Intersecting Sexual Identities, Oppressions, and Social Justice Work: Comparing LGBTQ Baby Boomers to Millennials Who Came of Age After the 1980s AIDS Epidemic

Abstract

In this study we analyze 50 interviews with racially diverse, predominantly low-income, LGBTQ participants living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rooted in intersectional theory that conceptualizes identities as shaped by interlocking forms of oppression and privilege, we compared interviews with “Baby Boomers” to those with “Millennial” participants, who came into adulthood in a time of greater legal and social inclusion for LGBTQ people. Our analysis focused on three questions: How do participants understand their sexual identities? How are the identities of sexual minority participants co-constructed with intersecting forms of oppression? What motivates LGBTQ people in our sample to engage in social justice work? We found that white LGBTQ people tended to see their sexualities as primary to their identity, compared to LGBTQ Black and/or Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) who tended to see their identities in intersectional terms. Younger LGBTQ people were more likely to delink sex and gender identity; consequently, they were more likely to frame their sexual identities with terms not rooted in a gender binary (e.g., pansexual or queer). Experiences with homophobia were prevalent across generations, and intersected with racism and economic oppressions, but younger people more often described support from institutional agents. Participants’ sense of community and commitment to giving back after experiences of trauma motivated them to engage in social justice work. Our findings highlight the intersectional nature of oppressions faced by LGBTQ people and the need for organizations to move away from focusing exclusively on homophobic oppression as a monolith.

In 2015, Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco famous for championing gay rights, opened an upscale wine bar. Newsom’s “swanky cocktail lounge” took the place of the Lexington Club, the “friendly neighborhood dyke bar” where there was “always a party, never a cover." As the last lesbian bar in a city dominated by venture capital, the Lexington’s closure was part of a larger pattern in which people who are working class, Black, Latinx, LGBTQ runaway youth, and/or members of households with women as primary earners have been increasingly priced out of San Francisco neighborhoods (B, 2014; Morse, 2016; Moskowitz, 2017; Placzek, 2015). Set in a neighborhood with Latinx and working-class roots, the Lexington site had previously been home to a Mexican bar called “The Sunset.” In its incarnation as The Lex, this site formed part of the Valencia corridor sometimes labeled the “women’s district” – located close to the Castro district (populated primarily by gay white men), but with lower rents than the Castro (Moskowitz, 2017). Any examination of gentrifier versus gentrified in this context must consider LGBTQ positionalities as multiple and co-constructed with identity categories such as ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status and gender (Bowleg et al., 2009, Cohen, 1999; Schulman, 2012

In the US, recent decades have brought unprecedented acceptance of LGBTQ people in dominant/mainstream settings -- marked by positive public opinion, legalization of same-sex marriage, and increased LGBTQ visibility in the media (Ben Hagai & Crosby, 2016). On the other hand, privatization and deregulation in the US have led to the rapid gentrification of urban centers, increased homelessness, and displacement of Black and/or Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), and/or people with low or moderate incomes. In San Francisco, for example, between 2000 and 2015 the number of low-income residents declined by 18% and the number of moderate-income residents declined by 12%, while high-income residents increased by 27%. In the same period, low income Black households declined by 17%, and the number of Black residents also declined in moderate- and high-income categories (see Verma et al., 2018). As the last lesbian bar remaining in a San Francisco increasingly dominated by venture capital and technology industries, the Lexington’s closure was widely attributed to increased rents and a dwindling customer base. With advancing gentrification fueled by a racist and heteronormative capitalist system, people who are working class, Black, and/or Latinx, as well as households whose primary earners are women and/or transgender, have been increasingly priced out of San Francisco neighborhoods (B, 2014; Morse, 2016; Moskowitz, 2017; Placzek, 2015).

Contradictions between decreased stigmatization of LGBTQ people and increased economic and racial marginalization in urban centers highlight the importance of intersectional analysis and praxis (Cole, 2009; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Combahee River Collective, 1983; Crenshaw, 1990; Davis, 2011; hooks, 2000). In this research we conduct an in-depth analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of sexual minority (i.e., not straight/heterosexual) LGBTQ people, a majority of them low-income BIPOC, living in the San Francisco Bay Area from two generations: Baby Boomers (born 1946-1965) and Millennials (born 1981-1996) (Dimock, 2019). Comparing LGBTQ Millennials (< age 30) to Baby Boomers (> age 50), we examine how social positions derived from interdependent axes of identity such as race/ethnicity, class, and generation are shaped by and interact with systemic oppressions and changes in the social acceptance of sexual minorities over time. Our analysis focuses on three research questions, grounded in intersectional and queer theory: How do participants understand their minority/non-straight sexual identities? How are the identities of sexual minority participants co-constructed with intersecting forms of oppression and generational experience? What motivates the commitment of some participants to social justice work?

This study contributes to understandings of minority sexual identities by using a lens rooted in Black feminist thought and queer theory paradigms that foreground interlocking forms of oppression and are sensitive to shifts in the conceptualization of identities across historical periods (Balzer Carr et al., 2017; Cohen, 1997; 1999; Ferguson, 2018; Grzanka, 2016). Unlike research that focuses exclusively on younger LGBTQ people or a single age cohort, in this study we examine ways in which living through periods that differ in terms of their acceptance of sexual minorities may interact with interdependent aspects of identity and positionalities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and generation to shape how individuals conceptualize sexual identity and marginalization. Whereas much of the research on marginalization of LGBTQ people focuses on sexual orientation and/or gender identity as a singular axis of oppression, our research takes an intersectional approach in which we asked participants to describe their identities in their own terms and in relationship to interlocking forms of oppression they face, such as homophobia, racism, and economic oppression.

