lgbtq personal essay

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Answers & Advice

What They Don’t Tell You About Having a Queer Wedding

By Timothy DuWhite

My Leather and Whips Don’t Make Me Masc

By Danny Thanh Nguyen

Most Popular

9 lgbtq+ people explain how they love, hate, and understand the word "queer".

By Alexander Cheves

Love, Us: Why Don't We Kiss Our Friends More?

By Garrett Schlichte

I Thought Objectification Was Flattery. Self-Pleasure Was My Way Out

By Juan Michael Porter II

How I Learned to Stop Yearning and Tell My Crushes How I Really Feel

Trans autistic people use our whole bodies to express joy.

By Elly Belle

What Dating As An Intersex Person Taught Me About Self-Acceptance

By Bria Brown-King

How a “Grass Is Greener” Mentality Ruined My First Queer Relationship

By Bobby Box

The Safety, Privilege, and Invisibility I Found Living Stealth

By Nat Vikitsreth

We Asked 5 Queer Elders to Share Life Lessons About Love and Dating

How Breast Cancer Taught Me to Love My Body

By Amber Drew

Get the best of what's queer

Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy .

Learning To Practice “Body Neutrality” Is The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done. It’s Also The Most Rewarding

By Emma Specter

As a Young Trans Girl, Anorexia Was My Gender’s First Love

By Aerin Cho

I’m So Trans When I Turn On My Lamp

By P.E. Moskowitz

20 Must-Read Queer Essay Collections

Laura Sackton

Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes , celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You can catch her on Instagram shouting about the queer books she loves and sharing photos of the walks she takes in the hills of Western Mass (while listening to audiobooks, of course).

View All posts by Laura Sackton

I love essay collections, and I love queer books, so obviously I love queer essay collections. An essay collection can be so many things. It can be an opportunity to examine one particular subject in depth. Or it can be a wonderful messy mix of dozens of themes and ideas. The books on this list are a mix of both. Some hone in on an author’s own life, while others look outward, examining current events, history, and pop culture. Some are funny, some are very serious, and some are decidedly both.

In making this list, I used two criteria: 1) queer authors and 2) queer content. There are, of course, plenty of wonderful essay collections out there by queer authors that aren’t about queerness. But this list focuses on essays that explore queerness in all its messy glory. You’ll also find essays here about many other things: tornadoes, step-parenthood, the internet, tarot, activism, online dating, to name just a few. But taken together, the essays in each of these books add up to a queer whole.

I limited myself to living authors, and even so, there were so many amazing queer essay collections I wanted to include but couldn’t. This is just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a great place to start if you need more queer essays in your life — and who doesn’t?

Personal Queer Essay Collections

How to Write An Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

It’s hard for me to put my finger on the thing that elevates an essay collection from a handful of individual pieces to a cohesive book. But Chee obviously knows what that thing is, because this book builds on itself. He writes about growing roses and working odd jobs and AIDS activism and drag and writing a novel, and each of these essays is singularly moving. But as a whole they paint a complex portrait of a slice of the writer’s life. They inform and converse with each other, and the result is a book you can revisit again and again, always finding something new.

I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom

In this collection of beautiful and thought-provoking essays, Kai Cheng Thom explores the messy, far-from-perfect realties of queer and trans communities and community movements. She writes about what many community organizers, activists, and artists don’t want to talk about: the hard stuff, the painful stuff, the bad times. It’s not all grim, but it’s very real. Thom addresses transphobia, racism, and exclusion, but she also writes about the particular joys she’s found in creating community and family with other queer and trans people of color. This is a must-read for anyone involved in social justice work, or immersed in queer community.

Here For It by R. Eric Thomas

If you enjoy books that blend humor and heartfelt wisdom, you’ll love this collection. R. Eric Thomas writes about coming of age as a writer on the internet, his changing relationship to Christianity, the messy intersections of his queer Black identity. It’s a lovey mix of grappling and quips. It’s full of pop culture references and witty asides, as well as moving, vulnerable personal stories.

The Rib Joint by Julia Koets

This slim memoir-in-essays is entirely personal. Although Koets does weave some history, pop culture, and religion into the work — everything from the history of organs to Sally Ride — her gaze is mostly focused inward. The essays are short and beautifully written; she often leaves the analysis to the reader, simply letting distinct and sometimes contradictory ideas and images sit next to each other on the page. She writes about her childhood in the South, the hidden and often invisible queer relationships she had as a teenager and young adult, secrets and closets, and the tensions and overlaps between religion and queerness.

I Can’t Date Jesus by Michael Arceneaux

This is another fantastic humorous essay collection. Arceneaux somehow manages to be laugh-out-loud funny while also delivering nuanced cultural critique and telling vulnerable stories from his life. He writes about growing up in Houston, family relationships, coming out, and so much more. The whole book wrestles with how to be a young Black queer person striving to make meaning in the world. His second collection, I Don’t Want to Die Poor , is equally wonderful.

Tomboyland by Melissa Faliveno

If you’re wondering, this is the book that contains an essay about tornadoes. It also contains a gorgeous essay about pantry moths (among other things). Those are just two of the many subjects Faliveno plumbs the depths of in this remarkable book. She writes about gender expression and how her relationship with gender has changed throughout her life, about queer desire and family, about Midwestern culture, about place and home, about bisexuality and bi erasure. Her far-ranging essays challenge mainstream ideas about what queer lives do and do not look like. She asks more questions than she answers, delving into the murky terrain of desire and identity.

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery

Is this book even an essay collection? It is, and it isn’t. Some of these pieces are deeply personal stories about Lavery’s experience with transition. Others are trans retellings of mythology, literature, and film. All of it is weird and smart and impossibly to classify. Lavery examines the idea of transition from every angle, creating new stories about trans history, trans identity, and transformation itself.

Brown White Black by Nishta J. Mehra

If there’s one thing I love most in an essay collection, it’s when an author allows contradictions and messy, fraught truths to live next to each other on the page. I love when an essayist asks more questions than they answer. That’s what Mehra does in this book. An Indian American woman married to a white woman and raising a Black son, she writes with openness and curiosity about her particular family. She explores how race, sexuality, gender, class, and religion impact her life and most intimate relationships, as well as American culture more broadly.

Blood, Marriage, Wine, & Glitter by S. Bear Bergman

This essay collection is an embodiment of queer joy, of what it means to become part of a queer family. Every essay captures some aspect of the complexity and joy that is queer family-making. Bergman writes about being a trans parent, about beloved friends, about the challenges of partnership, about intimacy in myriad forms. His tone is warm and open-hearted and joyful and celebratory.

Forty-Three Septembers by Jewelle Gómez

In these contemplative essays, Jewell Gómez explores the various pieces of her life as a Black lesbian, writing about family, aging, and her own history. Into these personal stories she weaves an analysis of history and current events. She writes about racism and homophobia, both within and outside of queer and Black communities, and about her life as an artist and poet, and how those identities, too, have shaped the way she sees the world.

Pass With Care by Cooper Lee Bombardier

Set mostly against the backdrop of queer culture in 1990s San Francisco, this memoir in essays is about trans identity, being an artist, masculinity, queer activism, and so much more. Bombardier brings particular places and times to life (San Francisco in the 1990s, but other places as well), but he also connects those times and experiences to the present in really interesting ways. He recognizes the importance of queer and trans history, while also exploring the possibilities of queer and trans futures.

Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

This is a beautiful, rigorous collection of essays about disability justice centering disabled queer and trans people of color. From an exploration of the radical care collectives Piepzna-Samarasinha and other queer and trans BIPOC have organized to an essay where examines the problems with the “survivor industrial complex,” every one of these pieces is full of wisdom, anger, transformation, radical celebration. It challenged me on so many levels, in the best possible way. It’s a must read for anyone engaged in any kind of activist work.

I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya

I’m cheating a little bit here, because technically I’d classify this book as one essay, singular, rather than a collection of essays. But I’m including it anyway, because it is brilliant, and because I think it exemplifies just what a good essay can do, what a powerful form of writing it can be. By reflection on various experiences Shraya has had with men over the course of her life, she examines the connections and intersections between sexism, transmisogyny, toxic masculinity, and sexual violence. It’s a heavy read, but Shraya’s writing is anything but. It’s agile and graceful, flowing and jumping between disparate thoughts and ideas. This is a book-length essay you can read in one sitting, but it’ll leave you with enough to think about for many days afterward.

Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon

In this collaborative essay collection, trans writers and performers Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon play with both gender and form. The book is a combination of personal essays, short vignettes, song lyrics, and images. Using these various kinds of storytelling, they both recount their own particular journeys around gender — how their genders have changed throughout their lives, the ways the gender binary has continually harmed them both, and the many communities, people, and experiences that have contributed to joyful self-expression and gender freedom.

The Groom Will Keep His Name by Matt Ortile

Matt Ortile uses his experiences as a gay Filipino immigrant as a lens in these witty, insightful, and moving essays. By telling his own stories — of dating, falling in love, struggling to “fit in” — he illuminates the intersections among so many issues facing America right now (and always). He writes about the model minority myth and many other myths he told himself about assimilation, sex, power, what it means to be an American. It’s a heartfelt collection of personal essays that engage meaningfully, and critically, with the wider world.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

I’m not a big fan of humorous essays in this vein, heavy on pop culture references I do not understand and full of snark. But I absolutely love Irby’s books, which is about the highest praise I can give. I honestly think there is something in here for everyone. Irby is just so very much herself: she writes about whatever the hell she wants to, whether that’s aging or the weirdness of small town America or snacks (there is a lot to say about snacks). And whatever the subject, she’s always got something funny or insightful or new or just super relatable to say.

Queer Essay Anthologies

She Called Me Woman Edited by Azeenarh Mohammed, Chitra Nagarajan, and Aisha Salau

This anthology collects 30 first-person narratives by queer Nigerian women. The essays reflect a range of experiences, capturing the challenges that queer Nigerian women face, as well as the joyful lives and communities they’ve built. The essays explore sexuality, spirituality, relationships, money, love, societal expectations, gender expression, and so much more.

Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on Marriage, Relationships & Identity by Carter Sickels

When gay marriage was legalized, I felt pretty ambivalent about it, even though I knew I was supposed to be excited. But I have never wanted or cared about marriage. Reading this book made me feel so seen. That’s not to say it’s anti-marriage — it isn’t! It’s a collection of personal essays from a diverse range of queer people about the families they’ve made. Some are traditional. Some are not. The essays are about marriages and friendships, parenthood and siblinghood, polyamorous relationships and monogamous ones. It’s a book that celebrates the different forms queer families take, never valuing any one kind of family or relationship over another.

Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity Edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane

This book collects essays from 30 nonbinary writers, and trans and gender-nonconforming writers whose genders fall outside the binary. The writers inhabit a diverse range of identity and experience in terms of race, age, class, sexuality. Some of the essays are explicitly about gender identity, others are about family and relationships, and still others are about activism and politics. As a whole, the book celebrates the expansiveness of trans experiences, and the many ways there are to inhabit a body.

Moving Truth(s): Queer and Transgender Desi Writings on Family Edited by Aparajeeta ‘Sasha’ Duttchoudhury and Rukie Hartman

This anthology brings together a collection of diverse essays by queer and trans Desi writers. The pieces explore family in all its shapes and iterations. Contributors write about community, friendship, culture, trauma, healing. It’s a wonderfully nuanced collection. Though there is a thread that runs through the whole book — queer and trans Desi identity — the range of viewpoints, styles and experiences represented makes it clear how expansive identity is.

Looking for more queer books? I made a list of 40 of my favorites . If you’re looking for more essay collections to add to your list, check out 10 Must-Read Essay Collections by Women , and The Best Essays from 2019 . And if you’re not in the mood for a whole book right now, why not try one of these free essays available online (including some great queer ones)?

You Might Also Like

• Advocate Newsletter

Search form

By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use .

20 LGBTQ Collections of Poetry, Short Stories, and Essays

Some of our favorite new collections of short-form writing by queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming authors.

