOCIAL workers and related human services professionals have had minimal preparation for serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) clients. Most social work professionals trained before the mid-1990s had no academic preparation for working with sexual minority populations, and many social workers trained since then have had minimal, if any, academic exposure to these populations. Thus, it is not uncommon to encounter even seasoned practitioners who perpetuate misinformation and negative bias in their services to GLBT clients. The purpose of this book is to help social work and human services students and practitioners to develop a theoretical and methodological knowledge base for understanding and working with sexual minority people. This first chapter serves as a basic introduction to the remainder of the book, providing a general foundation. The rest of the chapters will, in turn, examine particular topics in greater depth. This chapter will address some of the negative myths commonly associated with GLBT people. In addition, it examines the question of whether GLBT people constitute their own culture. The chapter establishes a foundation for social work values and ethics-based service to GLBT clients and presents a context for social work practice with GLBT people. Finally, it gives an overview of topics that are addressed in the book and ends with practice suggestions to help workers better serve GLBT clients.

COMMON MYTHS

Numerous myths and stereotypes about GLBT people operate to perpetuate misinformation and negative social attitudes about them. Consider, for example, the following:

1. Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice rather than an innate orientation. Many people perceive gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) people as having made a choice to go “against the grain” of society. They view GLB people as deliberately undermining society by selecting a renegade “lifestyle” that runs counter to moral tradition and the general well-being of society. In reality, research strongly suggests that biological genetic influences contribute significantly to a person’s sexual orientation—whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual (Bailey & Benishay, 1993; Bailey & Pillard, 1991; Bailey, Pillard, Neale, & Agyei, 1993; Hamer, Hu, Magnuson, Hu, & Pattatuci, 1993; LeVay, 1991). Thus, the term sexual orientation is more appropriate than the term sexual preference. Preference implies ease and simplicity of choice or selection, while orientation more accurately connotes the innate essence of a person’s intimate and affectional nature. Perhaps the best way to understand the role of choice in relation to sexual orientation is that people must choose whether to embrace or reject whatever is their essential orientation.

2. Homosexuality is not a normal aspect of human diversity. Human diversity is encompassing and can be represented by differences among people in areas such as race, ethnicity, sex, gender expression, culture, age, sex, and sexual orientation. Homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has existed throughout history (Boswell, 1980). It is more socially accepted—and not nearly so controversial—in many countries (e.g., Canada, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands) other than the United States. Additionally, research has established that gay and lesbian people are physically, mentally, and emotionally as normal as heterosexual people (Friedman & Downey, 1994; Gonsiorek, 1991; Hooker, 1957). In recognizing that homosexuality in itself is not pathological, the American Psychiatric Association declared in 1973 that homosexuality would no longer be included as a psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

3. GLBT people are immoral. A person’s sexual orientation and gender expression are, in themselves, morally neutral. It is by individuals’ actions toward others—not by virtue of their sexual orientation—that judgments are to be made about their moral character. There are those who claim the Bible as their basis for judging GLBT people as immoral. Yet the Bible was written by humans in a cultural, social, and historical period when scientific knowledge of sexual orientation and gender expression was nonexistent:

The Gospel writers and the missionary Paul did not possess the psychological, sociological, and sexological knowledge which now inform[s] our theological reflections about human sexuality. They knew nothing of sexual orientation or of the natural heterosexual-bisexual-homosexual continuum that exists in human life. They did not postulate that people engaging in same-sex sex acts could have been expressing their natural sexuality.

(JOHNSON, 1992, PP. 145–146)

The biblical writers never addressed the concept of committed, loving, same-sex relationships. The biblical passages often cited as condemning same-sex relationships addressed, instead, exploitative behaviors that did not involve loving relationships (Gomes, 1996; McNeill, 1993; Spong, 1988, 1991, 1998). Furthermore, nowhere in the Bible did Jesus address homosexuality or gender expression variances as inappropriate or immoral.

4. Gay and lesbian people are more likely to abuse children and/or convert them from heterosexuality to homosexuality. Gay and lesbian people are no more likely to abuse children than are heterosexual people (Berger & Kelly, 1995; McCammon, Knox, & Schact, 1998). In fact, the vast majority of child sex abuse cases involve men molesting female children (Berger & Kelly, 1995). There is no evidence that exposure of heterosexual children to gay and lesbian people changes their orientation to gay or lesbian any more than exposure of gay and lesbian children to heterosexual people changes their orientation to heterosexual (Patterson, 1994). Indeed, most people who are gay or lesbian were themselves reared by heterosexual parents. Research indicates that children growing up in gay and lesbian parent households are as well adjusted and as psychologically healthy as children who are reared in heterosexual parent households (Patterson, 1995; Strickland, 1995; Tasker & Golombok, 1997). The quality of parenting—rather than the sexual orientation of the parents—is what most significantly influences the well-being of children.

5. Two people of the same sex in a relationship play out masculine and feminine roles. This myth is based on the stereotype that one person has to adopt “the male role” and the other “the female role” whenever two people are in a relationship together and on the heterosexist assumption that only a man and a woman can form an intimate relationship. Same-sex couples tend to be far less likely than heterosexual couples to adopt specialized gender-defined roles within their relationships (Hyde, 1994; McCammon, Knox, & Schact, 1998). They tend to place high value on equality and the sharing of power in their relationships.