Because this research is rooted in intersectional and queer thought, we do not exclude transgender people who identify as sexual minorities from our sampling, and we use the acronym LGBTQ throughout this paper because the marginalization experienced by transgender people often overlaps with the oppression of sexual minorities (Stryker, 2008). Because intersectionality is both an analytical lens and activist political strategy (i.e., a political praxis) used to resist oppression (Collins, 2015; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Combahee River Collective, 1983; Overstreet et al., in press), we discuss processes that may lead people to combat injustice and ways in which organizations may cultivate the power of LGBTQ people to create social change within their own communities.

Intersectionality as an Analytical Lens

Research using an intersectional analytical lens examines the ways in which different vectors of identity, grounded in different oppressions and privileges, structure individuals’ subjectivity (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Combahee River Collective, 1983; Davis, 2011; hooks, 2000). The intersectional lens highlights the ways in which vectors of identity such as gender, class, and race are not experienced as separate but as co-constituting one’s sense of self (Bowleg, 2012; Rosenthal et al., in press). Instead of understanding identity as exclusively internal, intersectional analysis further examines how socio-political processes of racialization, heteronormativity and class oppression construct identity (Overstreet et al., in press). Because intersectional analysis focuses on how inequalities shape subjectivity, different historical moments and cultural environments, with different configurations of inequalities, shape identities differently (Collins, 2015; Heberle et al., in press). From an intersectional standpoint, the increasing public embrace of LGBTQ people may shape different LGBTQ positionalities (in terms of sexual identity, race/ethnicity, and/or class) in different ways for people who came of age in recent decades compared to those who came of age during the 1970s “Save the children” anti-gay campaign or the 1980s AIDS epidemic (Ben Hagai & Crosby, 2016; Cohen, 1997).

The climate of increased acceptance of LGBTQ people has had several consequences for sexual minority identities. Empirical research on generational differences suggests an increase in the number of people who report engaging in same-sex sexual relationships. The number of adults who reported having at least one same-sex experience doubled between the 1990s and 2010s (Twenge et al., 2016). For people who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, the coming out age has also decreased (Drasin et al., 2008). One study found that older gay and lesbian people (born before 1969) were more likely to have come out after turning 20, while those who were born after 1970 were more likely to have come out before turning 20 (Dunlap, 2016). However, research also suggests that “coming out” can have different meanings for Latinx and African American youth compared to white youth. Among Latinx and African American youth, coming out to fewer people and differential engagement with LGBTQ communities may be influenced by racism in LGBTQ communities dominated by white people, as well as a sense of familial obligation and respect for elders (Bowleg et al., 2009; Rosario et al., 2004; Eaton & Rios, 2017).

With the transgender revolution of the new millennium (see Stryker, 2008), more expansive gender categories -- promulgated by activists and scholars to make space in mainstream US settings for people who do not fit within a gender binary -- are reflected in the increasingly popular use of terms such as nonbinary, genderqueer, and genderfluid (Bernstein, 1994; Galupo et al., 2017; Tate et al., 2020). Younger LGBTQ people -- sometimes considered “digital natives” in comparison to those who came of age before the popularization of personal computing -- have also grown up in concert with internet platforms that can enable engagement with niche and marginalized communities whose members are less visible or less prevalent in their own localities (Prensky, 2001). Researchers have observed that LGBTQ youth in the US and Canada spend over five hours a day on internet sites, which often serve as safe spaces to explore and engage with emergent identities, particularly for youth who have trans* or queer (i.e., nonbinary, genderfluid, genderqueer) identities (Craig & McInroy, 2014; McInroy et al., 2019). Some research suggests that online spaces may be especially salient in identity formation for African American and Latinx LGBTQ youth, particularly among young men. While usage of social networking sites among African American youth is the same as or higher than among white youth, African American households are less likely to have high-speed internet access (Fields et al., 2015; Jamil et al., 2009; Smith, 2014). Expanding gender categories have also impacted sexual identity categories as terms that do not rely on binary gender, such as polyamorous and queer, become more widely used (Galupo et al., 2017). Similarly, with increased use of language describing the absence of gender (“agender”), terms for encoding sexual identities in relation to the absence of sexual or romantic orientation (e.g., “asexual and panromantic,” “pansexual and aromantic”) have also gained wider use (Walton et al., 2016).

Intersectional Research on Income, Race, and LGBTQ Identities

Intersectional research on LGBTQ identity that integrates experiences of LGBTQ people who are BIPOC and/or low income complicates the “it gets better” narrative of LGBTQ life in the United States. For low-income LGBTQ people, coming out is associated with more stress and health problems compared to LGBTQ people with higher incomes (McGarrity & Huebner, 2013). Intersectional thinkers and researchers have noted that people who are LGBTQ and BIPOC face multiple jeopardies in a culture that privileges whiteness, and are marginalized/rendered invisible compared to LGBTQ white people (Mosley et al., 2019). For example, LGBTQ people who are Black/African American may experience racism from white LGBTQ communities as well as homophobia or transphobia (Bowleg et al., 2008; Calabrese et al., 2015). The multiple jeopardies facing people who are LGBTQ and BIPOC elucidate the relatively later age of coming out and being less public about one’s sexual identity among some BIPOC individuals. For instance, one study found that Black lesbian and bisexual women may “negotiate the complexities of maintaining ties” with communities of origin by “adopt[ing] an implicit agreement whereby both parties (i.e., LBW and the family/community) covertly acknowledge the sexual minority status, but do not discuss it overtly” (Bowleg et al., 2008, p.163).

Intersectional Praxis

In a famous statement, members of the Combahee River Collective argued that activists should account for the ways in which systems of power such as capitalism, patriarchy, and racism work together. They wrote:

We are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. (Combahee River Collective, 1995, p.260)

Intersectional praxis rejects activism focused on only one axis of identity. For instance, Cohen (1997) argued that when gay and lesbian political movements have focused only on securing LGBTQ rights, they tended to privilege the political goals of white men and gay elites, such as focusing on issues that reduce tax burdens for same-sex couples or advocating law enforcement interventions without accounting for different experiences of harm perpetrated by state actors (Goff et al., 2016).