Almost Home by Madison Kuhn, the Instagram-famous poet and author of Please Don't Go Before I Get Better , is a mesmerizing new collection of poems and prose exploring the meaning and concept of "home," and the process of discovering it within one's self. At 23, Kuhn had already lived in 24 places. Almost Home is her attempt to reconcile her feelings of displacement in the world and achieve at least an emotional and spiritual sense of permanence and stability. Told from the framework of a figurative house, from front porch to bedroom, Kuhn takes you on a spellbinding journey through some of the most intimate parts of her life -- from childhood traumas to learning how to give and receive love. (Gallery Books) -- DG

We Still Leave a Legacy by Philip Robinson is a moving collection of verses by the award-winning poet and well-known activist, dedicated to his own friends and loved ones who transitioned from this world due to HIV/AIDS, cancer, or some other life-altering, debilitating condition. The Black gay writer actually began writing the book nearly 30 years ago when he started his lasting role as a volunteer and activist for HIV/AIDS causes. This touching memoriam, now available in paperback, lovingly gives honor to the many in Robinson's life who were gone from this realm too soon. (We Still Leave a Legacy Press) -- DG

Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson, the renowned queer spoken-word poet, is a captivating collection of writings that take a delicately nuanced and artistic look at gender, love, heartbreak, and family -- in addition to being a book of protest. Within her exciting prose, Gibson fiercely tackles some of today's most pressing and controversial issues as a society. Whether she's lashing out at gun violence, homophobia, or white supremacy, the winner of the first Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2008 goes right for the jugular with her powerful and unapologetic style. (Button Poetry) -- DG

Boss Broad by Megan Volpert, the acclaimed queer feminist teacher, poet, and author, is a new collection of over 40 of her most riveting poems in which she creatively utilizes iconic pop-culture references, from Bruce Springsteen lyrics to Steven Colbert and Patti Smith mentions. "I like working behind enemy lines to knock down powerful, sinister people," Volpert recently told Arts ATL . "In their place, I put queer feminism with splashy, campy, rock 'n' roll attitude." Don't miss out on this timely and exciting commentary that flips the script on an antiquated, patriarchal mindset with brilliant, insightful results. (Sibling Rivalry Press) -- DG

Aviva-No by Shimon Adaf, originally written in Hebrew, is a small collection of poems that artfully combines contemporary Hebrew, Arabic, and Old Armaic languages with ancient biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinic text. Much of the prose focuses on Adaf's perspective as a member of Israeli society and the daily violence he's witnessed, as well as his sister's untimely death at 43. Now carefully translated into English (alongside its original Hebrew) by Yael Segalovitz in this new paperback edition, all can devour Adaf's often surreal and though-provoking writings. (Alice James Books) -- DG

Feed by Native-American poet Tommy "Teebs" Pico continues to prove his mastery of longform poetry with his fourth installment in a series of short books ( IRL , Nature Poem , and Junk ) that carry on a single narrative. In the semi-autobiographical series, we've seen the narrator through an intense love affair, and its eventual demise. Now in Feed , we witness our protagonist struggle with the aftermath of these events, mixing authentically modern cultural touchstones with thoughts of deep introspection. And lots of humor. Focusing on his relationships with culture and food, or lack thereof due to his post-colonization existence as an Indigenous person, Pico delivers an insightful, often hilarious, and too-rarely-told perspective of modern Native American life. (Tin House Books) -- DG

Frame of Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington D.C. and Beyond, 1997-2017 photographed by Antonia Tricarico captures the gritty heart and soul of the late '90s punk scene in all its sweaty, raging glory. Focusing on bands born out of the D.C. area -- like Fugazi, Deep Lust, Lungfish, and Stinking Lizaveta -- this decadent coffee table book also features dozens of bands and artists (L7, Babes in Toyland) beyond the D.C. demographic who have drawn inspiration from this particular sect of punk. Though the photos feature artists of all genders, the fascinating essays that accompany them were penned by an impressive roster of women in rock (Joan Jett, Alice Bag, and Lori Barbero, to name a few). These writings, alongside renowned rock photographer Tricarico's unforgettably visceral images, make you feel like you've won the ultimate backstage pass. (Akashic Books) -- DG

Delicate Tiger. Ferocious Snowflake. by Christopher Soden is a carefully chosen selection of the famed critic's reviews of theatrical productions. Whereas other reviewers often focus almost primarily on what did or did not work in a staging, Soden approaches from a different point of view. His perspective focuses instead on what he finds uplifting in a production, with purpose as much as execution. As a result, his reviews are less an attempt to shape reaction to a particular performance as much it is to subtly realign the perspective and perception in general of the audience. This unique view of the reviewer as a more priest than judge has endeared him to both his devoted readers as well as the professionals who stage the productions. In addition to teaching and writing reviews, Soden's Queer Anarchy performance piece won the Dallas Voice 's award for Best Stage Performance. (Lulu) -- Donald Padgett

Step Lightly by Kendall Klym, PhD, is a powerhouse collection of 15 short stories exploring the art of dance, movement, and the ongoing journey of connecting our hearts, souls, and bodies. A former professional ballet dancer, Klym channels the power of self-expression through dance in an array of human tales -- from an amateur ballerina in her 40s who forms a bond with her dance class, to a woman with a broken marriage whose newfound love for belly dancing sparks a sexual awakening, to a fantasy tale of a magical dessert that summons the ghost of legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova to anyone who eats it. The award-winning storyteller's debut short story collection tickles the imagination while encouraging us to form a better relationship with our bodies. (Livingston Press) -- David Artavia

Running Upon the Wires by Kate Tempest secures the 34-year-old poet's place as one of the greatest young writers today. An incredibly personal collection of poems divided into three parts (The End, The Middle, and The Beginning) is a special experiment crafted beautifully by Tempest to show that love, the driving theme in the book, knows no direction. Her intuitive craftsmanship is on display in various forms of ballads, formal lyrics, and a bit of impetuousness laid out in the form of fragmented sentences beautifully written to represent peace within chaos. A true wordsmith, the London-born poet, playwright, and spoken word performer has managed to create a piece of work that stays ingrained in your mind long after putting it down. (Bloomsbury Publishing) -- DA

The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible edited by Catherine Burns brings everything we love about the acclaimed radio show and podcast, The Moth , into a suspenseful written narrative. Burns, The Moth 's long-time artistic director, brought together people from across the globe to offer their tales of when they had to face the odds, and won. All stories were handpicked from the best narratives ever told on the hit show, meticulously translated for the page. A true emotional ride from start to finish, Occasional Magic will make you laugh, cry, and ponder about how fascinating humankind really is. (Crown Archetype) -- DA

Whereas is Layli Long Soldier's debut collection of poetry highlighting the cultural erasure of Native Americans by the United States. Its unapologetically strident and evoking language shines a light on the broken promises and evolving barriers the government has placed on Native tribes for centuries. Originally published in 2017 and now available in paperback, the Oglala Sioux author's collection of poems is still relevant today and is beautifully expressed through complex historical narratives. The winner of the 2016 Whiting Writers' Award, Long Soldier's work justifiably raises our level of consciousness to new heights. (Graywolf Press) -- DA

Heed the Hollow is Malcolm Tariq's captivating collection of poetry beautifully examining what it means to simply... be. More specifically, the poet explores the full scope of how to rebuild ourselves from the in and out, to be full while at the same time being hollow, to be aware of our humanity, our Blackness, our sexuality, while at the same acknowledging our past, present, future, and what it all means. With deeply moving metaphors and sharp imagery with backdrops of the American South, Tariq plants an emotional seed that dares us to examine our history while remaining conscious of our present path. (Graywolf Press) -- DA

This Wound Is a World by Billy-Ray Belcourt is an anthology of poems from Canada's first First Nations Rhodes Scholar. Describing himself as "one of those hopeless romantics who wants every blowjob to be transformative," his poems upset genre and effortlessly play with form. They pave a path for a new perspective and interpretation on queer and decolonial theory, and Indigenous poetry in Native America. His words leap from the page as they challenge coloniality of the present, and the tyranny of sexual and racial norms. Equal parts manifesto and memoir, This Wound Is a World is an introspective call to turn to love and sex to understand the plight of Indigenous peoples, and offer a path to dealing with sadness and pain without sacrificing history and identity. Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation and has won numerous awards for his poetry. (University of Minnesota Press) -- DP

Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons is a lush, gritty, dark, and delicious collection of short stories by the award-winning writer. Told with wit, style, and unapologetic honesty, Parsons's writings unearth the places deep within ourselves that most of us prefer would remain buried. From describing cool, indifferent family dinners to hot-blooded trysts at a Texas pay-by-hour motel, Parsons creates vivid scenes most can relate to at some point or other in their lives, whether they'd like to admit it or not. Queer feminist author and critic Carmen Maria Machado ( Her Body and Other Parties ) called the stories in Black Light "grimy and weird, surprising, [and] utterly lush." (Penguin Random House) -- DG

Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro by Mari Yoshihara offers a fresh perspective on the life of world-renowned classical musician Leonard Bernstein. Through never-before-seen letters from two relatively unknown Japanese individuals, readers get an intimate peak into the famous maestro's personal life and relationships. One of the individuals in question was Kazuko Amano, a woman who started sending Bernstein fan letters in 1947 and grew to become a close family friend. The second set of letters were from Kunihiko Hashimoto, a young man who fell in love with Bernstein in the late '70s and eventually became his business representative. Through reading these beautifully written letters, one can see the powerful impact and influence the man, and his music, had on those around him. (Oxford University Press) -- DG

Allen Ginsberg: South American Journals (January-July 1960) edited by Michael Schumacher is the second of a three-volume series of Ginsberg's personal journals (the first volume being Iron Curtain Journals and the final volume, The Fall of America Journals , is forthcoming). Ginsberg went to South America in 1960 to attend a literary conference and ended up staying for an adventuresome six months. Writing more during this period than in any of his other journals, the great Beat poet's entries are peppered throughout with poetry, notes on his dreams, and other random existential thoughts and ideas. In the South American Journals, Ginsberg recounts his travels through Chile, Peru, particularly his visit to Machu Picchu, and his quest for the source of ayahuasca (also called yage ) -- a natural hallucinogen made from local vine that was recommended by his friend and fellow adventurer, William S. Burroughs. (University of Minnesota Press) -- DG

Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane is a collection of first-person narratives that explore the lives of individuals across the gender spectrum. The book is divided into five sections ranging from stories that help define our concepts of gender and representation to the development of community and a greater acceptance in the mainstream. The reader will find plenty with which to connect and identify. There are stories dealing with self-realization and coming out, creating one's own person, learning how to stand up, and also stand out. Contributors to Nonbinary Memoirs reads like a who's-who list of LGBTQ , trans, and genderqueer icons -- including activist and author (and the first to coin the term "gender queer") Riki Williams, journalist S.E. Smith, scholar Genny Beemyn, author and social media personality Jeffrey Marsh, poet Christopher Soto, and many others. The voices given agency here speak to everyone who has ever questioned their identity and the rigid roles assigned to them by a non-accepting society. (Columbia University Press) -- DP

Evolution by Eileen Myles, now in paperback, is a collection of the writer's lively and wonderfully creative poems. From the author of the wildly inventive and critically acclaimed Afterglow , a clever dog memoir, comes a fresh collection of vivid prose that conjures everything from exotic imagery of far-off travels to everyday walks through Marfa, Texas, with Honey the pitbull. Don't miss this latest treasure from the queer, award-winning poet who prefers they/them pronouns and has authored over 20 books, including Chelsea Girls and Cool for You . (Grove Paperback) -- Desiree Guerrero

Disintegrate/Dissociate by Arielle Twist, a Cree, Two-Spirit, trans femme poet and sex educator whom you may know from a widely circulated piece for Them on what it's like to be an Indigenous trans woman on Thanksgiving. This impressive debut collection of Twist's poetry was initially part of Arsenal Pulp Press's series of works exclusively written by queer BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) writers. In Disintegrate/Dissociate , she delves into the intricacies of being human, not shying away from topics like death and transformation. With sparse yet powerful words, Twist's poems explore the depths of grief, trauma, displacement, and identity -- both cultural and sexual. Balancing her rage with delicacy and tenderness, she navigates through what it means to be an Indigenous trans woman in our modern world. "With few words, she conveys so much about the legacies of colonization, the terror of transmisogyny, and the colossal force of them both," said Alok Vaid-Menon, transfeminine activist author of Femme in Public , adding, "In a political moment hell-bent on erasing Indigenous trans voices, Twist's Disintegrate/Dissociate is here to stay." -- DG

Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?

Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!

Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!

APPLE STORE - GOOGLE PLAY

ROKU - APPLE TV - FIRE TV - GOOGLE TV

From our Sponsors

Most popular.

Here Are Our 2024 Election Predictions. Will They Come True?

