Lavender Islands: Portrait of the Whole Family

1
Lavender Islands Portrait of the Whole Family

• An interdisciplinary, strengths-based study of
  lesbian and gay communities in Aotearoa New
  Zealand

2
Research Team

• Mark Henrickson, Project Leader (Social Work)
• Stephen Neville (Nursing)
• Sara Donaghey (Communications)
• Claire Jordan (Statistics)
• Members of the Lesbian/Gay/
• Bisexual Communities of New Zealand

3
Background

• Significant work had been done in NZ on
• Workplace discrimination
• HIV
• Lesbian health and mental health
• Gay mens health
• Mental health and suicidality
• Alcohol and other drugs
• But no strengths-based research !

4
Methodology

• There were an array of methodological challenges
• Defining eligible participants Who is LGB?
• Hidden population
• Dispersed population, including density of
  affiliation with mainstream information sources
• Limited common language, signifiers and
  experience
• Suspicious population, as a result of risks of
  disclosure/participation, problematised research
• Multiple identities and cultural differences

5
Methodology (contd)
Community Advisory Group
Interest Group
Interest Group
Core Team

• Interest Group

Interest Group
6
Methodology

• CAG research question
• What do we look like?

7
Methodology

• Domains (Interest Group Areas)
• Identity Self-Definition
• Income Education
• Relationships Sex
• Migration and Immigration
• Politics
• Business, Career Leisure
• Community Connections
• Well-being
• Spirituality Religion
•  

8
Methodology

• National, quantitative survey intended as a
  baseline for future more in-depth projects
• Web-based and hard copy (with Freepost return)
• Survey Instrument
• Final version was 133 questions, including one
  qualitative response question
• 20-45 minutes to complete

9
Methodology

• Participants recruited through viral sampling
  and
• existing friendship networks and e-links
• lesbian, gay organisations and media (stuffers)
• public media
• in-person outreach at LGB venues and events
• posted copies to telephone requests
• Data collected 28 April 0415 July 04
• Data entered to SPSS for analysis

10
Sample Characteristics

• Final sample was 2,269 valid respondents
• 1,896 web (83.6)
• 373 paper (16.4)
• Sample was 54.3 male, 45.1 female

11
Sample Characteristics

• Mean age was 38.47 years
• range12-80 s.d.12.859 only seven under age 16
• No difference in mean age by gender
• Mean age differed significantly (plt.001) by
  response medium
• Paper mean was 46.05 (s.d.11.920)
• Web mean was 36.98 (s.d.12.508)

12
Sample Characteristics

• Differences in response medium (contd)
• No significant differences by education (p.162)
• No significant difference by income (p.051) by
  original income bands if recoded to two income
  bands (lt40,000, gt40,000), p.358
• Therefore we can say that there were no
  statistical differences between paper and website
  responses by education/income

Income difference by response medium
13
Sample Characteristics

• Good geographic distribution, concentrated mostly
  in urban centres (79.0)
• 48.0 from Auckland
• 5.0 from Hamilton/Waikato
• 18.7 from Wellington
• 8.8 from Christchurch/Canterbury
• 4.8 from Dunedin/Otago
• 82.9 North Island, 17.1 South Island

14
Sample Characteristics (contd)

• 78.7 were NZ-born
• Followed by
• Europe/UK (11.0),
• Australia (3.2),
• N. America (2.8),
• Asia (2.3)
• Africa (1.3)
• Other South Pacific (0.3)
• Overseas-born pattern follows NZ Census (2001)

15
Sample Characteristics (contd)

• Highly educated 51.3 have UG or PG degrees,
• vs. 10.1 for general population (14.8 of
  15-34s)
• Comparatively high income (modal group was
  50-70,000 NZ median is 18,500, mean is
  28,800)

16
Sample Characteristics (contd)

• Sample occupations
• 17 senior administrators/managers
• 12.3 students
• 10.1 education (all levels)
• 6.7 writers and artists
• 6.0 have served in Defense and/or Police, and
• 0.6 (n13) are market-oriented animal
  producers here in Maunga Brokeback

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Selected Results (Identity)

• Mean age when respondents felt different from
  others was 11.16 years (s.d.5.078) for men,
  14.33 (s.d.7.704) years for women (plt.001)
• Mean age for coming out to self was 18.70 years
  (s.d.7.627) for men, 23.03 years (s.d.9.235)
  for women (plt.001).