6. Transgender people are gay or lesbian in sexual orientation. It is an error to assume that all transgender people are gay or lesbian in sexual orientation. The sexual identity of a transgender person could be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. Gender identity does not dictate sexual orientation. Transgender people are often included with GLB people in the literature because, like GLB people, they constitute a sexual minority group and encounter discrimination because of their sexual minority status.

7. Same-sex couples do not develop long-term, committed relationships. There are those who maintain long-term committed relationships and those who have a series of relationships without significant long-term commitments among heterosexual as well as among GLBT people. Same-sex relationships in the United States are not afforded the same legal and social supports offered to other-sex relationships. The lack of legal recognition of same-sex relationships is an example of unequal rights under the law. There are more than one thousand legal rights and benefits accorded to legally married people that are unavailable to same-sex couples—no matter how many years they have been a committed couple (Human Rights Campaign, 2003).

8. The “gay agenda” is a plan for undermining family values and for affording “special rights” to GLBT people. In response to the movement toward equality for GLBT citizens, conservative political pundits coined the term gay agenda, which became a code phrase for stereotyping GLBT people as seeking to dismantle the structure of American values and seeking to garner special privileges not afforded to other groups in society. This so-called agenda is, to the contrary, an effort by GLBT people and their allies to secure the same civil rights and responsibilities (for example, legal sanction of their relationships, legal sanction of their parenthood, freedom from job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression, spousal inheritance rights) already afforded to all non-GLBT Americans. Thus, there is no “special rights” agenda for GLBT people; rather, there is a strong political movement on behalf of equal rights for them.

GLBT CULTURE

Is there a GLBT culture? What is culture and how might it be related to GLBT people? Healey (1997) describes culture as consisting of “all aspects of the way of life associated with a group of people. It includes language, religious beliefs, customs and rules of etiquette, the values and ideas people use to organize their lives and interpret their existence” (18).

Sheafor and Horejsi (2003) describe culture as patterns of thought and behavior in families and communities that are passed from generation to generation. They further describe it as “a set of interrelated beliefs, values, patterns of behavior, and practices that strongly influence how a group of people meet their basic needs, cope with the ordinary problems of life, make sense out of their experiences, and negotiate power relationships, both within and outside their own group” (174). Similarly, Lum (1999) suggests that culture includes institutions, language, artistic expressions, and patterns of social and interpersonal relationships that are passed on from generation to generation within a group of people.

Given these descriptions of culture, the claim can be made that there is such a thing as GLBT culture. Members of the respective groups (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) that constitute the GLBT community have commonalities indicative of the development of culture. They are bounded by the challenges of coping with social oppression in the forms of heterosexism, homophobia, and rigid interpretations of gender expression. There are GLBT-focused social institutions such as churches, civil rights groups, social groups, and community centers. There are literature forms, music forms (e.g., women’s music), and artistic expressions that uniquely represent GLBT people. Patterns of social expression (e.g., coming out, dating, forming relationships and families, coping with GLBT-based discrimination) are passed from generation to generation among those who are GLBT.

While these commonalities bind GLBT people as a cultural group, it is important as well to honor the characteristics that make each group distinct. As the reader will see throughout this book, certain characteristics and experiences are unique to gay male culture, lesbian culture, bisexual culture, and transgender culture. Thus, while the argument is made here that these sexual minority groups, collectively, constitute culture based on their common experiences, the reader is reminded as well that each of the groups also constitutes its own unique subculture within the overall GLBT culture.

PRINCIPAL TERMS

This section identifies and defines the principal terms used throughout the book. For a more complete listing, as well as GLBT-related symbols and resources, see appendix A and appendix B.

■ Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT). Gay refers to people (male or female) whose principal intimate attractions and romantic relationships are toward other people of the same sex. Lesbian refers specifically to women whose principal intimate attractions and romantic relationships are toward other women. Some women prefer to describe themselves as gay, while others prefer to describe themselves as lesbian. Bisexual refers to men or women whose principal intimate attractions and romantic relationships are toward other women or men. Transgender refers to people whose gender identity is different from the gender commonly socially assigned to them on the basis of their biological sex (e.g., a biological male with a feminine gender identity). The acronym GLBT is used in this book when referring to all of these groups, which, collectively, are also referred to as sexual minority populations.

■ Gender, gender identity, and gender expression. Gender refers to the behavioral, cultural, and psychological characteristics that are socially constructed to express femininity (associated with females) and masculinity (associated with males). Gender identity refers to an individual’s personal sense of identity as masculine or feminine, or some combination thereof. Gender expression relates to how a person outwardly manifests, or expresses, gender.

■ Homophobia is the fear and hatred of GLBT people or those presumed to be GLBT. Homophobia can be external, imposed on GLBT people by others, or internal, which relates to the internalization of GLBT-negative biases and prejudices by GLBT people.

■ Heterosexism is the belief in the superiority of heterosexuality over other forms of sexual orientation. Like racism and sexism, heterosexism is ingrained in American society and serves to systematically privilege heterosexual people and oppress GLBT people.

■ Ally. An ally is a person who is not GLBT but is an advocate for GLBT equal rights. Heterosexual allies are some of the most effective and powerful advocates for GLBT civil rights (Human Rights Campaign, 2003).

SOCIAL WORK VALUES AND ETHICS

The materi...