Psychological research has linked “intersectional awareness” and intersectional consciousness with attention to inequalities and oppression not only within one’s own ingroup but also among outgroups (Cole et al., 2011; Curtin et al., 2016). A strong collective identity together with a sense of collective injustice may be associated with the recognition of marginalization toward other disenfranchised groups (Ellison & Langhout, in press; Hill et al., 2018; Nair & Vollhardt et al., in press). Motivation to be involved in social change and social justice actions can also be associated with experiences of trauma (Worrell et al., 2001). Among sexual minorities, experiences of trauma may be rooted in homophobia interrelated with stressors rooted in other forms of oppression such as those based on race, sex and socioeconomic class. Herman (2015) argues that the experience of recovering from trauma proceeds in stages. After individuals establish safety and security and mourn the loss inflicted by trauma, they enter a reconnection and integration stage. In this last stage, individuals may narrativize their trauma and engage in community activism to protect others from similar trauma. A radical healing framework among communities of color further highlights the importance of forming communities of resistance in which individuals together locate the sources of trauma (e.g., racism, sexism, and/or homophobia), collectively foster hope, and work together to promote healing for themselves and others (French et al., 2020; Ginwright, 2010).

This Study

In this study we use Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) that aims to explore how people understand identity and the social world (Smith & Osborn, 2006). We ask three questions: How do participants understand their sexual minority (i.e., not straight) identities? How are the identities of sexual minority participants co-constructed with intersecting forms of oppression? What motivates participants’ commitment to social justice work? In alignment with intersectional feminist theory, we use IPA to examine identity as co-constructed in relation to changing social structures of privilege and disadvantage, as opposed to universalist conceptions of identity (e.g., universal understanding of what it means to be a woman) (Collins, 2015). Because the climate for LGBTQ people in the US has shifted toward greater legal protection and mainstream public support in recent decades, we compare the experiences of LGBTQ Baby Boomer participants to LGBTQ Millennial participants.

Method

Participants

Study participants were recruited through community organizations, online referral via Craigslist and social media, and participant referral. After an initial screening (online, via phone, or in person) to determine eligibility, participants completed a closed-ended survey (online or in person) to collect demographic and other information related to social stigma and tobacco use. The interviews were conducted in person. To protect participant confidentiality, the names used here are pseudonyms chosen by the participants. In order to compare participants who experienced different generational contexts, for this paper we analyzed 50 interviews from sexual minority participants (i.e., participants who did not identify as straight) from two generations:

• “Baby Boomer” participants (born between 1946 and 1965) who were adults at the height of the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

• “Millennial” participants (born between 1981 and 1996) who came into adulthood in a time of greater legal and social inclusion for many LGBTQ people in the US.

Most of our sample was made up of low-income people from diverse racial backgrounds. Specifically, 28 participants were BIPOC, and more than half of participants (31) had a maximum income of $30,000. When asked to identify their gender, 24 participants identified as women, 19 identified as men, 5 identified as genderqueer or nonbinary, and 2 identified as transgender. As for sexual identity, 23 participants identified as lesbian or gay, 15 as bisexual, 1 as asexual, and 11 as queer. The Millennial and Baby Boomer cohorts consisted of 25 participants each. The Millennial cohort ranged from 19 to 30 years old, with a mean age of 24.28, while the Baby Boomer cohort ranged from 50 to 64 years old, with a mean age of 56.20. Table 1 details further demographic information.

Table 1.

Demographics of sample participants

	Baby Boomer (n=25)	Millennial (n=25)
Average age	56.20 (50-64)	24.28 (19-30)
Gender: Women	10	14
Men	13	6
Genderqueer/ nonbinary	1	4
Transgender	1	1
Sexuality: Lesbian and Gay	13	10
Bi-sexual	8	7
Asexual	1	0
Queer	3	8
Ethnicity/Race: African American	11	8
Latinx	1	8
Asian	0	3
White	14	12
Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Alaska Native	1	3
Income 0-30,000	15	16
30,000-74,999	7	3
75,000 and above	3	3
No answer	0	3
Employment status: Full time	4	5
Part time	6	8
Disability	10	0
Unemployed	2	8
Retired or no answer	3	4

Note: One of the people in the African American category identified as North African. People could choose more than one ethnic category.

Interview procedure and interview questions

Interviews in this sample were primarily conducted by two queer-identified research assistants (one Black woman and one white man) with experience and training in conducting qualitative interviews. With breaks, interviews lasted on average 2.5 hours, as is common in qualitative research designed to capture “thick description” related to abstract constructs including identities and stigma (Charmaz, 2006). Participants received a $50 honorarium in cash for their participation. The semi-structured interview had several parts, including discussion of tobacco use and smoking, which were not part of this analysis. For the purpose of this study we analyzed parts of the interviews that focused on participants’ positionalities, including sexual and gender identities, racial/ethnic identities, stigma, and sense of community. The interview guide began with questions about how participants described themselves and their experiences, and current routines during a typical day: “In your own words, please tell me a little bit about yourself. How would you describe yourself to someone who doesn’t know you?”; “I am curious to hear what other parts of yourself are also central to how you identify yourself”; “Describe a typical day in your life.” Midway through the interview guide, discussion of identity shifted to questions focused on participants’ perceptions and experiences of sexual identities, gender identities, racial/ethnic identities, and related forms of oppression including homophobia. Questions related to sexuality, for example, included: “How do you identify your sexuality?”; “To what extent is your sexuality central to who you are?”; “What other terms do you use to describe your sexuality? Please explain.” Participants were also asked about the aspects of their identity that they stated were important: “What has it been like for you to be […participant identity]?”; “What was it like for you when you were younger, what is it like for you now; can you talk about to what extent this has shifted over time?”; “Who and where do you feel most connected? Why?”

