ABSTRACT

Sexual attraction, behavior and identity are subject to change across the life course for some individuals, and certain developmental periods such as emerging adulthood appear particularly conducive to this. However, the evidence documenting these phenomena comes overwhelmingly from data collected 10–20 years ago. In the brief interlude since, the socio-political context has changed markedly and increasing numbers of women are reporting non-heterosexuality. Drawing on contemporary data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (n = 16,870), we provide up to date evidence on changes in sexual identity labels among emerging adult women. We found that 19% of women changed their sexual identity label from one survey wave to the next, and 30.6% changed their identity label at least once across the four waves. Mostly heterosexual and bisexual labels were both more common and more stable in our sample than in previous studies. We propose a new typology of sexual identity sequences and fit this to our data, providing a blueprint for researchers looking to define sexual minority status longitudinally. Findings suggest that the ways women perceive and label their sexual orientation should be treated as dynamic phenomena situated within the nested temporalities of biographical and historical time.

摘要

对于某些人来说，性吸引力，行为和身份在其整个人生过程中可能会发生变化，某些发展时期（例如成年期）似乎特别有利于此。但是，记录这些现象的证据绝大多数来自10到20年前收集的数据。此后的短暂插曲中，社会政治背景发生了显着变化，越来越多的妇女报告非异性恋。根据澳大利亚妇女健康纵向研究（n = 16,870）的当代数据，我们提供了有关新兴成年女性性身份标签变化的最新证据。我们发现，有19％的女性在一次调查中将其性身份标签更改为下一个调查，而在整个四个调查中，有30.6％的妇女至少将其身份标签更改了一次。与以前的研究相比，在我们的样本中，大多数情况下，异性恋和双性恋标签更加普遍和稳定。我们提出了一种新的性认同序列类型学，并将其适合我们的数据，为希望从纵向定义性少数群体地位的研究人员提供了一个蓝图。研究结果表明，女性感知和标记自己的性取向的方式应被视为动态现象，该动态现象位于传记和历史时间的嵌套时间范围内。