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. 2020 Feb:30 Suppl 2:431-442.
doi: 10.1111/jora.12488. Epub 2019 Feb 13.

Evidence of Diverse Identities in a Large National Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents

Ryan J Watson  1 , Christopher W Wheldon  2 , Rebecca M Puhl  1
Affiliations

Evidence of Diverse Identities in a Large National Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents

Ryan J Watson et al. J Res Adolesc. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

Adolescence is a time of identity exploration, and preliminary evidence indicates the ways adolescents are describing their sexual and gender identities (SOGI) are changing. A nuanced understanding of SOGI is necessary for valid assessment in developmental research. Current measures do not capture the diversity of emerging identities among young people. Our study analyzed a national sample of 17,112 sexual and gender minority adolescents (13-17 years) to better understand how identity labels are reported across sexual, gender, and ethnoracial minorities. Adolescents reported 26 distinct SOGI categories; 24% of adolescents utilized nontraditional SOGI labels, such as pansexual and nonbinary. These identifications varied significantly as a function of ethnoracial identity. Results have implications for how scholars conceptualize and measure SOGI among adolescents.

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