Analysis

The primary analysis for this paper was conducted by the first and third authors. Our analysis was guided by IPA together with analytical strategies associated with grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Smith & Osborn, 2003). We read and reread the interview transcripts and, with the study questions in mind, conducted a line-by-line analysis, writing notations and paraphrasing participants’ statements on the margins of the transcripts. With additional rereading and discussion of the interviews, we wrote memos and used iterative open coding to identify themes. Themes were refined and further clustered into superordinate themes. As analysis progressed, we began to pay special attention to convergent and divergent themes within generational groupings and across racial groups. To visualize divergent and convergent themes we created a spreadsheet with the superordinate themes and quotations from the interviews. An expanded spreadsheet functioned as a theme book, which the first author used to code the frequency of themes for all the interviews in our sample.

Researchers’ positionalities.

The first three authors identify as LGBTQ. Specifically, the authors include a queer-identified, genderqueer, white, Gen-X immigrant to the United States active in the San Francisco Bay Area queer community from 2003 to 2016; a multiracial bisexual cisgender man in his early 20s who is based in New York; a queer, white/Italian American, Gen-X, cisgender woman who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area; and a straight, white Gen-X cisgender woman who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. To enhance reflexivity regarding the ways in which we changed our understanding of the transcripts through reading and rereading, we took notes on the ways our questions and insights shifted during analysis. For example, when we began our analysis we expected that Millennial participants would experience less homophobia. However, we found that both Baby Boomers and Millennials described experiences with intense homophobia. Based upon participants’ narratives, we also shifted from a focus on activism as political collective action (like protests and demonstrations) to a broader understanding of activism that included work in nonprofits and assisting community members. As analysis progressed, we found that participants, especially older participants, framed activism in terms of work in nonprofits, education, and support groups.

Trustworthiness.

We used several strategies to enhance the trustworthiness of our findings (Merriam, 2002). The fruit of this study is based on prolonged engagement (over a year), in terms of reading and discussions of the data. We compared our findings across different investigators. Through many conversations among the authors, we came to agreement on key emerging themes. The second author conducted supplementary analysis of the interviews and the themes that emerged, supporting and expanding upon them. The relatively large number of interviews allowed us to come to data saturation in which we felt that the reoccurring themes represented trends in the sample. We intentionally sought out conflicting data in the interest of refining and illuminating differences in themes across social categories (Antin et al., 2015). An epistemological assumption of the study is that reality is constructed by the observer as well as the observed, knower and the known are mutually constituted (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Although theme frequencies are typically associated with more positivist paradigms, we provide selected theme frequencies below solely as an additional form of triangulation to enhance trustworthiness.

Results

In what follows we describe themes that emerged from our analysis as they relate to the study questions. Our first study question examined how people understand sexual identity. Our analysis of the interviews suggested that white participants tended to position their sexuality as a central component of their identity compared to BIPOC, who tended to frame their sexuality in less central and more intersectional terms. Younger participants often discussed gender as delinked from sex. Participants who delinked gender from sex also often described a nonbinary understanding of sexual identities (e.g., queer, pansexual, kink). Although participants in both age groups experienced homophobia, some younger participants also discussed receiving support from organizations or institutional agents in their narratives. For BIPOC, experiences with homophobia were compounded with experiences of racism and economic precarity in some LGBTQ community spaces, highlighting the ways in which racism in white LGBTQ communities and class oppression in the San Francisco Bay Area’s “gay mecca” structure the experiences of study participants. Across racial lines and generations, participants in our sample experienced housing insecurities. Our analysis further suggests that a sense of community belonging, especially for survivors of trauma, motivated participants’ commitment to social justice work.

How is sexual identity understood?

In the beginning of the interview, participants were asked, “Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?”; later in the interviews, participants were asked about sexual identity and its importance to them. We found that sexual identity was often positioned differently in BIPOC participants’ narratives compared to white participants’ narratives. When participants were asked “Can you tell me a little about yourself” at the beginning of the interview, most (approximately 64%) white interviewees centered their sexual orientation. For instance, Logan, a gay white man, opened, “[I am a] sixty-year-old gay male who lives in San Francisco.” Rachel, a white lesbian in her 50s, described her identity: “came out as a lesbian when I was 17. I have always been attracted to girls and women.” Jake, a 50-year-old man who was born in San Francisco, identified as a “native born fag.” Younger white LGBTQ people also tended to foreground their sexual identity. For instance, Kay, a white 27- year-old queer woman, said, “Let's see. I'm pretty queer, pretty gay, etc.” Kelvin, a 50-year old gay white man, explained why it is important to him to be “out” about being LGBTQ:

I’m not sure what would be the most important thing. Probably that I’m gay would be the first important thing to say, because a lot of people, they don’t really understand. And I think that the more people know about gay people, the better. So, I think that would be one of the most important things that I would have to say.

Kelvin’s and other white participants’ centering of sexual identity echoes Harvey Milk’s gay liberation ideology that highlighted the importance of being out so straight people will understand that LGBTQ people are their family, friends, and colleagues (Stewart, 2003).

Compared to white participants, fewer (approximately 29%) BIPOC participants positioned sexual identity at the center of their narrated identity. Some BIPOC participants preferred to discuss their sexuality in terms of attraction or behavior. To exemplify, Bebop, a 50-year-old African American woman, focused on attraction rather than identity when talking about who she was, saying, “[I am] a woman who likes women. I still like men; I don’t have sexual relationships with them.” Joke, a 51-year-old African-American man, decentered his sexual orientation, saying, “My sexual identity is a small part of me; it doesn't define who I am. It's a very small part of me.” Ralph, a 58-year-old African American man, explained, “I’m one of these gay guys that considers myself a man that happens to be gay.” The decentering of sexual identity categories also appeared in the narratives of younger BIPOC participants such as Belizair, a 27-year-old African-American man, who refused identity categories and explained that “I love women. But, at this point, men are the next best thing.” Bebop, Jocke, and Belizair described an understanding of sexuality in relational terms that were not centered in a straight-versus-gay dichotomy but was more context-dependent and fluid.