17 celebs who are out & proud of their trans & nonbinary kids, here are the 15 most lgbtq-friendly cities in the u.s., which state is the queerest these are the states with the most lgbtq+ people, these 27 senate hearing room gay sex jokes are truly exquisite, 10 cheeky and homoerotic photos from bob mizer's nude films, 30 steamy photos of folsom street fair 2023 debauchery, 42 flaming hot photos from 2024's australian firefighters calendar, these are the 5 states with the smallest percentage of lgbtq+ people, 60 burly pics from bearrison street fair 2022, latest stories, biden issues proclamation for transgender day of visibility amid republican attacks on trans rights, equalpride's ceo on standing together this transgender day of visibility, listen to dr. levine: take syphilis seriously, which states teach lgbtq+ topics in school here are the 7 states with inclusive curricula, outrage after oklahoma education superintendent reframes nex benedict’s death without naming the teen, lgbtq+ and allied members of congress introduce trans day of visibility resolution, meet will wooten, the gay lawyer on the team prosecuting donald trump in georgia, michaela jaé rodriguez is 'thankful' to inspire the lgbtq+ community through her trailblazing career, he killed a man 26 years ago in missouri. his husband secretly worked with investigators to get a confession, 8 lgbtq+ british royals throughout history, scarlet fever: exploring our fascination, revulsion with blood, philadelphia cancels trans day of visibility ceremony in 'challenging times', black trans femme artists leading the charge for inclusion and hope, steve garvey and when a childhood idol becomes the lesser man, kansas bill requires id to view material 'harmful to minors,' including 'acts of homosexuality', it's unanimous — sacramento is now a sanctuary city for transgender people, man who accused republican matt schlapp of sexual assault got paid to drop lawsuit: report, republican anti-lgbtq+ legislation bad for mental health and quality of life: survey, former u.s. sen. joe lieberman, champion of 'don't ask, don't tell' repeal, dead at 82, ron desantis and disney reach settlement in suit over governing control, trending stories.

Here's everything you missed at Beyond Wonderland SoCal from a gay man's perspective

Why most GOP women are standing by their man

Get ready to roar: Bear Jamboree at Gay Disney is back for 2024

How climate disasters hurt mental health in young people

The queer stars of Universal Television stun in spring menswear

France becomes world’s first country to enshrine abortion rights in constitution

All 6 rogue Mississippi cops got long prison sentences in 'Goon Squad' torture of 2 Black men

Colton Underwood: 'Coming out journeys aren't always clean & pretty'

8 dating tips for gay men from a gay psychotherapist

Mr. Gay World's Plus cover story: behind the scenes

Nicholas Galitzine on how 'Mary & George' is a story of queer & female empowerment

Lukas Gage says his 'Euphoria' & 'White Lotus' characters' stories are still 'unfinished'

Beyoncé drops 'Cowboy Carter's MYSTERIOUS tracklist & the internet has THEORIES

'Drag Race' star Q shares she's living with HIV

Exclusive: Stars shine bright at Elton John's AIDS Foundation Oscars party

Meet Scott Chambers, the out actor & producer behind ‘The Poohniverse’ viral sensation

Pete Buttigieg commits federal resources to Baltimore bridge collapse recovery

These HILARIOUS 'Drag Race' S16 queens as Vine clips have us CACKLING!

Scarlet fever: exploring our fascination with blood

Joe Biden has tied the record for most LGBTQ+ judges confirmed in federal courts

No, the rumors aren't true — 'Euphoria' season 3 is still happening

Killer Queens! Crystal Methyd is ready to SLAY 'All Stars' & Heidi N Closet killed her self-doubt

Out and About with Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Jenna Lyons is returning for season 15 of ‘The Real Housewives of New York,’ OFFICIALLY

Mother! 15 iconic pictures of RuPaul throughout the years

Most recent.

We finally got the Miley Cyrus & Beyoncé collab of our dreams

Breaking barriers & building empowerment with TransTech

Federal judge grants Casa Ruby founder Ruby Corado pre-trial release from D.C. jail

16 Republican AGs threaten Maine over protections for trans care and abortion

Breaking boundaries in gender-free fashion with Stuzo Clothing

Election season got you down? This crisis line is soothing LGBTQ+ mental health

Opinion: I'm a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you'd be terrified too

Sexual assault survivor Stephen Hart uses theater to heal

Find your perfect fit with gender-inclusive fashion from The Pride Store

Unleash your fiery spirit with The Pride Store’s Aries gift guide

Olivia Colman isn't on 'Heartstopper' season 3 — and we're heartbroken

Injectable HIV treatment, prevention: Everything you need to know

Former Police Chief Among Three Arrested in Connection with Murder of Activist Marielle Franco

Prohibition Wellness & revolutionizing self-care for all

Pro volleyball stars Tim Brewster & Kyle Friend are officially dating

10 must-watch lesbian movies that are horny AF & where to watch them

70 pics from Sidetrack Chicago's  St. Patrick's Day party that have us green with envy

Joel Kim Booster reveals which iconic 'Drag Race' moment he's showing Maya Rudolph next

​Watch Larry David ROAST 'little baby' Donald Trump like only he can, we're CACKLING

Here's what the 'Euphoria' cast is up to while we wait very, very patiently for season 3

Bud Light boycott likely cost Anheuser-Busch InBev over $1 billion in lost sales

Recommended stories for you, from the editors of the out traveler.

27 Must-Read Queer Essays From 2016

Editorial Director, HuffPost Personal

A lot can happen in twelve months. From the Pulse nightclub massacre to the controversy over transgender people using public restrooms , 2016 was a challenging year (to say the least) for the queer community. Many LGBTQ people spoke out about these events in hopes of clearing their minds, starting conversations and finding progressive paths forward.

Below are excerpts from 26 of the best queer essays published on The Huffington Post in 2016 by contributors to the site. The topics tackled include the big news stories of the year as well as smart and personal takes on issues like kink and masculinity that are all too frequently ignored. Check out a sample from each piece and then click through to read the full essay.

Support HuffPost

Our 2024 coverage needs you, your loyalty means the world to us.

At HuffPost, we believe that everyone needs high-quality journalism, but we understand that not everyone can afford to pay for expensive news subscriptions. That is why we are committed to providing deeply reported, carefully fact-checked news that is freely accessible to everyone.

Whether you come to HuffPost for updates on the 2024 presidential race, hard-hitting investigations into critical issues facing our country today, or trending stories that make you laugh, we appreciate you. The truth is, news costs money to produce, and we are proud that we have never put our stories behind an expensive paywall.

Would you join us to help keep our stories free for all? Your contribution of as little as $2 will go a long way.

As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.

Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.

Dear HuffPost Reader

Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.

The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?

The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you’ll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.

Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.

Before You Go

Popular in the community, from our partner, more in queer voices.

LGBTQ+ My Personal Experience Essay

At a young age, one is always pushed to see life in a certain light. The same goes for you and me. For myself, it was that things have to be this way and nothing else, because if not then it’s evil or wrong. It possibly could be a result of my family's hard core Christian beliefs or Nigerian heritage that led me to think like this. To listen to what my parents and other elders tell me and never question it was accustomed to. To ignore and never bring up my discoveries and thoughts. In other words, when it came to me finding out more about the world outside of my home, it was like stepping into a sea of unknowns. Growing up, my parents were never kind to those who identified as a part of the LGBTQ+ community and neither was I at the time. It was unheard of in the Nigerian community. However, my beliefs changed when I started doing some personal digging into who I am and how I now identify. 

The first time I remember ever talking about the LGBTQ+ community in my house was in 6th grade. Keep in mind at this time, I knew a little bit about it because of the hours I spent watching gay couples living life on Youtube. It mesmerized me in a way that they could be themselves freely. I recall there being a woman who had recently denied a gay couple a marriage license in Kentucky. This was right after same-sex marriage was legalized which meant she would be jailed for breaking the law. I remember my mother being upset, not because the couple couldn’t get married, but because the woman had lost her job and was thrown in prison. She was going on a whole rampage that afternoon about it. She said that gay marriage is an abomination and the woman, Kim Davis, was doing the right thing. In the majorly Nigerian church I went to, they said homosexuality was a sickness and the people who were are confused. In that moment was when my internalized homophobia began. Of course, I didn’t know any better, even with all the queer content I viewed at 10 years old. My mother thought it was wrong so it had to be, right? At that age I would look up big named celebrities who also agreed with my mother and the rest of my family, just to validate the homophobia. In 7th grade, I would ask my classmates what they thought about it. Some would tell me that they didn’t agree with it and I felt normal. I asked another and her answer caught me by surprise. “I do, why don’t you?” I never had a reason as to why I was so hateful besides what I was told. Was it because of my faith that made me think this way? If it was, why would that be the only thing that I would choose to listen to? I know there’s a lot of verses in the Bible that say a lot of things are abominations, but I do them anyway. Then why was this so different? After she said that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Every day I did some thinking as to why I couldn’t accept the fact that being LGBTQ+ isn’t a sickness and why I couldn't accept that I was also a part of that community.

Eighth grade was when I started changing my views and it happened rather quickly. A close friend of mine had just come out to me and I was rather accepting of it. It didn’t feel odd or awkward after and we both just went about our own lives. I personally still was stuck in the closet and was nowhere near coming out. I would show up to school and act like everything was okay but I was dying inside. Everyone knew me as I was and I wasn't going to change that anytime soon, although I could tell people were getting suspicious. You see, everyone around me was seemingly getting into relationships with ease. I, however, couldn’t do so as I wasn’t attracted to any girls in my grade. For this reason, I had girls constantly asking if I was gay and I would deny it instantly. I knew I had to do something and something fast. Luckily for me, there was this one girl who was more courageous than I who had asked me out. I knew that to keep up the “I’m straight” facade, I would have to accept. For two months I had acted as this girl's boyfriend to fight off any suspicions from others and the confusion within myself. For two months I led this girl on so that I wouldn’t feel as guilty for being who I am. Now looking back, I regret doing such a thing. The energy that I put into a relationship that meant nothing to me was unfair. We eventually broke things off, but not because I came out. For another year and a half, I held in my secret. Holding in this part of me led me to not be vulnerable with anyone and it had a big effect on my mental health. One summer night back before I started my freshman year I just broke down in tears. I was confused. I could barely get a word out to explain this sudden sadness I was feeling. My eyes filled with tears, so much that I couldn’t get them out. My heart was beating out of my chest, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. When my parents asked me what was wrong I told them I was sad and lonely. Just that and nothing else. Internally I knew it was from the internalization I was feeling, where I wasn't even brave enough to tell my family or friends that I’m not straight. The sadness continued for some months that turned into a year. 

One  January night in 2020, I had just finished watching some Tik Tok. I had seen a boy my age who was flaunting his sexuality and I envied him. He was brave enough to be himself, even when he had people coming for him on his socials. Why couldn’t I do the same? It’s a new year and things weren’t the way they were 5 years prior. That same night I knew it was my time to tell someone because if I didn’t I don’t know what I would do. I texted my best friend “I like boys…”. Immediately I put my phone away because I didn’t want to see her response. I knew she would accept me because she’s just that kind of person. Although I had to be wise, in the case that she doesn’t I can mentally prepare myself. That entire night I couldn’t sleep. I was tossing and turning and my head was full. “What if she hates me?” I thought to myself. I felt like I needed to throw up and cry at the same time. A little part of me though was happy. A weight was finally lifted from my shoulders. I had finally told someone who was special to me and I prayed I was special enough to them that they wouldn’t be upset. At 6 A.M., I checked to see if she had responded, which she did. She wrote in her text that she was confused. My heart had dropped. What could she be confused about? I thought it was clear. She then explained to me that because I was once internally and externally homophobic, that I wouldn’t identify as LGBTQ+. I didn’t even blame her too because at one point I was. I couldn’t think for myself, so I used what I was taught at home and my church and spread my hate to the world. That entire morning we had reached an understanding of who I am and I felt safer and more comfortable talking about myself. 

Several months later after telling my best friend I decided it was time to tell some other people. I had two other friends who I knew would accept me. I had been giving slight hints as well before coming out to them. One afternoon I was in my bedroom texting them when I just immediately dropped it. Out of nowhere, I had just come out to these people. I just went back to what I was doing to distract myself from what I had just done. I couldn’t hold the wondering for any longer though. Not even a minute passed and I checked my phone and when I did I was filled with relief. They accepted me and not only that, but they already had known. At this point, I no longer felt obligated to tell people about myself unless I feel it’s necessary. The people that I most care about can accept me and that was all I cared about. 

While I’m still on the journey of self-discovery, I can proudly admit that I’ve made it farther than I thought I would be able to 5 years ago. I can openly speak my mind and talk about my emotions without feeling like I'm hiding a piece of myself. Unfortunately, I don’t feel this way around my parents or other Nigerian adults. I know that if I were to come out today to them, there is a chance I would be disowned. Until I can raise myself to be an adult, this part of me will be kept away from them. I’ve made it this far though so that in itself is something I am proud of.  

