Lesbians and Bisexual Women in the Eyes of Scientific Psychology

Abstract

Social science research has contributed to the destigmatization of homosexuality which, in turn, has affected the topics researchers choose to study. We examined psychological research that focused on lesbians and bisexual women from 1975 to 2001 to determine if the frequency and content of this research reflect the increasingly positive view of sexual minorities in society. The results indicate that non-heterosexual people were included in less than 1 percent of published research, and lesbians and bisexual women were significantly less likely to be studied than gay and bisexual men. Content analysis of 533 abstracts followed by cluster analysis of 520 abstracts revealed four conceptual frameworks that characterized this body of research: Gender Identity, Attitudes towards Lesbians, Lesbians as Problems, and Life in Heterosexist Society. Together, changes over time in the quantity and emphasis of research shed light on how lesbianism and bisexuality have been constructed in psychological studies and highlight the politics of lesbian-bisexual visibility.