Furthermore, some BIPOC participants framed their sexual identity in intersectional terms. These participants saw their sexual identity as mutually constituted by their racial and/or gender identities. As such, sexual orientation was not a singular or additive identity, but rather mutually constituted by other social positions. For instance, Jen, an Asian American lesbian in her 20s, said, “I identify [as] LGBTQ, queer, bi and also South Asian, woman of color.” Edj, a 22-year-old, bisexual, Nigerian American woman, reflected on differences in the presentation of sexual identity between her friends in a predominantly Black Detroit community compared to people at the predominantly white university she attended:

I feel like in Detroit, I was just a lot more accepted. Because there was actually a lot of gay girls in Detroit. So, it was a culture where they understand that I’m a woman, and I’m bisexual, and I’m Black. But I feel like at [the university], the gay people there were just different…the gay people were just too out there, almost too gay.

Edj highlights her feeling of inclusion in Detroit’s LGBTQ community where her intersectional identification as a woman who is bisexual and Black is accepted, whereas on her predominantly white university’s campus, sexual identity was centered in a way that felt “just too out there.”

Some BIPOC participants who didn’t center their sexual identity described a sense of alienation from white gay communities. Rico, a 59-year-old Puerto Rican participant explained, “I did see images in the news of gay people; it often included thin Caucasian feminine, educated, swishy Caucasian men, and I couldn’t identify with that at all. And that’s not an image that I see myself in as well, even until today.” Brooke, a 58-year-old African American man, explained:

I don't need to take the world's titles, you know, queer, gay, bisexual, what have you. It is what it is, and that's how I see it. I don't care to take on these other titles that the white people came up with. That's who they are. That's who they want to be identified as. But, I'm identified as a young, Black man, as a Christian that loves another young, Black man that's a Christian. Boom.

Brooke articulates his rejection of the privileging of sexual labels and identities promulgated by the white gay community; instead he offers an intersectional understanding of his sexuality based in practices of love, faith, racial group affiliation and gender identity.

Gender and sexual identity

As people with minority sexual orientations, all of the study’s participants could be considered gender nonconforming in some way, and most participants distinguished gender expression from the concept of “biological sex,” which we refer to here as Sex Assigned at Birth (SAB). An individual who is assigned male at birth might be understood to have a more feminine gender expression than an individual who is assigned female at birth, for example. Lucky, a 55-year-old queer Black woman, made a distinction between her butch masculine expression and “daddy” gender expression, while embedding these gender expressions in female sex. She understands herself to be a woman (congruent with the female sex she was assigned at birth), but also sees herself as someone who expresses herself in masculine ways. When the interviewer asked Lucky what “daddy” looks like, she replied, “you know, just this heavy-duty masculine woman. Yeah, I’m very masculine and butch, but you’re not going to call me daddy.” For Lucky, her sense of herself as “masculine and butch” was distinguished from her identification as a woman.

However, compared to younger participants, Baby Boomer participants seemed less comfortable with a more internalized sense of gender identity or “subconscious sex” as a concept that also may not align with SAB. To exemplify, Gertrude, a 62-year-old white cis lesbian, explained “I think I am [emphasis added] female. I think I was a boy spirit, born into a female body no doubt.” She did not express discomfort with seeing herself as someone who is both “female” and has a “boy spirit.” Yet Gertrude claimed that “transgender people… make life hard,” and that she is “not that flexible.” She struggled with the idea that a person could feel strongly that she “is” female regardless of the sex she was assigned at birth. For these participants, same-gender attraction was conflated with attraction based on same-SAB (or same “biological sex”). From this point of view, for example, a romantic pairing involving a cisgender man (SAB is male, gender identity is male) and a transgender woman (SAB is male, gender identity is female) might be presumed “gay” because it is between two people whose SAB is male. However, when gender identity is not conflated with SAB, this is a relationship between a man (who is cisgender) and a woman (who is transgender). Participants under 30 were more likely to invoke a narrative in which they understood gender identity as distinct from sex assigned at birth (approximately 64% of Millennials described SAB in terms distinct from gender identity, compared to 20% of Baby Boomers). Furthermore, Millennial participants tended to have more nuanced and rich language to describe gender identity as different from SAB. Neil, a 24-year-old Caribbean-American who identified as nonbinary, saw their gender as “female divested femininity,” meaning that their femininity was not linked to being assigned female at birth. Neil explained their gender performance as femme: “I perform my gender and in order to keep myself safe, as like a femme.…” Ana, assigned female at birth, explained that they “identify as non-binary trans, but also very strongly as a femme person.” Younger participants further explained the way their generation understood gender. For instance, Viola, a 26-year old Latinx participant explained:

A lot of people are starting to come to the realization that gender is a concept… just because you are assigned something at birth, it doesn't mean that it's true to how you feel. And I mean, I very much identify with womanhood…

Although some participants felt comfortable presenting a normative expression of their SAB (as female expressing femininity), as in the case of Viola, a female who “very much identif[ies] with womanhood,” younger participants nevertheless used language that highlighted differences between sex and gender. Unlike Baby Boomers, who tended to identify with their SAB even if they saw themselves as gender nonconforming (masculine woman), younger participants delinked SAB from both gender expression and gender identity. Participants such as Kay, Viola, Ana, and Neil, who delinked sex from gender in their narratives, described their sexual identities using terms not rooted in a gender binary such as such as kink, pansexual and panromantic, and queer.

Along with delinking sex and gender, younger participants often understood sexual attraction to be less about sex assigned at birth (female or male) or gender identity, and more about gender expression. Kenny, a 24-year-old mixed-race gay man in his 20s, explained that as a gay man he is attracted to masculinity regardless of the body or gender identity of the person. He described how this realization came to pass.