Related Samples

• Opinion Essay Example: Homeschooling
• Essay on Striving to Win
• Personal Essay Sample: My Cultural Heritage
• Argumentative Essay on Why Healthcare Should Be Free
• Council on American - Islamic Relations Essay Example
• How to avoid procrastinating over school work
• Narrative Essay Example about Growing Up
• Sonia Sotomayor Essay Example
• Argumentative Essay: Three Month Summer Break Provides More Benefits
• Reflective Essay Example about Imagination

Didn't find the perfect sample?

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

• Gallup: LGBTQ Identity at All-time high of 7.6 Percent, 30 Percent of Gen Z Women ID as LGBTQ
• Life as a Queer Muslim
• The Witch of Southern Light Sheds Light on His Spiritual Journey
• Renovus: Restoring Faith for LGBTQ Christians in Atlanta

5 Tips for Writing a Perfect LGBTQ Essay

This is a paid, sponsored post. 

Writing an essay about LGBTQ topics requires sensitivity, respect, and understanding of the community’s nuances. Whether you’re part of the LGBTQ community or an ally, crafting an essay reflecting these experiences’ complexities and vibrancy is essential. Here are five tips for writing a thoughtful and impactful LGBTQ essay.

Understand the Spectrum of Identities

The LGBTQ community is diverse, encompassing various identities, orientations, and experiences. Educating yourself on these variations is a crucial first step in writing your essay. Understand the difference between sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, and recognize that each person’s experience is unique. This foundational knowledge will help you write with accuracy and empathy, avoiding generalizations that can inadvertently erase or oversimplify individual experiences. When discussing the community, use inclusive language that acknowledges this diversity, such as LGBTQ instead of just LGBT, to be as encompassing as possible. If you need help writing a perfect LGBTQ essay and wonder, “Who can write me a research paper ?”, search for good writing services online. A skilled provider will know how to handle this delicate topic with conviction and understanding.

Highlight Personal Narratives

Personal narratives and testimonies are powerful tools in LGBTQ essays. They add depth and authenticity, moving beyond abstract discussions to showcase the real-world impact of societal attitudes, policies, and norms on individuals within the community. If you share someone else’s story, ensure you have permission and present their experiences respectfully and accurately. If you’re part of the LGBTQ community and comfortable sharing your experiences, doing so can add a compelling, personal dimension to your essay. These narratives can serve as a bridge, fostering understanding and empathy among readers who may not share these experiences.

Address Challenges and Triumphs

An effective LGBTQ essay balances discussions of both challenges and triumphs. It’s important to acknowledge the struggles faced by the community, including discrimination , legal hurdles, and social stigma. However, equally important is highlighting the resilience, activism, and achievements of LGBTQ individuals and allies. This approach provides a more comprehensive view of the community, recognizing its struggles without defining it solely by them. When discussing challenges, consider current events and historical context, and when highlighting triumphs, include both large-scale achievements and personal victories.

Use Credible Sources

Credibility is key in any academic or formal essay, and writing about LGBTQ topics is no exception. Ensure your essay is supported by credible sources, such as academic journals, reputable news outlets, and publications from established LGBTQ organizations. These sources can provide valuable insights, statistics, and historical context that enrich your essay. Additionally, citing credible sources strengthens your arguments and demonstrates your commitment to accurately representing the community and its experiences.

Promote Awareness and Advocacy

Finally, a perfect LGBTQ essay should aim to educate and advocate. Use your essay as a platform to raise awareness about important issues facing the LGBTQ community, such as health disparities, legal discrimination, or underrepresentation in media and politics. Encourage readers to engage with the community meaningfully through advocacy, education or simply by challenging their preconceptions. Your conclusion is a powerful place to inspire action, offering readers concrete steps they can take to support the LGBTQ community and promote equality.

In Conclusion

In writing an LGBTQ essay, the goal is to craft an informed, respectful, and impactful piece. By understanding the spectrum of identities, highlighting personal narratives, addressing challenges and triumphs, using credible sources, and promoting awareness and advocacy, you can contribute to the ongoing conversation about LGBTQ rights and experiences. Such essays not only enlighten readers but also foster a deeper understanding and respect for the diversity and resilience of the LGBTQ community.

Richard Gambrell is a passionate article writer and LGBTQ rights activist whose work is dedicated to amplifying the voices within the LGBTQ community and advocating for equal rights. With a sharp pen and an unwavering commitment to justice, he crafts compelling narratives that challenge societal norms and inspire change. Richard’s articles not only inform but also encourage readers to embrace diversity and take action towards creating a more inclusive world.

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Sociology LGBTQ

Persuading for Equality: Embracing LGBTQ Rights

Table of contents, upholding equality for all, the consequences of discrimination, the societal benefits of inclusivity, challenging misconceptions, conclusion: a call to action.

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Racial Realism
• Intersectionality
• Social Class

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific

Just Being Who We Are: Personal Stories from Our LGBTQ Community

• Share on linkedin
• Share on twitter
• Share via Email
• Share on facebook

In honor of LGBTQ Pride month and in celebration of all diverse communities, four folks from our Nuance Pride network have shared their personal stories and histories about their journeys to become their authentic selves. Learn what it is like to come out as a trans man, grow up in the LGBTQ community, find positive role models, and be yourself in the workplace.

Dave Seuss worked on the People Team at Nuance on a mission to create excellent employee experiences. Dave managed employee communications across corporate functions, leads security awareness programs, and actively supports the Nuance Pride network. Prior to this role, Dave managed communications for Nuance’s Global Technology Solutions team with a focus on security. Prior to Nuance, Dave spent a few decades managing corporate communications, content marketing, and social media programs at Boston-area tech firms including RSA and EMC. Dave holds a B.A. in History from Bates College.

Sometimes those of us in the LGBTQ community need to sort out who we are before we can live proudly as we really are. By being true to ourselves we can be true to others, including friends, families, spouses, and colleagues.  

In honor of LGBTQ Pride month and in celebration of all diverse communities, four folks from our Nuance Pride network including yours truly would like to share our personal stories about our unique journeys to become our authentic selves.  

Our histories may be somewhat different – coming out as a trans man, joining a Tea Dance on Fire Island, finding positive role models, being out and proud at work – but at the end they are nearly the same.  

We are who we are. Wherever we are. And we’re pretty great.  

Pepper:  A  Lifetime in the LGBTQ community  

In 1968, at the age of 4, I started to spend many days each summer at Fire Island Pines, a gay male community on a barrier beach off the coast of Long Island. Fire Island Pines is very popular that time of year with men from NYC and elsewhere. My family and I often walked a few miles to Fire Island Pines from the pubic beach across Long Island bay, near our own place in Sayville.  

My bohemian artist mother loved walking past the mid-century modern beach houses at Fire Island Pines and dancing in the afternoon at the Blue Whale, where the DJs had started to experiment with mixing music and light. Because dancing started at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the same time as British high tea would commence, the daily event became known as a “tea dance”. 

Cow skin rugs, paintings, and furniture designed by Mies van der Rohe and Charles Eames were the norm in our home in Sayville. More suitable for a Frank Lloyd Wright house, if you ask me. Add in our big, black Great Dane, and my friends who came by felt like they were visiting the Addams Family. 

None of this made things easier when, at the age of 11, I realized I was transgender. There was no support then, you were simply a freak. At 16 I made a conscious decision to come out as a lesbian. This community more or less accepted me. And that life was hard enough. But it never felt like an honest expression of who I really was. 

I spent 37 years living as a lesbian, trying to ignore my truth. I counted my blessings as laws were passed in my adopted state of Massachusetts to protect the rights of LGBTQ people. I could not have been prouder to marry my wife in 2013 the same week that marriage equality became the law of our land. 

But three years ago, I couldn’t ignore my truth anymore. With the help of Nuance Pride, and a wonderful outside support group, I started taking my first steps toward transition. Today I finally feel complete. It’s been a long journey but the best things in life are worth waiting for! 

Leo:  Breaking Out of the Box  

I learned many truths after coming out as a bisexual trans man. First, I had more courage than I thought. Being brave changed me, and I’m so grateful. Second, coming out and living authentically was incredibly freeing. I had been afraid so many bad things would happen upon realizing I was trans. But instead of it being bad news it only led to only happy headlines. Third, I spent far too much time doubting myself because my journey didn’t fit common narratives. 

But it really is true that every story is unique, and we don’t have to try to fit in a box to be queer. Breaking out of boxes is kind of the point. 

For a little context, I am 44 and spent my first 37 years living as a cisgender straight woman. Years ago, I had inklings that something else about me was true. But they were only tiny whispers at the hidden in the back of my consciousness. I had been trying very hard to be a feminine cis woman yet also trying to be “one of the boys”.  

When a friend called me trans, it rocked my world. And not in a good way. I cried myself to sleep, so afraid of coming out. I worried about being queer bashed or losing my friends and family.   

None of this happened, thankfully. Instead, I found freedom. 

I do not take privilege and safety for granted, nor the rights that were won with the lives and loves and labor of the queer community, particularly black transwomen like Marsha P. Johnson and transwomen of color like Sylvia Rivera. I seek to honor our ancestors in liberation work by committing to helping dismantle white supremacy and striving for the liberation of all those on the margins. 

My dream is that all who feel different may know they are fabulous. The world needs you and your unique and incredible self.  

Steven:  Visibility L e d to Acceptance   

I grew up in a very evangelical world, filled with trite, simple stereotypes of people groups outside of our faith. This made it very easy to lump these groups into categories of “good,” “bad,” and “going straight to hell.” Back then I regularly heard statements that described groups such as all Catholics in a certain light, or any Democrat is a certain way. However, the group that was talked about with an unbending, negative zeal was “the gays” or “the homosexuals.” 

Back then the gay community was so roundly vilified that I imagined them all to be walking around with horns on their head with Satan guiding their minds. This made it very difficult to get to know anyone from that group and see them as individuals with hopes and dreams or hurts and sadness. Add to that, I felt my own struggle to face the fact that I was also gay. 

As I got older, I started to run across people who were gay, whether in real life or in TV, film, or music. I saw that they were people just like me and were fun and powerful and silly and smart and everything in between. I began seeing gay role models in different shows, theater, and even politics, which led me to imagine a future where I could be who I was meant to be.  

This is why having LGBTQ+ people being visible in all walks of life is so important for ultimate acceptance. Acceptance by those feeling like they need to hide from who they are, and acceptance by those in our families and communities. I now aim to be one of those LGBTQ+ people that others can see and understand that they can be out and proud and contributing members of society.   

My dream is that one day we will have so many out and proud citizens across the globe that no group could easily categorize us as any one thing. And that young men and women will be able to see through trite stereotypes or false attacks from groups to see that we are all equal members of the human race. If I had seen those public role models as a child, I would have realized that I was fine just as I was. 

Dave: That’s So Gay

Six months after graduating from college I landed a job at a small software company in Boston. I was pretty comfortable in my own shoes after coming out over the prior four years at a progressive school. I was confident about who I was. I was no more or less deserving of kindness and respect.  

My manager at that first job was also   a local. Just about my age. I got her. I also got what she meant when she said, “That’s so gay!” — far too often, and among other things not unlike it. There was a gist to “that’s so gay” that wasn’t hard to get. It meant something was bad, perverted, or wrong – spoken with malice towards gay folks. I knew she wasn’t saying these things in a conscious, hurtful manner. It was slang we grew up with that we didn’t dissect as adults.  

After sharing my perspective she was horrified and hated the thought she had hurt anyone with her words. It was 1991 and I gave her credit for quickly embracing it all. There were very few people back then – in our communities and across the country – who said being gay was ok.  

Several years later I worked at a security firm with an amazing corporate culture that was acquired by a company with a notoriously awful corporate culture. Dread set in. Our new director said the word “sissy” in our very first team meeting, followed twice more in the month to follow.  

“Sissy” was never directed at me in particular, but it remained inappropriate in every way. It stung. I had to look it up. It literally translated to “a weak, effeminate male homosexual”. I couldn’t discuss it with him, though. Following process, I had to tell my manager who then had to then consult HR. I was given the option to solve it among we three or request official action. I only wanted the first option. It worked out fine, apart from feeling like the team’s oversensitive minority.  

I’ve since repossessed that word he had no right to use. Yup, I am a sissy. No debate there. But I’m not weak.  

Throughout my career I remained out at work. It hasn’t been easy. If someone shared what they did over the weekend with their wife, I would share what I did that weekend with my boyfriend. I’d share it just as casually as they did, while being resentful that it might get interpreted as a political statement. But I wasn’t going to edit myself to avoid even just three seconds of silent awkwardness.  

Over more recent years I have had the honor of being a member of LGBTQ employee groups where we can make a difference just by being visible and comfortable in our own shoes. Our Pride group here at Nuance has its origins in heart and authenticity. I can shine here. Just by being myself.  

