By the time the supposed Black vs. gay war had been (re)launched following California's passage of 2008 Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marrage in the state, I was well aware of oppression within oppressed groups (I ranted back in Feburary about the problematic expression, "gay is the new black.")  In this post, I want to challenge the notion that being a minority automatically makes one empathetic toward other minority groups, and, further, that being a minority makes one immune to oppressing others.

As a young biracial gay feminist aspiring-vegetarian activist, I understood the experience of a minority to include empathy for other minorities and explicit efforts to challenge all forms of oppression.  In my case, being of color and gay meant being a feminist and actively challenging sexist oppression, as well as other forms of prejudice and discrimination.  This mindset continued into college, particularly when I shifted toward a queer identity.  I suppose it only took moving to Indiana and beginning...

This week the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released At The Intersection: Race, Sexuality and Gender—a two year research study focused on identifying the priorities and realities of LGBT people of color nation wide. This research is part of a new broader HRC initiative called Equality Forward, which has as its mission the uniting of LGBT people and allies of all races and backgrounds in order to achieve equality for all. The report is meant as the beginning of an interactive national dialogue. You can download the entire report and also share your own story (and read other stories) as an LGBT person of color on the Equality Forward web site.

Some of the report’s findings include:

I recently attended the 41st Annual AASECT (American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) Conference. I had the privilege of presenting at the conference, which I greatly enjoyed. More importantly I was a small part of an outreach that brought the SM community and the academic research community, who have in the past been seen as at odds to one another, together. Having the perspective of one who resides in both camps, it was quite amazing to hear commentary from each organization about this outreach and what it could mean to not only the future of sex education and therapy, but to the future of those of us who feel we live on the fringes of society because of our sexual identities.

APEX, the Arizona Power Exchange, opened its doors to those attending the AASECT Conference. As far as I know, this has never been done quite like this before. APEX had the courage to reach out to a community that many BDSM lifestylers are cautious and even afraid of. And because of this magnanimous gesture, another 150 educators and therapists have returned to...

Quite an interesting article on the science of sexual identity in Mother Jones. 

I’m a little disappointed that I’m just now seeing this article, but the timing is great – I just found out that I’ll be teaching Sexual Diversity in the fall!  The article, a little long and slow to load, is well worth the read.  It speaks to the ambivalence I believe many sexuality scholars, advocates, and just everyday people have about our understanding about the origins of sexual orientation.  We have moved away from “sexual preference”, dismissing any allusions to choice, toward “sexual orientation”.  We’ve all heard the anti-choice argument: “Why would anyone choose to be gay, putting up with all of the homophobia and other nonsense.”  It’s a valid point: most of us are simply “oriented” toward certain people romantically and/or sexually.

However, there are some competing claims that we must reconcile.  Sexuality is fluid.  Sexuality is innate.  Sexuality is socially constructed.  Before the creation of the “homosexual” and “heterosexual”...

As the deadline for the NSRC Summer Institute approaches, NSRC staff and interns are going to write about our featured Summer Institute lectures each week and tell you why you want to spend a portion of your summer in a classroom with these talented scholars. To kick off the series, I’m pulling out all of the stops and throwing down this ever-convincing gambit – if you love Oprah, you should come to the Summer Institute.

No, Oprah is not one of our featured scholars, but Lisa Diamond is and on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 she will be on The Oprah Winfrey Show discussing her research on women’s sexual fluidity. So if you want to know more about Oprah and what she is really like in person, the NSRC summer institute with Dr. Lisa Diamond is the place to be! But seriously, Oprah may have revolutionized daytime television, but she's got nothing on Lisa Diamond when it comes to revolutionizing the way we think about sexuality.

Students interested in identity, attraction, and sexuality must meet Dr. Diamond because she is doing some of the most innovative research in the field. Her book, Sexuality Fluidity, takes a critical look at gender, sexual attraction, and systems of categorizing sexual...

Nobody hates doing this more than me, but I have to bring up a recent episode of the Tyra Banks show (sorry, I know).  This brilliant installment centered on what Tyra referred to as “Gay for Pay,” and featured numerous heterosexual men in heterosexual relationships (some married, some not) who worked in the gay porn industry, i.e., were “gay for pay.”  For what amounted to one very long hour, Tyra and her horrified audience went back and forth over whether the men were really straight, and calling them out as gay or bisexual. Their reasoning; no real straight man would ever engage in same sex behavior, or god forbid, allow themselves to be aroused by any form of homosexuality, under any circumstances.  What was especially infuriating was that if these had been heterosexually identified women up on stage, first off, there wouldn’t have been a show to begin with, and secondly, I doubt people would have questioned their sexuality to the extent they did the men. 

Society may have come along way in terms of our sexual rights and freedoms, but in many ways, it is still as restrictive as ever. Particularly when it comes to male sexuality, the...