I remember I was working on something with our gay student alliance, and one of the people on the board with me sent up her girlfriend to come help me. And I remember turning around and seeing this really, really butch lesbian and being like, Oh, my God. You're hot. And what I realized is, I'm attracted to masculinity. So, while gay, that doesn't close me off to that one sector of the community… I've had sex with before trans, so FTM… And I've not really ever had sex with a girl, but in that sense, if you exude masculinity or something like that, that attracts me.

The delinking of sex from gender resulted in a broader understanding of sexual attraction and sexual identity. Among the younger participants there was a proliferation of gender terms (agender, nonbinary, gender fluid, trans), which was associated with a proliferation of sexual categories, such as queer and pansexual, not based on binary gender.

Intersectional forms of oppression

Homophobia.

Across generations, participants with same-sex attraction and LGBTQ identity described experiences of oppression and marginalization. Some older participants experienced extreme forms of oppression when coming out in the early 1970s or 1980s, including being kicked out of school, losing connection with parents, abuse from their families, and violence outside the home. For instance, Andrew, a 61-year-old queer white transgender man in his early 60s, remembered that he initially “came out as a lesbian when I was 15 years old in 1970 and promptly got kicked out of high school.” Another white participant, Kito, age 64, recalled being assaulted in a London meditation group. “I announced that I was gay. And one of the Scottish guys came up, got up immediately and came at me. Obviously, he was very angry… it was enough to put me on alert.” Younger participants also discussed experiences of abuse and rejection from parents and peers when they were coming out. One participant who was in foster care was kicked out of his foster home, and another was abused by their mother.

We noted however that some young participants (approximately 40%), when answering questions about their life experiences and homophobia, described receiving support from organizations like the Gay and Straight Alliance, LGBTQ centers, mentors, educators, or mental health professionals. Descriptions of assistance from an organization, educator, or mentor appeared among BIPOC participants to the same extent as white participants. For instance, Violet, a 27-year-old BIPOC-identified woman, recalled a scene in which she and her ex-girlfriend were summoned by their parents, who had found out about their romantic relationship on social media.

My ex-girlfriend's mom gets up, gets really close to my face and starts yelling at me about how I'm disgusting and that I have brought shame upon her family… [my ex-girlfriend] got on her phone… and convinced my principal to come into the space and help mediate…everything de-escalated as soon as she got there….

Although her parents were against the relationship, Viola’s ex-girlfriend felt safe to ask the principal of her high school to intervene.

Racism in the LGBTQ community.

BIPOC participants experienced interlocking forms of oppression, including homophobia together with racism from white LGBTQ communities. African American participants, especially, discussed blatant experiences of racism in predominantly white gay bars and other queer spaces, as well as exotification and microaggressions. Ralph, a 58-year-old African American man who lives near the Castro district in San Francisco, said:

As a man of color, I don’t feel accepted in San Francisco. I go to the gay and lesbian center, and basically, they follow me around… When I go to the Castro, I’m [viewed as] a thug, and I’m anything but a thug.

Ralph described being stereotyped as a “thug” and observed with suspicion as a Black man in white gay establishments. Edj, a 22-year-old Nigerian American woman, talked about the difficulties of being Black and bisexual, and the exotification she experienced when dating in San Francisco as a Black woman.

Because the techies are making so much money, so the gentrification and everything, it’s like when you see a Black person… I mean you’ll see of course maybe the rich Black male, or whatever, the rich Black female. But not a lot. So I feel just being Black here is already just an issue, and then being Black and gay is just like -- I feel like people just want to use me almost. Oh, because I’m Black and I’m a gay girl. They’re like okay, that should be a good fuck, but it’s not personal.

People who are BIPOC may be especially likely to encounter tokenism and exotification in San Francisco, where intersecting racism, class oppression and gentrification have pushed people who are Black and/or Latinx out of the city (Hing, 2014; Moskowitz, 2017).

Class oppression and housing insecurity.

Across racial and generational lines, LGBTQ participants in our sample, who were predominantly low income, experienced housing insecurity, including the threat of displacement or needing to house family and friends who could not find their own housing. Altogether, housing insecurity was common among study participants across racial categories (approximately 56% of Baby Boomers and 60% of Millennials reported housing insecurity). Some older participants were able to secure public housing after experiences with homelessness. For instance, Ralph described his living situation:

I live by myself in an SRO [Single Room Occupancy]. It’s fairly big. It has a bathroom in it. We have supported services there, and they’re great. They always have something going on, like five or six times a week. It’s pretty good, and of course, half the building is on some drug. And last night, it was real rough trying to sleep.

Within the context of lack of affordable housing in San Francisco, Ralph sees himself as fortunate to have a room with his own bathroom and some services. Nevertheless, conditions make sleeping and feeling at peace in his apartment challenging. Furthermore, some elder participants who had secure housing described a loved one or a friend who was living with them on a temporary basis because they could not secure their own housing. Destiny, a 58-year-old African American woman, said, “I'm currently taking care of my disabled mother. She just lost her home, her business, after 49 years… and she is now living with me in my one-bedroom.”

Younger participants also worried about securing housing and facing eviction. Shared housing and co-ops played a key role in keeping them housed. Nevertheless, their housing situations were precarious and often they had to rely on friends, parents, or social services for housing. Neil, a 24-year-old nonbinary Caribbean person, relied on networks of queer BIPOC in the Oakland area. They explained that their apartment, shared with two other housemates, was:

passed down through queer people, like QTPOC [Queer and Trans People of Color] for like 12 years now. But I’m not even sure how feasible it’s going to be in the future, because rent. And like my landlord transferred the ownership of the property to a group in San Francisco. So I think they’re gonna start harassing us soon.

Participants often relied on support from relatives, friends, and public assistance to secure housing in the Bay Area. Those who didn’t have a lucrative job or family support were more likely to rely on public housing after experiencing homelessness.

Fighting interlocking forms of oppression.

In their interviews, participants were asked about their daily routines and their sense of connection to people and communities. Our analysis suggests that connection with communities and experiences with marginalization were often linked with dedication to social justice work or activism (approximately 40% of Baby Boomers and 32% of Millennials). A commitment to social justice work was more common among BIPOC participants compared to white participants (approximately 42% of BIPOC participants compared to 27% of white participants).