• Life at Nuance

285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples

Whenever you need original LGBTQ essay topics, check this list! Our experts have collected good samples for you to consider and title ideas to choose from.

🏆 Best LGBT Essay Examples & Topics

👍 good lgbt essay topics, 📃 interesting lgbtq topics to write about, 🔍 great titles for lgbt essay & research paper, ⭐ simple & easy lgbt essay titles, ✍️ lgbt essay topics for college, ❓ lgbtq essay topics & questions.

• The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage Counteracting the argument that prohibition of gay marriage appears similar to discrimination is the idea that marriage, in the traditional understanding of the word, is the union of necessarily different sexes, a man and a […]
• Homosexuality in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley However, at the same time, these breaks from the traditions incited a response reaction in favor of more traditional social roles in other areas, such as the refutation of male sexual relationships to the extent […]
• Kant`s View on Homosexuality Kant says that homosexuality is not merely an inclination, which a human feels towards another, but it is the preference for another person’s sexuality.
• Why Gay Marriage Should Not Be Legal Therefore, because marriage is a consecrated unification of a male and a female, ready to sacrifice all that is at their disposal for the continuation of the human species and societal values, I believe all […]
• Defining Characteristic of LGBTQ Community In addition to this, the LGBTQ is a community since it is made up of a relatively small segment of the society.
• Argument for Gay Marriages Enacting laws that recognize gay marriages would be beneficial to the society in the sense that it promotes equal rights among members of the society.
• Philadelphia: Prejudice About Homosexuality Philadelphia is the movie that touches upon numerous themes, and one of them is the development of the relations between two men with absolutely different interests and principles: one of them is Andrew Beckett, who […]
• “What Is a Homosexual?” by Andrew Sullivan According to Sullivan’s essay What is a Homosexual, homosexuality is the isolation from the rest of the society and a diversity of human sexuality; however, it is not a factor which people are guided by […]
• Homosexuals Should Not Be Allowed to Adopt Children Therefore, considering the significance of the traditional marriages in providing children with the necessary developmental support, it is important for societies to ban the concept of homosexuals adopting children.
• Homosexuality – Nature or Nurture? In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, members of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a coalition of therapists who argue that they can cure homosexuality, stated that “many of the […]
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Subculture The pioneers of such campaigns disagree with the ideas and behaviors associated with the LGBT Subculture. These celebrations “have also made it easier for different members of the subculture to network and exchange their views”.
• Women Reactions to Bisexual Husbands The paper will rely heavily on sociological perspectives of heterosexuality and bisexuality and the arguments that are likely to guide the women’s reaction to their husband’s bisexual nature.
• LGBTQ Co-Culture: The Key Aspects While all people have sexual orientation and heterosexuality presuppose romantic and sexual attachment to people of the opposite sex, gay and lesbian individuals are attached to partners of the same sex.
• Relations Between Homosexuality and Indian Culture Lesbianism is a relatively silent practice in India as opposed to gay practice and even the organizations for women do not really advocate for or promote it.
• Gay Beaty Contests Question Issue For gays, beauty contests are regarded as celebratory events or ‘happenings’ and are best expressive of what is for many, particularly younger gays, seen to be one of the defining characteristics of gay life, that […]
• Is Homosexuality a Psychological Condition? Romantic attractions as well as sexual acts are usually categorized as heterosexuals or homosexuals and depending on the biological sex of the individual; the person may classified as gay or lesbian.
• Transgender Bathroom Policies in Schools The topic of why transgender pupils cannot simply utilize private rooms designated for such gender identification, given that individuals who identify as boys and girls have their washrooms, is at the heart of the discussion […]
• Women and Homosexuality in “Pariah” by Dee Rees The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the image of women and homosexuality in modern cinema by analyzing the film titled “Pariah” by Dee Rees and compare it with the standard staples of […]
• Aspects of Equality for Transgender Athletes The authors of the article claim that transgender athletes deserve equal representation and the right to participate in competitions in the divisions of the gender they identify themselves by referring to social structures and justice.
• LGBTQ (Queer) Community’s Challenges in Healthcare For example, the absence of connectivity in healthcare and services for LGBTQ individuals is often isolated from sexual and reproductive health care owing to structural and financing barriers and damaging heteronormative attitudes.
• “An Asian Lesbian’s Struggle” by C. Allyson Lee In the end, the author confesses that she has finally come to terms with herself, and she is proud of being an Asian lesbian.
• Mental Health Issues Among LGBTQ (Queer) Youth Studies point to multiple factors that play a role in the risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth, such as gender, socioeconomic status, bullying, and school experience. There is a need for further research and interventions […]
• LGBTQ+ (Queer) Military Discrimination in Healthcare Furthermore, the subject is relevant to the field of psychology as the current phenomenon examines discrimination in healthcare both from the psychological outcomes experienced by veterans as well as the perception of LGBTQ+ patients through […]
• Equality of Transgender and LGBTQ+ Populations The principles of the struggle for the transgender and LGBTQ+ populations should include respect for the choice and self-identification of a person.
• Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy The updated regulations place the decision to let transgender sportsmen take part in the competition in the hands of the national governing body or, in the absence of such, of a sport’s international federation.
• LGBT Discrimination Research Prospects: An Analysis The aim of this assignment is to summarize the research that has been done on LGBT discrimination, particularly in the workplace and during the recruiting process.
• Health Inequities in LGBT People By calculating and comparing the number of positive versus negative occurrences in the interactions between LGBT employees and the rest of the staff before and after the introduction of the relevant interventions, one will be […]
• Health and Culture of LGBT (Queer) Community I want to do health assessments, so my patients know that their orientation and gender will not be factors in the diagnosis.
• Addressing Mental Health Inequities: A Focus on LGBTQ Communities The main bioethical principles of organ transplantation that should be considered are beneficence – to act for the benefit of a patient, non-maleficence – not to harm, autonomy respect for a person’s choice, justice fairness, […]
• Transnationalism and Identity: Gomez’s High-Risk Homosexual Categorization is an actual problem of society, which is covered in modern literature and is interconnected with such concepts as transnationalism and identity. The only mature and responsible behavior is not to impose them on […]
• Migrant Streams and LGBTQIA (Queer) Experiences in Nursing The response of the staff to Milagro’s incomplete health records is characterized by frustration and the desire to strengthen their understanding of the situation.
• Individual and Structural Discrimination Toward LGBT (Queer) Military Personnel Consequently, LGBT military personnel are potentially even more vulnerable to mental health issues due to the combined stress of being LGBT and being in the military.
• Health Disparities in the Transgender Community The purpose of the research study is to improve health disparities in the transgender community by eliminating financial barriers, discrimination, lack of cultural competence of providers, and socioeconomic and health system barriers that will increase […]
• LGBT+ (Queer) Status and Employment Opportunities The social learning theory provides context for the study by linking any discriminatory practices in hiring, assessment, and perception of the professionalism of the LGTBQIA2S+ community to socially acquired or learned behaviors.
• The Gay Teen Suicide & Bullying The article explains that the ones who survive may have access to extensive facilities, support, and status beyond their world of bullies, which sounds reasonable for me.
• The Perception of the LGBT (Queer) Community This work contains the conclusion of the analysis of self-presentation by homosexuals using the film My State of Idaho and the book The City of Night.
• Mental Health Equity for Queer (LGBTQ) People My support for mental health equity in the LGBTQ community as a clinical mental health counselor will require my understanding of cultural competency and how to can use it in practice.
• Nurses’ Care of LGBTQ (Queer) Patients The involvement of the NPD practitioners will make sure that the students, more so the ones ready to head into the field, handle the patients at their best.
• The Transgender Teens Policy Issues Problem recognition involves recognizing that policies serving to protect the interests of transgender teens need proper enforcement or even proper formulation to ensure effectiveness in protecting and ensuring the best interests of the children.
• Nursing: HIV Among Queer (LGBT) Community A combinatory program is required to reduce the rates of HIV transmission, improve the prevention techniques against the virus and ensure the early-stage diagnosis procedures are as effective as possible.
• LGBTQ+ Families: Discrimination and Challenges The family model directly affects the social status of family members and the well-being of children. LGBTQ+ families’ wealth level is lower than that of families in the neighborhood due to labor discrimination.
• LGBTQ Members: Discrimination and Stigmatization What remains unclear from the reading is the notion that before the 1990s, people from the middle class expressed abiding and strong desires to be acknowledged as “the other sex”.
• An Interest Group: The Rights of the LGBT One of the urgent problems in the United States remains the decision on the rights of homosexuals and other representatives of the LGBT.
• Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Analysis Internal factors of the organization are cultural competencies, core values, and the effective management of the organization. They determine the goals and aims of the company in the field of healthcare services.
• The Issue of Transgender in Sporting Activities Transgender women’s increased body strength and mass make it unfair for them to compete with cisgender women in the same sporting categories. The IOC sets the recommended testosterone level for transgender women to participate in […]
• Transgender Women in Sports: Is the Threat Real? In this regard, it can be argued that the advantages of transgender women are a barrier to women’s sports. However, the topic of transgender people has received the most discussion in the last few years […]
• The Advantages of Transgender Women Are a Barrier to Women’s Sports The main counterargument of proponents of transpeople participation in women’s sports is that there is no proven link between biology and endurance.
• The Article “The Transgender Threat to Women’s Sports” by Abigail Shrier Abigail Shrier’s article The Transgender Threat to Women’s Sports provides a series of arguments and evidence that support the idea of excluding transgender people from women’s sports.
• Transgender Women Take Part in Sports Competitions The issues that support this statement are unequal muscular mass of men and women unchanged by transgender therapy; and unequal height and length of the body needed in game sports and jumping.
• Recognizing Homosexuality as a Personal Identity According to Freud, all human beings are inherently bisexual, and homosexuality results from a malfunction in the process of sexual development.
• Lesbian and Gay Parenthood: Gender and Language However, when people see a lesbian couple whose attitude towards their children is the same as the one in heterosexual couples, they may change their attitude towards lesbian motherhood.
• Transgender Participation in Sports Among the successes in resolving the subject of transgenderism in society, medicine, psychology and sports, scientists include the exclusion of transgender issues from the sections of psychiatric diseases, and their inclusion in the section of […]
• Transgender Teenagers and Obstacles They Face Transgender teens are one of the most vulnerable groups of people due to the enormous amount of discrimination and everyday challenges they face.
• Spirituality and Sexuality in Men Who Identify as Gay The main finding of the study was that gay men raised in Conservative and religious households were subject to discrimination and marginalization.
• Suicide Risk in the LGBTQ Community As a result, it is vital to conduct a thorough analysis of all the factors contributing to the health disparity and identify the possible solutions to the problem of suicide risk among LGBTQ individuals.
• Protecting Queer People (LGBTQ+) in San Antonio The law was written in such a way that sexual orientation and gender identity were added to the list of protected classes.
• Queer (LGBT) in Roman and Greek Civilizations Its visions of beauty, relations, and a sense of life created the basis of the current people’s mentality. In both these ancient states, same-sex relations were a part of their culture and resulted from the […]
• Homosexuality From a Christian Viewpoint However, the idea of “orientation” as a property inherent in a particular person is relatively new; it appears only towards the end of the 19th century, making it difficult to directly compare the phenomenon of […]
• LGBTQI+ People: Issues They Face and Advocating for Them This is evident in the division of labor between men and women, which demonstrates one of the expectations of society concerning gender-associated roles.
• Becoming an Ally of the Queer (LGBT) Population From my point of view, this state of affairs is not appropriate and should be addressed, meaning that I could act as an ally for social justice. This information reveals that allying with the LGBT […]
• Depression among Homosexual Males The literature used for the research on the paper aims to overview depression among homosexual males and describe the role of the nurse and practices based on the Recovery Model throughout the depression.
• Suicidal Thoughts Among LGBTQ Youth: Client’s Case Assessment The therapist must exercise special caution and delicacy while evaluating the factors related to the case and engaging the LGBTQ client in the process of treatment.
• Aspects of Identity: Transgender Status, Gender Identity In many countries in Europe and the rest of the world, the whites always obtain more benefits at the expense of the people of color and other races.
• Transgender Women Should Be Allowed to Compete in Olympic Sports It is all due to the higher level of testosterone in their bodies and that some of them can pretend to be transgender to compete against women.
• The Use of Psychoactive Substances by LGBT Youth The purpose of this survey is to identify how reliable the information is that LGBT community adolescents are more likely to use psychoactive substances than heterosexual youth.
• Homosexuality as Social Construction His research has focused on the evolution of homosexuality from the nineteenth century to the present day, the widespread public regulation of homosexuality in Britain, and the ways that allowed sexuality to become the object […]
• Walmart: Insufficient Support of LGBTQ LBGTQ presumably are the category of the population that still is facing one of the highest degrees of xenophobia, for which reason the need for inclusion initiatives remains considerable.
• Queer (LGBT) Teenage Bullying at School The importance of this source to the research is associated with the significant role that youth organizations have to play towards minimizing bullying among LGBT students.
• Should Gay Couples Have the Same Adoption Rights as Straight Couples? The authors of this article decide to focus on the children of gay men as compared to those of heterosexual parents in their study.
• Raising Queer (LGBTQ) Awareness Through Media Most of the violence perpetrated against the LGBTQ community is a result of systematic dehumanization on the basis of sexual orientation.
• A Peer Intervention Program to Reduce Smoking Rates Among LGBTQ Therefore, the presumed results of the project are its introduction into the health care system, which will promote a healthy lifestyle and diminish the level of smoking among LGBTQ people in the SESLHD.
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Families’ Issues In tendency for this, it is essential to analyze issues faced by such families in the community and thus provide recommendations on approaches to adopt during counseling sessions of LGBTQ families.
• Considering Social Acceptability of Transgender and Transracial Identities This essay will examine two articles providing different views on transgender and transracial identities and argue that considerations used to support the transgender community are not transferable to the issue of transracial.
• COVID-19 and the Mental Well-Being of LGBTQ+ Community The newspaper article studied for this week highlighted recent questions about the relationship between COVID-19 coronavirus infection and the mental well-being of Americans in the LGBTQ+ community.
• The Church’s Attitude Toward Homosexual Marriage Erickson Millard claims that Jesus’s teaching about the permanence of marriage is based on the fact that: God made humanity as male and female and pronounced them to be one.
• Homosexuality and Feminism in the TV Series The depiction of these complex topics in the TV series of the humoristic genre implies both regressive and progressive impulses for the audience.
• Challenges Faced by Members of the LGBTQ Community Historically, homosexuals have encountered many challenges due to their erotic orientation because there exist certain people in society who view them as a deviation from the norm.
• Gay Marriage Should Be Repealed The institution of marriage has changed dramatically within the first two decades of the 21st century due to the gradual acceptance of gay marriage.
• Transgender Athletes in Female Sports Teams Thus, there are two contrasting views: to allow transgender people to compete in the women’s competition or organize separate competitions for them.
• Queer (LGBTQ) Therapy and Religious Impact Secondly, LGBTQ+ community members face an array of challenges, which are not seen by the rest of the population. The necessity is caused by unique unfortunate aspects of these people’s lives, which must be addressed […]
• “Social Attitudes Regarding Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT…” by Hatzenbuehler It relates to the fact that the scientists failed to articulate a research question in the proper form. However, it is possible to mention that the two hypotheses mitigate the adverse effect of the lacking […]
• Anti-Transgender and Anti-LGBQ Violence Crisis in the US The vicious circle of minority stress that leads to marginalization and the marginalization that contributes to the stigma has to be broken.
• LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) in Canada, Japan and China With a perfect understanding of the LGBTQ issue in Canada, my team and I started to compare LGBTQ in Canada, China, and Japan.
• The Defense of Marriage Act: LGBTQ + Community One of the milestones in the development of the struggle of members of the LGBTQ + community for their rights in the United States is the adoption of the Defense of Marriage Act.
• Mental Health Problems in Bisexuals Thus, the study appears to be insightful in the context of exploring the mental health of bisexuals. This article is informative, as it describes that the aforementioned factors appear to be influential considerably in the […]
• Mental Health in Bisexuals: Mental Health Issues The current research views the mental health of bisexuals from several different perspectives in order to evaluate all the possible mechanisms that could have contributed to mental health issues in bisexual individuals over the course […]
• Why LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) Is Becoming Popular In the context of the continuity of experience, morality, and moral values, it is appropriate to emphasize one of the most apparent global trends, namely the gradual recognition of the inalienable rights of the LGBTQ+ […]
• Teaching Strategies for LGBTQ (Queer) Community Men and women have different learning styles and orientations that depend on past experiences, interests, and social and biological roles. Therefore, educators should learn the art of inquiry to assess a group, inform them of […]
• Abuse in the Queer (LGBTQ) Community Rolle et al.establish that there is an overwhelming increase in the rate of abuse across the LGBT community mainly because of their societal stigma and potential rejection. The consistent abuse of the individuals is a […]
• LGBTQ: Personal Characteristics in Health Promotion According to GLMA, since the patient’s cultural relevance is vital to improve their health in this healthcare facility, in addition to biophysical information, the questionnaire should contain cultural questions.
• Kahiu’s Rafiki Movie: Stereotypes Regarding Homosexuality Kahiu’s Rafiki movie is a salvo regarding an ongoing cultural conflict in Kenya over the rights of the LGBTQ community. The reason is that they live in a society that prevents them from expressing the […]