18
Selected Results (Identity)
19
Sample Characteristics (contd)

• Self descriptors
• 43.7 gay
• 30.3 lesbian
• 9.0 homosexual
• 8.3 bisexual
• 5.3 queer

20
Selected Results (Identity)

• 83 of men and 61 of women said that their
  sexuality had always been this way (plt.001)
• Both men and women were more happy than unhappy
  with their sexual identity (5.9/7 n.s.)
• If they had the choice, women more likely to
  choose to be lesbian (5.94/7) than men to be gay
  (4.65/7 plt.001)
• However, both men (6.12/7) and women (5.29/7)
  believe that LGBs are born, not chosen

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Selected Results (Identity)

• We used a four-axis measure of sexual identity
  (SAFE)
• Sexual behaviour,
• Sexual Attraction,
• Fantasy
• Emotional attraction,
• In last 12 months and lifetime ( 8 indicators)
• Cronbachs ? 0.976, but only 0.816 for males and
  0.770 for females, suggesting gender differences

22
Selected Results (Identity)

• Womens sexual identity appears more
  flexible/fluid than that of men
• This is consistent with the literature
• Both lifetime and current same-sex emotional
  attraction is more important to women than to men
  
• The literature suggests that women are
  relational, and even describes relational
  orientation v. sexual orientation

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Significantly more men than women have never had
  a primary relationship with a member of the
  opposite sex, or a member of the same sex

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• More women (66.6) than men (51.7) are in
  same-sex primary relationships
• 16.6 say partner lives elsewhere
• 11.0 say partner lives elsewhere
• 3.7 of respondents were married and living with
  opposite sex partner (2.9 of women, 2.2 of men)
• 1.1 say partner lives elsewhere (mostly women)

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• 86 of women said they preferred exclusive
  relationship,
• 82 had agreed with their partners, and
• 90 reported actually being exclusive
• 54.5 of men preferred exclusive relationships,
• 46.2 had agreed with their partners to be
  exclusive, and
• 56 reported actually being exclusive
• 28.0 have had extramural sex, but no emotional
  commitment
• 8.6 said extramural sex and emotional commitment
  are OK, but only as a couple only 4.1 report
  actually having done so.
• Being in a relationship does not imply
  exclusivity!

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Men were significantly more likely to have had
  more partners than women in the last 12 months

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Sexual activity
• 67.6 of men have ever had anonymous sex
• 16.6 of women have ever had anonymous sex
• 23.1 of men have ever paid money for sex
• 1.7 of women have ever paid money for sex

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Quality of relationships
• Sex outside a relationship does not necessarily
  harm that relationship (1disagree, 7agree)
• Womens mean2.61
• Mens mean3.77 (plt.001)
• A person who stays with one partner is likely to
  have a more satisfying life than someone with
  many different partners
• Womens mean4.45
• Mens mean4.71 (plt.001)

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Living arrangements
• Women are more likely to live with a partner
  (48.9)
• Men are more likely to live alone (23.4) or with
  flatmates (39.6)
• Most own their own homes either by themselves or
  with a partner (51.5 of women, 50.3 of men)

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• Mean length of longest OPPOSITE sex relationship
  
• Women 45.05 months (n753, s.d. 50.333)
• Men 45.94 months (n599, s.d.57.216) (n.s.)
• Mean length of longest SAME sex relationship
• Women 76.46 months (n964, s.d.66.971)
• Men 75.86 months (n1113, s.d.83.871) (n.s.)

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Selected Results (Relationships)

• 23.4 of women and 60.1 of men had used Internet
  to find partner or relationship
• This has significant implications for cybersex,
  particularly for Asians, many whose primary
  contact with LGB community is electronic (see
  Reaching out, hooking up, in press and on
  website)

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Selected Results (Challenges)

• Challenges
• 58.7 had been outed without consent (n.s. by
  gender)
• 76.6 of men and 64.4 of women had been verbally
  assaulted because of their sexuality
• 18.2 of men and 9.2 of women had been
  physically assaulted because of their sexuality
  (queer bashed)

33
Selected Results (Wellbeing)

• 73.7 of LI respondents reported HCP always or
  usually assumes they are heterosexual (84.3 of
  women, 65.8 of men)
• 76.2 percent of lt40s and 70.9 percent of the 40
  group said their health care provider always or
  usually presumes they are heterosexual
• More of the 40 group (71.5) had disclosed than
  lt40 (61.2)
• 71.7 of women and 64.6 of men had disclosed
• 42.6 reported their disclosure had influenced
  their health care in a positive way
• 81.7 said HCP was completely comfortable with
  disclosure 8.7 were uncomfortable

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Selected Results (Wellbeing)

• 91.8 of respondents reported their health as
  very good or excellent (71.5) or good (20.3)
  men reported significantly better health than
  women (but this is non-significant if only very
  good and excellent are combined).
• There is no difference in health status by lt40
  and 40

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Limitations

• Potential sampling issues inevitable with
  self-selected sample (but dont make essentialist
  error of assuming equal distribution throughout
  the population!)
• Issue of electronic v. hard copy sampling
  (compare with Swedish, American, UK and
  Australian studies), but analysis shows no
  differences in LI sample, variant difference in
  others
• See other results and papers at
  http//lavenderislands.massey.ac.nz

36
Conclusions and Recommendations

• Gay men and lesbians construct their sexual
  identities differently
• Gay men and lesbians construct their
  relationships differently
• There are clinical and risk reduction education
  implications in the ways gay men and lesbians
  construct their identities and relationships.
• It is important for clinicians to ascertain not
  only the relationship status of their
  patients/clients, but also
• not to make any assumptions at all about the ways
  those relationships are constructed and lived
  out.