Some participants described their commitment to social justice work in relation to experiences of trauma and marginalization. For some participants, living through the AIDS epidemic was associated with a call for action to join organizations to help others in their community who were suffering. For people who were currently living with HIV, the trauma of the diagnosis was important in facilitating care for others. Destiny, a 58-year-old African American woman living with HIV, explained, “I keep speaking. I keep helping others. (sighing) Oh, that's what gives me strength.” Like Destiny, Sunshine, a 58-year-old African American woman, became committed to helping younger generations as a result of her own experience living with HIV:

most of the time that I had HIV, I've been not accepting it. I was mostly in shock. I didn't take my medicine. I did everything that you wasn't supposed to do. And then when I got sick -- 'cause I almost died -- I was able to tell my family. And once I told my family, it was like a relief; a pressure had gotten off of me. And then it was like, Okay. I'm going to have this the rest of my life… So now, I want to advocate. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what I'm going through.

Ralph, who had experienced homelessness himself, became an expert in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) laws and outreach with street youth. He explained:

I’m an expert in housing for homelessness, and we do all the SRO laws in San Francisco… I’ve been at the AIDS Foundation [for] years… there was this thing called the Men’s Speed Project. They would work with men that did speed and their relationship to catch HIV from using speed.

Baby Boomer participants who gave back through work in care professions were relatively healthy and had stable housing. Their generativity and work helping others allowed them to regain and sustain their strength and a sense of meaning after experiences with traumatic stress.

Our analysis suggests that an essential component of engaging in social activism and social justice work was a sense of community belonging. Some participants, many of them young, discussed participation in activism and social justice work as part of their community engagement. For instance, Kenny had a strong identification and involvement with the San Francisco leather community and as such he spent many of his weekends volunteering for community events. Janet, a 25-year-old, queer BIPOC woman, was another younger participant who talked about engaging in activism, describing her strong connection with the San Francisco dyke and transgender community:

I feel comfortable in my Dyke March community. I mentioned that I'm organizing that, and it's a good group of folks, and I love being around them…The Dyke March works a lot with the Trans March. I found that our collaborative spaces are really wonderful. I feel really comfortable there.

Like Janet, participants who described engagement in social justice work often described a strong sense of community belonging. The social justice work issues participants became involved in (such as AIDS advocacy, anti-eviction advocacy, trans and queer liberation) were grounded in complex intersections of oppressions including homophobia, transphobia, economic marginalization, and racism.

Discussion

Findings from this research align with previous studies that indicate that LGBTQ white and BIPOC people may frame sexual identity differently. As in previous research, we found that white participants tended to present sexual identity independently of other axes of identity, while for BIPOC participants, sexual identity was more often presented in intersectional relationships with their racial and gender identities or discussed in terms of behaviors rather than social categories (see also Bowleg et al., 2008; Cohen, 1999). This finding has important implications for how organizations or programs define themselves in terms of LGBTQ identities. When organizations center on a single identity axis (e.g., Gay and Lesbian Center), they may be less likely to attract and create a sense of belonging among BIPOC LGBTQ people (Case, 2015; Cohen, 1997). As Audre Lorde famously wrote “there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live a single-issue lives” (1982/2012). To increase solidarity among LGBTQ people of different positionalities, LGBTQ organizations should address broader socio-political problems (e.g. homelessness, eviction, drug abuse).

In comparing sexual minorities of different generations, we found that increased visibility and inclusion of transgender people has occurred alongside changes in how younger cisgender sexual minorities comprehend their identity. Older participants tended to conflate SAB with gender identity. Gender was articulated in terms of a binary opposition of men or women, and sexual identities of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals were understood in terms of same-sex/gender attraction and other-sex attraction. On the other hand, younger participants tended to make a point of separating SAB, gender identity, and gender expression (e.g., “female divested femininity”). The proliferation of configurations between SAB, gender identity, and gender expression was reflected in younger people’s propensity to use sexual identity terms that were not rooted in binary genders. Many (but not all) younger participants preferred sexual identity terms such as queer and pansexual that did not rely on binary gender identities. This finding has implications for understanding processes of social change in recent decades in which queer and transgender movements have increasingly dismantled binary understandings of gender and sexuality (Galupo et al., 2017; Tate et al., 2020; Williams et al., in press).

Our analysis suggests that although the current social climate is more embracing of sexual minorities compared to earlier decades (i.e., in terms of public support and legal recognition), young LGBTQ people still experience homophobia in their homes and schools. Several of the youth in our sample told stories of abusive conflict with their parents or getting kicked out of foster home because of their sexual identity and gender nonconformity. Experiences with homophobia in the home, racism, economic precarity and housing insecurity are mutually reinforcing stressors rooted in interlocking systems of oppression for many LGBTQ people in the Bay Area. The stresses of living with people who reject one’s sexual identity intensify when LGBTQ people cannot afford a safe place to live outside of their family home. For BIPOC LGBTQ people, racialized gentrification further restricts the range of spaces that feel affordable and safe.

We found that younger LGBTQ people somewhat differed from their elders in that in their narratives they more often described support from institutional resources (Gay and Lesbian alliances, teachers, therapists, mentors) when they experienced homophobia. Both older and young BIPOC discussed experiences of racism and exotification as they entered dominant gay and lesbian communities which typically centered white people. These findings highlight the importance of sustaining support for educators, mentors, social workers, and therapists who are BIPOC or who can be allies to BIPOC LGBTQ youth who experience homophobia from families and friends and racism from white LGBTQ communities. Importantly, LGBTQ mainstream institutions are environments in which BIPOC, especially those who have less economic and/or housing security, experience exclusion. We suggest that organizations consider LGBTQ identities and advocacy in intersectional terms that support LGBTQ people who face racism and economic precarity. Specifically, large umbrella organizations such as LGBT centers, the Human Rights Campaign, or the AIDS Foundation should continue and enhance programs that bring together LGBTQ BIPOC people (e.g., Black Brothers Esteem) and continue work to educate white LGBTQ people and white people in general on the systematic oppression of BIPOC in the US and ways to combat this oppression.