• Nursing: Caring for a Pregnant Lesbian The second sensitive issue is the family history of diabetes. It is unknown if the patient herself had diabetes in the past.
• The Gay Gene: Understanding Human Sexuality If this gene existed and it was similar to a gay gene, it would explain the difference in gay people. If this happened, there would be a great change in the way gay people are […]
• HIV Transmission From Homosexual Men Receiving Cure The study reaches the following conclusions: In general, male partners to MSM receiving treatment are at risk of contracting HIV virus although the risk is relative to condom use as well as the last time […]
• Gay Couples as Vulnerable Population and Self-Awareness The idea of same-sex marriages has developed in America to a legal platform. Cultural beliefs that undermine the role of same-sex parenting have an impact on the efficacy of gay couples as parents.
• The Gay Marriages: Ethical and Economic Perspectives Among the key ethical dilemmas that are related to the issue in question, the conflict between religious beliefs and the necessity to provide the aforementioned services, the issue regarding the company’s needs v.its duty to […]
• The Houston Gay Community’s Health Nursing Considering the demographics of this population group, this study seeks to carry out a community health analysis of the Houston Texas gay community, with a special emphasis on the health risks and health implications in […]
• Homicides Associated With Homosexual Lifestyle Knight notes that murders by homosexuals are very common and most of the times they involve both sexes, either as the victims or the assailants.
• HIV Intervention in Gay Community The AIDS scourge is at the center of this study because this paper seeks to address AIDS as a special health concern affecting the gay community in the Montrose area, with a clear aim of […]
• Medical and Social Stances on Homosexuality The main aim of the essay is to highlight the medical and social view of homosexuality. There is no doubt that homosexuality is the current problem that threatens to wreck marriages and accelerate the spread […]
• Attitude to the LGBTQ Rights in the Political System LGBTQ rights have advanced many positions in the last several decades. There is quantitative evidence regarding the increase in public support of gay rights.
• LGBTQ Rights: Sexual Minority Members Discrimination In the past few years, the number of legal cases related to discrimination against LGBTQ representatives has been growing. In the past 30 years, LGBTQ activists have begun to fight for members of sexual minorities’ […]
• Social Work With Disabled Representatives of LGBT Community Members of the LGBT community with disabilities are one of the most invisible and closed groups, both within the community itself and in society at large.
• Bullying of LGBTQ Students in American Schools The chosen article focuses on the issue of bullying of LGBTQ students in American schools and its legal repercussions. The author shows that students who are openly gay or bi, as well as those who […]
• The Opinion of Americans on Whether Gay Marriage Should Be Allowed or Not Based on the political nature of the population, 43% of the democrats think, American society supports gay marriages and only 18% of the republicans hold the same view.
• Sexuality, Marriage, Gay Rights The supremacy of law and protection of people right lie in the heart of the protection of the freedom of personality.”Part of the basis of democratic government in the United States is a system of […]
• Lesbian Motherhood: Identity Issues In the studies of Moore and Hequembourg, the problems of lesbian and black lesbian mothers are explored, while it is pointed out that women of color and those belonging to lower classes appear to be […]
• The Gay Community’s Activism Events Research through interviews actually indicates that more than 60% of the population in the United States has come to the recognition and appreciation of their gay counterparts.
• ”Refugees From Amerika: A Gay Manifesto” Context Review In the 1950s, the West Coast became one of the pulsing centers of the counterculture, heralded in San Francisco by exponents of the Beat generation, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, the latter openly gay.
• The Debate Over Gay Rights in American Politics Proponents of gay rights vigorously dispute these interpretations, but many people on both sides of the issue do not realize that the Bible has historically been used to argue many things in the past including […]
• Democracy: Forms, Requirements and Homosexuality Democracy exists in two major forms there is the liberal democracy which is a very capitalistic economic approach in nature while the other form is a socialist democracy that embraces economic aspects like subsidies and […]
• The Seed That Grew: Homosexuality The title “The seed that grew” demonstrate the reality that the seed of homosexuality is planted in an individual and grows as the individual grows.
• Societal Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Therefore, people should not be homophobic but should try as much as possible to learn and understand the reasons as they interact with these people.
• The Case Against Gay Marriage The Constitutional protection to equal rights under the law has been invoked over and over again to try and afford homosexuals “equal right” to the social institution of marriage and to social security when one […]
• Re-Thinking Homosexual Marriage in Rational and Ethical Fashion We demonstrate that the way out of the hysterical debate is to consider soberly the basis for supporting the ordinary family as the basic unit of society and protector of the next generation.
• Why Homosexuality Among Females Is Overlooked vs. Males? This leads to the difficulties of gay men in securing work in the military because the focus is mainly on the men.
• Parental Rejection Effects on Homosexuals Society needs to come to terms that it has to include the homosexuals among and as one of them and attend to their needs as effectively as for the rest of it.
• Historical and Scientific Perspectives on Homosexuality From the context above, it is clear that historical and scientific perspectives on homosexuality contribute immensely to shaping how gay people view themselves.
• Gay Marriage and Bible: Differences From Heterosexual Practice When respected the bonds of marriage leads to the good not only of the couple and their children, but also to the good of society as a whole.
• Homosexuality and Conversion Therapy In order for conversion to occur in humans, there has to be a mental approach to facilitate the switch. This is attributed to the lack of a clear definition of sexual orientation.
• How Views of Homosexuality Have Changed Homosexuality is the attraction and sexual acts performed with people of the same sex, between men and men and women and women.
• Heterosexuality, Homosexuality and the Law In this respect the paper deals with the aspect of sociological research on the problem of heterosexuality and a lack of constructive data as for the sociological survey on the issue.
• Gay Marriage: Evaluation Argument The basic theme of the article was to present advocacy of gay marriage and a thorough presentation of arguments in favor of the legalization of gay marriages.
• Homosexuality in Renaissance Italy As we begin to read the history of art in Italy one finds some examples of homosexuality among the notables of the time.
• Harassment of Young Adults Who Are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning According to the professional code of ethics, it is the duty of a social worker to help people in need and with problems.
• Homosexuality Aspects in Nazi Germany Dominating such a household would be quite easy for the German authorities because all they had to do was to convert the husband and the rest of the family would follow without question.
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Ideation, Correlations With ‘Suicidality’ In addition, experience of verbal ill-treatment and physical assault intensified feeling suicidal for both heterosexual and gay or bisexual men, not just for homosexual men alone as contained in many research findings, and that social […]
• Homosexuality: Explanations of Origins and Causes Seen from the perspective of sexual orientation, homosexuality is “a lasting pattern of or inclination to encounter sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions predominantly to people of the same sex; it also relates to an individual’s […]
• Homophobia in Social Workers: Gay Affirmative Practice Scale The obvious limitation of the study is the extremely low response rate. The sample size is the key strength of the study.
• The Idea of Gay Parenting First of all, there have not been any studies done and proved that children of gay or lesbian parents are disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.
• Transgender in Jewish Religion Transsexual people identify as or desire to live and be accepted as a member of the gender opposite to that assigned at birth.
• Being Gay in Canada: Faced Problems and Difficulties It has encouraged immigration of Canada from all corners of the world and the homosexuals are making plans to move to this part of the globe to secure their rights and enjoy their life in […]
• Discrimination Against Gays in the Military This information shows that the problem of gay men and lesbian in the military is a part of politics which supports discrimination and inequalities.
• Homosexual Stereotypes in Film and TV Homosexuals are feeling more comfortable and open with their sexuality mainly due to the rise of new shows on American television that feature gay individuals and this exposure has resulted in a deep awareness of […]
• Ethnography of Homosexuals Analysis According to Wikipedia LGBT is an acronym referring collectively to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender/Transsexual people and relates to the diversity of gay culture.
• Gay Culture’s Influence on Hip Hop Fashion Gay men have the influence of female fashion design due to the fact that most of the designers of female clothes are men and most of them are homosexual.
• Feminism: Liberal, Black, Radical, and Lesbian 2 In the 1960s and the 1970s, liberal feminism focused on working women’s issues and the impact of experiences that females of any race could have.
• Durable Inequalities in Relation to the LGBT Community in the United States The purpose of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of durable inequalities with reference to the LGBT community in the US society to understand how four aspects of this concept are reflected in LGBT […]
• Ethical Issues of the Transgender Rights One of the most significant burdens transgender people experience is the recognition of their identity. Therefore, to increase the chances for transgender adults’ health care, it is important to pay thorough attention to any signs […]
• Growing Up Transgender: Malisa’s Story on NBC News It is essential to develop a better understanding of the concept of gender in relation to children and their development to ensure the protection of the interests of all people and, thus, improve their lives.
• Gay Marriage: Societal Suicide While Colson and Morse cannot neglect the need to oppose gay marriage because it destroys human society, the tone, references to the law, and the language chosen for the article help the reader understand the […]
• Transgender Bathroom Rights and Legal Reforms One of the themes that deserve discussion is the possibility of creating transgender baths and the rights that can be given to this category of the population.
• Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and LGBTQ Suicide Awareness Concerning the format, the design of the poster is good and the words are readable. The colors and contrasts enhance the readability of the content and stress the key points, such as AN indicators, risk […]
• Health Care for Transgender Individuals However, the medicalization of transsexualism made it more difficult to receive the treatment as individuals have to prove that they have such problems, and it is not just a temperate state of their mind that […]
• The Discovery of the ‘Biological Marker’ of Homosexuality The discovery of the specific biological cause of homosexuality in one sex, but not the other, will most likely result in the following set of effects on people’s understanding of gender, sex and sexuality: The […]
• Racism in Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders Instead of supporting one another as members of a minority group, these people arrange internal arguments within the society of LGBT that leads to the increased feeling of depression and psychological pressure on behalf of […]
• Homosexual Relationships: Ethical Reflection That is why it is useless to hope that the discovery of some genomes, which could be taken as the sign that the preferences of these people are the result of physical development, can improve […]
• Vladimir Putin’s Government: Controversial Anti-Gay Law The aim of this essay is to analyze the news of the Russian government under Vladimir Putin passing the controversial anti-gay law.
• Philosophy: “The Gay Science” by Friedrich Nietzsche Darwin gave the world his famous book On the Origin of Species, in which he tried to trace the genealogy of some species and which made a revolution in the world of science.
• Indians in the 19th Century vs. Gay’s Struggle Today The plight of American Indians in 19thcentury The present plight of the gay struggle for acceptance Legislations The Dewes Severalty Act of 1887 was passed on February 8th, 1887, with an intention to allot lands to individuals (Nichols 125). It was perceived that by allocating lands to Native Americans, the government would not have to […]
• Open Homosexuals’ Effects on Military Morale Britton and Williams start by noting that when President Clinton announced his intention to lift the ban that restricted homosexuals from participating in the military service, a debate emerged in which the performance of lesbians […]
• Gender Studies: Lesbian Sadomasochism She insists critics of sadomasochism only see pain and humiliation yet the people involved consent to it because of the strong connection they feel.
• Homosexual Religious and Legal Rights Another recommendation is that the legal structures that govern the issue of homosexuality should be coherent and considerate. Conclusively, it is evident that legal and religious provisions differ remarkably on their stands regarding the matters […]
• Sociological Imagination of Homosexuality This is due to the commonality of problems that we may have as members of a given society. I did not know whether the signs I was exhibiting were that of a homosexual or it […]
• Gender Issues and Sexuality: Social Perspective and Distinction It is rather interesting to note that society today has such a well-established preconception regarding genders that when presented with alternatives to such established norms the result has been subject to confusion, disdain, at times […]
• Children in Gay and Lesbian Couples These techniques of getting children not only provide gay and lesbian couples with an ethical method to have children, but they also provide them with a chance to raise children for the donors.
• Homosexuals and Their Personal Culture Unique culture generally refers to a set of beliefs, values, or generally the way of life of an individual irrespective of the way of life of people in the larger society.
• Gay and Lesbian Adoption Issues The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century are prominent in the evolution and empowerment of the LGBTQ movement.
• The Problem of Discrimination Against the LGBT Community Subsequent stages of work in this direction can include the following steps: Making a presentation on the topic of the equality of people regardless of their religious, racial, and sexual background.
• Cancer Screening in Lesbians, Gays, Transgenders Moreover, one of the diseases that are the burden of American society as a whole and the LGBT population, in particular, is cancer.
• Homosexuality in “Laura” and “Brokeback Mountain”
• Gay Society and Challenges in “Gay” by Anna Quindlen
• Transgender Issues in Modern Society
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender at Life Stages
• Transgender Bathroom Rights and Needed Policy
• Women in Sports: Policy for Transgender Players
• Gay Marriage and Its Social Acceptance in the US
• LGBT Literature: “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
• Transgender People in the USA
• Transgender Inclusivity in Higher Education
• Homosexuality in Natural Law Theory
• Amy Zimmerman: It Ain’t Easy Being Bisexual on TV
• British vs. Japanese Homosexuality Criminal Laws
• Homosexuals and Heterosexual Brain Structure Differences
• Age Bias, Disability, Gay Rights in the Workplace
• Sexual Strangers: LGBT Politics in United States
• United States v. Windsor – Homosexual Rights
• Homosexual Marriage: Causes of Debates
• Parenting: Learning That an Adolescent Is Gay or Lesbian
• Challenges for Educators: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Families
• LGBTQ Issues in Korean Film Industry
• Korean LGBTQ Films: The King and the Clown and Hello My Love
• Homosexual Discrimination in Our Society: Causes and Effects
• Homosexual Students and Bullying
• Gay Judge’s Ruling Should Be Thrown Out
• Homosexuality Issues in the Film “Milk” by Van Sant
• Gay and Lesbian Relationships’ Nature
• Legalizing Gay Marriage in the US
• The Evolution of the LGBT Rights
• Xaniths as a Transgender in Omani Culture
• Queer Activism Influences on the Social Development of LGBT
• “Gay Marriages” by Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff
• Dating Sites: Gay Latino Men and Women in Los Angeles
• Globalization and Gay Tourism: Learning to Be Tolerant
• Gay Marriage’s Social and Religious Debates
• Members of the LGBT Community
• Gay Marriage in The UK
• Is homosexuality an Innate or an Acquired Trait?
• Gay Marriage: Debating the Ethics, Religion, and Culture Analytical
• Homosexuality, Religion and Atheism
• Why Homosexuality Should Be Illegal
• Homosexuals’ Right to Marry
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Labor and Employment Issues
• LGBT Labor and Employment Issues
• Transgender Students on Colleges: Needs and Challenges
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Sexuality in the Hispanic Culture
• Transgender Issues in “The Crying Game” and “M. Butterfly”
• Problems Experienced by Children of Homosexual Parents
• Gay Marriages and US Constitution
• The Issue of Gay Marriages: Meaning, Importance and Cons
• Views of Young Australian and Chinese Adults on Homosexuality
• Legalizing Gay Marriage
• The Article “Against Gay Marriage” by William J. Bennett
• Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Parenting, And America’s Children
• Homosexuality Criticism Rates
• Clinton Homosexual Discrimination Policy
• Gay Couples’ Right to Marriage
• Discrimination, Social Exclusion and Violence among the LGBT Community
• Homosexuality: Why only some intimacies are labeled as homosexuality
• Defending Gay Marriage
• Relation of Gay Marriage to the Definition of Marriage
• Setting the Parameters for Regarding Homosexuality: To Whose Doors Should One Lay the Blame To?
• “The New Gay Teenager” by Ritch Savin Williams
• Concepts of Gay Marriage
• Gay Marriage: Culture, Religion, and Society
• Homosexuality in the Contemporary Society
• Gay Marriages in New York
• Suicides Among Male Teen Homosexuals: Harassment, Shame or Stigma?
• The Homosexual Lifestyle Issues
• Why Gay Marriages Should Not Be Legalized?
• Gay Marriage as a Civil Rights Issue
• Gay Marriage and Parenting
• Should Gay Marriages Be Allowed?
• Gender Studies: Gay Rights
• Gay Couples Should Not to Marry
• Arguments for and against Homosexuality: A Civil rights & Liberties Perspective
• Gays in the Military
• Reasons of the High Homosexual Marriage Rate
• BEAR Magazine: Lifestyle Entertainment for Gay Men
• Gay Marriage and Decision Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Gay Denied their ‘Rights’ in Australia
• Arguments for Gay Marriages
• Position of the Christian Church on Homosexuality
• Gender Studies: Gays and Lesbians Issues in 1940’s and 1950’s
• Young Opinion on Homosexuality
• Should Homosexuality be Legalized?
• Gay Marriages: Why Not Legalize Them?
• Should We Allow Gay Marriages as Civil Unions?
• Castro Gay Village’ Gentrification in San Francisco
• Media and Homosexuality
• Adopted Children With Gay Parents Have Better Chances of Succeeding
• Must gay marriage to be legal?
• Should Homosexuals be Allowed to Legally Marry?
• Gay Marriage in the U.S.
• A Critical Evaluation of Historical & Scientific Standpoints on Homosexuality
• Gay marriage and homosexuality
• Social Justice and Gay Rights
• Gay Marriage Legalization
• Gay in the Military
• What Does LGBT Mean?
• How LGBT Live in Russia?
• Why Should the LGBT Community Serve Openly?
• How LGBT Live in India?
• How Can I Be More Inclusive With LGBT?
• Are LGBT People Discriminated Against in the Hiring Process?
• Why Should the LGBT Community Have Equal Rights?
• What Were Cracker Barrels’ Reasons for Firing Their LGBT Employees?
• How Does LGBT Culture Fall in Our Society Today?
• How Happy Could LGBT People Be in a Homophobic Society Such as Ours?
• Why LGBT Color Is Rainbow?
• Why LGBT Teachers May Make Exceptional School Leaders?
• How Does Stress Affect the LGBT Community?
• Why Are LGBT Students Committing Suicide More Than Non?
• Does LGBT Inclusion Promote National Innovative Capacity?
• How Can I Be Kind to LGBT?
• Are LGBT People Born This Way?
• Does LGBT Marriage Threaten the Family?
• How Are LGBT People Represented on TV?
• How Virginia Woolf’s Orlando Subverted Censorship and Revolutionized the Politics of LGBT Love in 1928?
• What Are the Different Flags for LGBT?
• How LGBT Live in the USA?
• How Successful Are LGBT People Straight Alliances?
• Are You Born LGBT Person?
• Were There LGBT Subcultures From the 1900s to the 1960s?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 28). 285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/lgbt-essay-topics/

"285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples." IvyPanda , 28 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/lgbt-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples'. 28 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples." February 28, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/lgbt-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples." February 28, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/lgbt-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "285 LGBT Essay Topics & Examples." February 28, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/lgbt-essay-topics/.

• Lesbian Research Ideas
• Freedom Topics
• Same Sex Marriage Questions
• Bisexual Essay Titles
• Transgender Paper Topics
• Free Will Paper Topics
• Tolerance Essay Ideas
• Homophobia Topics
• Relationship Research Ideas
• Freedom of Speech Ideas
• Family Titles
• Censorship Essay Ideas
• Sexism Essay Ideas
• Workplace Discrimination Research Topics
• Stereotype Topics

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Sociology of Gender — LGBT

Argumentative Essays on LGBT

The deaf community in america summary, chronic offenders: exploring the causes and solutions, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Problem of Modern Society: Accepting Lgbtq Community

Equal rights for lgbt community, the importance of accepting the lgbt, discriminations and hate crimes in the lgbt community, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Show Your Pride and Wear Your Rights

Lgbtq community challenges in los angeles, lgbtq+ acceptance in the irish community, the role of stereotypes, racism, and hate nowadays, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Same-sex Marriage: Weighing The Arguments for and Against

A debate over gay adoption and fostering, impact of social media platform on self-concept among lgbtqia+ community, research and discussion on homosexuality nowadays, homosexuality and evolution: analyzing homosexuality as an adaptive strategy, the development of gay rights movement in the usa, nature of same-sex relationship: divorce, american literature: how lgbt invisibility shapes narratives, criminalization of homosexuality in england, wales, and scotland, the privilege and struggles of the transgender individuals in trans bodies, trans selves, a book edited by laura erickson-schroth, the sexual identity and overall well being of chiron in moonlight, a film by barry jenkins, how lgbt movement led to the legalization of gay marriages in the united states, homosexuality: debating issues in the light of indian legal and social system, what is pink capitalism and its representation in giovanni’s room, persecution and liberation of gays in the middle east, the issue of religious freedom for lgbt community, how one choice can have a harmful effect on others, money boy by paul yee: the issue of sexuality and sexual preference, scientific research and discussion on homosexuality, reflection on redefining realness by janet mock.