Finally, in terms of activism, in agreement with research in psychology that suggests that part of the process of trauma recovery is reconnection with community (see Herman, 1992), we found that older participants who had struggled with an HIV diagnosis, drug addiction, and/or homelessness were especially motivated and committed to helping those who were currently struggling. For younger LGBTQ participants, attachment and a sense belonging to a community were essential to propelling them towards social justice work. Our findings highlight the ways in which experiences with marginalization and trauma can be translated to motivation and energy for supporting other community members who are dealing with life-threatening illness, addiction, and/or homelessness. This finding is aligned with radical healing frameworks grounded in liberation psychology that demonstrate the collective nature of healing. A radical healing perspective understands healing as grounded in the formation of critical consciousness, hope, and healing communities (French et al., 2020; Ginwright, 2010). Many of the elders in our sample were involved in organizing and sustaining communities in which survivors came to reflect, support, and heal together with others. The energy of survivors to form community spaces that help in healing and protect youth in their community should be harnessed by local organizations and nonprofits fighting the spread of HIV, homelessness, and addiction.

Limitations

We do not claim that our findings can be generalized to other samples of participants, for instance, those who live in areas that have higher levels of homophobia, in rural areas, or in settings with a markedly different social safety net. Furthermore, we approach this analysis with intersectional theory and queer thought (Balzer Carr et al., 2015, Cohen, 1997; Cole 2009). As such, we focused on interlocking forms of oppression including homophobia and heteronormativity, racism, and economic precarity brought on by capitalism in constructing LGBTQ identities across different generations. If we were situated in another theoretical paradigm (e.g., minority stress theory) we may have focused on other themes in our data. Additionally, while many themes we highlight are associated with specific interview questions, the themes related to support from others to combat homophobia and motivation to participate in social justice work were inferred from analysis of how participants talked about their lives more generally. Future research should focus on relationships between marginalization, oppression, trauma, and sense of community in leading LGBTQ people to engage in social justice work. Our sample was constituted by a wide range of people from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, and we grouped together people from Indigenous, African American, Latinx, and Asian American backgrounds in comparisons to white people, because their identities are all shaped by white supremacy. Nevertheless, there are important differences in the histories and current realities of members of these groups that we did not register in this research. Furthermore, we grouped together people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual because these groups are all oppressed by homophobia and heteronormativity; nevertheless, there are important ways that sexism and biphobia shape differently the experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Finally, our research included trans* identified people who identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Our analysis did not account for the complex oppression of trans* people who identify as gay, lesbian, and bisexual and the complexity of their relationship with cis-gender gay and lesbian communities. Research rooted in an intersectional approach should examine the experiences of nonbinary and transgender people who are part of sexual minority communities.

Policy Implications

Our research findings stress the need for LGBTQ organizations and scholarship to adopt an intersectional lens that does not center sexual identity as the primary aspect of identification meaningful to all LGBTQ people. Furthermore, our findings together with other studies suggest that even as positive public opinion and legal recognition have increased for LGBTQ people, homophobia persists. Young adults who are rejected by parents and friends rely on organizations like Gay and Straight Alliances and institutional agents such as teachers, therapists, and mentors. These institutional agents should receive sustained monetary support because homophobia is still persistent in many family homes. In addition to strengthening schools and mental health support for LGBTQ people, budget for housing for LGBTQ youth is essential because they may be pushed out of their foster care families or risk staying in unsafe family homes. Policies that can protect renters and low-to-moderate-income home owners from displacement – such as eviction moratoriums, rent control, regulations promoting equitable and non-predatory lending practices, limitations on extreme income inequality – are all critical to supporting and empowering diverse LGBTQ communities (See also Bullock et al. in press). Finally, our intersectional analysis highlights the importance of recruiting the energies of older people, including those with life experience as survivors of homelessness, drug addictions, and AIDS, who are dedicated to disrupting cycles of trauma and improving the lives of others. To combat the interlocking forms of oppression, psychologists should highlight and support the work of intersectional LGBTQ organizations (e.g., Black Brothers Esteem, Queers for Economic Justice, and the Audre Lorde Project) that take an intersectional approach against homophobia and transphobia without decentering struggles for racial and economic justice.

Biography

ELLA BEN HAGAI was trained in anthropology at the London School of Economics and in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fullerton. Her research broadly focuses on processes that lead individuals to develop intersectional consciousness. Recent theoretical publications explore intersections between queer and trans* thought and psychological research. Much of her empirical research examines the socio-psychological processes that lead non-Palestinians to act in solidarity with Palestine.

RACHELLE ANNECHINO is a researcher at the Center for Critical Public Health and at PIRE/Prevention Research Center, where she works primarily on ethnographically-oriented, mixed methods studies that investigate social contexts of substance use. Her work focuses on how socio-technological practices can support or inhibit health equity and institutional trust. She has a master’s degree from the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

NICHOLAS YOUNG is an Ed.M. candidate in school psychology in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies at Columbia University. He received his BA in psychology from Bennington College.

TAMAR M.J. ANTIN is the Director of the Center for Critical Public Health and Principal Investigator of the study "LGBT Adults and Tobacco Stigma: A Qualitative Study" (grant # R01CA190238-03). Her research is broadly focused on health inequities and specifically investigates the intersections between health-related stigmas (e.g. the stigma of being a smoker) and other social identity stigmas (e.g. ethnicity, sexuality, social class, and/or gender). Tamar received her Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Doctor of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Her expertise lies in critical studies of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; multiple method approaches to qualitative research; theory-driven qualitative data analysis; and intersectionality.