LGBT is an initialism that represents the diverse identities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. This term, along with its commonly used variations, serves as an umbrella term encompassing a range of sexual orientations and gender identities. It acknowledges and respects the experiences and diversity within these communities. The initialism LGBT provides a concise way to refer to these groups, promoting inclusivity and recognition of the unique challenges and contributions of individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

Starting around 1988, activists in the United States began adopting the initialism LGBT. It wasn't until the 1990s that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities within the movement started receiving equal recognition. While the LGBT community has faced challenges and debates over the acceptance of various groups within it, the term LGBT has come to symbolize inclusivity and has had a positive impact. It serves as a unifying symbol for individuals of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, reflecting the ongoing progress towards equal respect and understanding. The evolution of the term LGBT highlights the collective efforts of activists and serves as a reminder of the continued work needed to achieve universal acceptance within the community.

Ellen DeGeneres: A well-known comedian, actress, and talk show host, DeGeneres came out as a lesbian in 1997, making a significant impact on mainstream visibility and acceptance of the LGBT community. She has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and has used her platform to promote inclusivity and understanding. Sir Ian McKellen: A renowned British actor, McKellen has been openly gay and a prominent advocate for LGBT rights. He has used his platform to raise awareness, challenge discrimination, and promote inclusivity in the entertainment industry and beyond. Ellen Page (Elliot Page): Page, a Canadian actor, came out as gay in 2014 and later as transgender in 2020, changing his name to Elliot Page. He has been vocal about his experiences and has become an important advocate for transgender rights and representation in the media. Janelle Monáe: An American singer, songwriter, and actor, Monáe has identified as pansexual, openly expressing her attraction to people regardless of their gender. She has used her artistry and platform to promote LGBTQ+ visibility and empowerment. Billy Porter: A multi-talented actor, singer, and fashion icon, Porter is openly gay and has been a prominent advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. He has made a significant impact through his activism, while his unique style and presence challenge traditional gender norms.

Public opinion regarding the topic of LGBT has undergone significant transformations over time. While societal attitudes towards the LGBT community have become more accepting and supportive in various regions, it is essential to acknowledge that perspectives can vary widely based on cultural, religious, and individual beliefs. In recent years, there has been a noticeable trend towards increased acceptance and inclusivity towards LGBT individuals. Many individuals now recognize the importance of upholding equal rights and protections for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. This shift can be attributed to factors such as heightened visibility of LGBT individuals in mainstream media, educational initiatives, and the tireless activism of the LGBT rights movement. However, it is crucial to note that not all individuals hold positive views towards the LGBT community. There are still pockets of resistance and discrimination, often rooted in deeply ingrained biases and misconceptions. These differing opinions contribute to ongoing debates and discussions surrounding issues like same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and the need for anti-discrimination measures.

The depiction of LGBT individuals in media has undergone significant changes, reflecting the evolving attitudes and increasing visibility of the LGBT community. In recent years, there has been a notable shift towards more authentic and diverse portrayals, highlighting the complexities and experiences of LGBT individuals. Television shows such as "Pose" have gained acclaim for their authentic representation of the transgender community and the ballroom culture in the 1980s and 1990s. This series not only features transgender actors in prominent roles but also explores the challenges and triumphs faced by the characters, providing a nuanced portrayal. Another example is the film "Moonlight," which received critical acclaim for its poignant depiction of a young, gay African American man navigating his identity and relationships. The film's exploration of sexuality and race resonated with audiences and contributed to important conversations surrounding intersectionality. Furthermore, the Netflix series "Orange Is the New Black" introduced a diverse range of LGBT characters, portraying their stories with depth and complexity. By showcasing the experiences of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in a prison setting, the series shed light on the intersection of sexuality, gender, and incarceration.

The topic of LGBT is important because it encompasses the rights, experiences, and identities of a significant portion of the population. Recognizing and understanding the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities promotes inclusivity, equality, and social justice. It is crucial to address the unique challenges and discrimination faced by LGBT individuals to foster a society that embraces everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. By raising awareness, promoting acceptance, and advocating for equal rights, we can create a more inclusive and supportive environment where individuals can express their authentic selves without fear of discrimination or marginalization. Embracing the topic of LGBT is a step towards building a more compassionate and equitable society for all.

The topic of LGBT is worth writing an essay for students because it provides an opportunity for education, awareness, and personal growth. Engaging with this topic allows students to develop a deeper understanding of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, fostering empathy and acceptance. Exploring the challenges faced by LGBT individuals, such as discrimination and social stigma, encourages critical thinking and empathy-building skills. Additionally, studying the history and achievements of the LGBT rights movement can inspire students to become advocates for equality and inclusion. By addressing the topic of LGBT, students gain valuable knowledge that is relevant to today's society, helping to create a more inclusive and respectful environment for all individuals.

1. A significant portion of the LGBT community (42%) indicates residing in unwelcoming environments, while a substantial number of gay and lesbian youth (80%) experience severe social isolation. 2. Workplace discrimination remains a concern, with 35% of LGBT staff concealing their sexual orientation or gender identity due to fear of discrimination. 3. The majority (90%) of LGBT teens choose to come out to their close friends, highlighting the importance of supportive social circles.

1. Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). LGBT Issues. Retrieved from https://www.hrc.org/resources/topic/lgbt-issues 2. American Psychological Association. (n.d.). LGBT Resources. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt 3. GLAAD. (n.d.). About GLAAD. Retrieved from https://www.glaad.org/about 4. Lambda Legal. (n.d.). Impacting Policy. Retrieved from https://www.lambdalegal.org/issues 5. National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://www.nglcc.org/ 6. Williams Institute. (n.d.). Research. Retrieved from https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/ 7. The Trevor Project. (n.d.). About. Retrieved from https://www.thetrevorproject.org/about/ 8. Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://transgenderlegal.org/ 9. Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://lgbtq-economics.org/ 10. Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). (n.d.). GLAAD Media Reference Guide - 10th Edition. Retrieved from https://www.glaad.org/reference

Relevant topics

• Sex, Gender and Sexuality
• Media Analysis
• Social Justice
• Effects of Social Media
• Social Media
• Sociological Imagination
• American Identity
• Cultural Appropriation
• Discourse Community

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

As a first generation Indian in America, my upbringing shaped my view of diversity

• My upbringing played a key role in the launch of Nations in Our Neighborhood, an initiative that was designed to connect our diverse communities through cuisine.

As we commemorate another heritage month , Women’s History Month, let’s remember why it was established. It is to honor the achievements of women, ensure gender parity and address biases in the community and in the workplace.

Among the greatest ways to stretch personal growth is putting ourselves in situations out of our comfort zone and embracing vulnerability.

As Brené Brown states, vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

I was fortunate to have an upbringing where I was exposed to many diverse cultures through my father’s position at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, which included academic advising to international students.

I am first generation Indian and watched my empathetic parents nurture homesick students with my mom’s authentic Indian homecooked meals. I was unknowingly taught empathy and accept those who were very different from me as we broke bread together.

Let’s invite our neighbors into spaces outside their comfort zones

My upbringing played a key role in the launch of Nations in Our Neighborhood , an initiative that was designed to connect our diverse communities through cuisine.

The deeper goal of the program was to defy prejudice, racism, and bigotry. I partnered with dedicated students from   Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School to help launch the program.

The self-guided tours consisted of a kickoff party, where attendees picked up their “passport,” which listed all the participating restaurants. I would hear of new friendships formed as groups trekked through Music City together, discovering the ethnic cuisine in our own backyard.

Huseyin Ustunkaya, owner of Anatolia and Chateau West , shared how it is good for Nashville to invite neighbors into places they may not have otherwise heard of. Through the tour, guests were taken to places other than Nashville’s globally renowned hot chicken and BBQ joints and marginalized groups felt the warmth and acceptance of engaging “passport” holders.

How we can help bridge diverse groups through better approaches

The entire program was a remarkable demonstration of communities embracing different cultures. While this can be a bit more challenging in the workplace, it can be done.

Common tools include the traditional unconscious bias workshops, which have been proven to not be as effective. However, companies as Microsoft and Starbucks are leading the way with innovative techniques that are working.

Within Harvard Business Review’s “ Unconscious Bias Training That Works ,”these companies  guide employees toovercome denial; increase awareness; develop the empathy that combats bias; and diversify their networks in order to help team members overcome biases .

Through ongoing outreach and engagement strategies in the community and in the workplace, we can bridge diverse groups. By learning to recognize our biases through a spirit of vulnerability, we can cultivate a healthy environment and celebrate our differences.

Renuka Christoph is founder of Nations in Our Neighborhood and chief marketing and communications officer for WeGo.

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission

• The Case for Marrying an Older Man

A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.  But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

More From This Series

• Can You Still Sell Out in This Economy?
• 7 Stories of Dramatic Career Pivots
• My Mother’s Death Blew Up My Life. Opening a Book and Wine Store Helped My Grief
• newsletter pick
• first person
• relationships
• the good life

The Cut Shop

Most viewed stories.

• What We Know About the Mommy Vlogger Accused of Child Abuse
• Random Punching Attacks Rattle New York City Women
• Everyone Named in the Latest Diddy Lawsuit

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Read our research on: Abortion | Podcasts | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

Methodology: 2023 focus groups of asian americans.

Pew Research Center created and designed this focus groups plan to understand the experiences and perspectives of Asians living with economic hardship in the United States. The analysis presented in this data essay provides insight into these topics and is not an exhaustive representation of public opinion on these topics or of specific demographic groups.

This research was conducted by PSB Insights for Pew Research Center and was reviewed by an IRB (internal review board) for human subject research.

About the focus groups

Pew Research Center conducted 18 in-person focus groups with 144 adult participants from across the United States from Feb. 7 to Feb. 23, 2023. Recruited participants are from 11 Asian origin groups. Each person was offered an incentive amount of $225 to participate. Focus groups were 1.5 hours in length. Guides for immigrant Asian focus groups were translated into 11 non-English languages. ( Read the moderator guide  for more.)

The topics for discussion and approximate allotted time during the focus groups were as follows:

Study design and group criteria

For each focus group, 10 participants were recruited and eight were ultimately selected to participate. The research team overrecruited participants to account for “no-shows,” as well as participants who may experience other issues preventing participation.

The study included focus groups from 11 distinct Asian origin groups. These are among the most likely Asian origin groups to live in poverty in the U.S. in 2019. These included participants from three (Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese) of the six largest U.S. Asian origin groups . The study also included participants from eight less populous origin groups (Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Burmese, Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Nepalese and Pakistani). These ethnic origin groups were selected to include voices of those from smaller populations.

Focus groups were further stratified by nativity for selected origin groups. Researchers classified participants into either “U.S. born” or “immigrant” focus groups based on self-reported birthplace and immigration information provided in the screener survey.

Participant recruitment procedures

Recruitment of focus group participants was conducted via local Asian community member networks, organized by language and ethnicity. Recruitment was conducted in person following guidance on COVID-19 restrictions (i.e., personal visits, community meetings, etc.), via social media (e.g., Facebook, Line, WeChat, WhatsApp) or by phone or email.

All potential participants were screened for eligibility based on a questionnaire designed by Pew Research Center, which included criteria such as ethnic origin affiliation, country of birth, length of time in the U.S. (for immigrants), household income and other demographic profile questions. Once eligible participants were identified, they confirmed if they were available for the focus group and signed an informed consent form.

All participants had to meet the following five criteria to be eligible to participate:

• Live within or near the states corresponding to where the research was conducted (California, Minnesota/Wisconsin, New York/New Jersey).
• Belong to the ethnic origin group of the respective focus group audience and fluently speak the language the group was conducted in.
• Be between the ages of 25 and 59.
• Have a household income that qualified them as low income for the purposes of this study – defined as earning a maximum household income of 140%-250% of the federal poverty line. Thresholds varied by recruitment city to account for differences in the cost of living.
• Meet “soft quotas” set for the demographic characteristics of gender, education and location of birth to ensure a diverse mix of participants within each focus group. (Soft quotas are flexible recruitment targets that can be adjusted based on realities of recruitment and sample target.)

In order to qualify for the U.S.-born groups, participants had to have been either:

• Born in the U.S., or
• Born outside the U.S., but arrived in the country before the age of 7.

To qualify for the immigrant group, participants had to have been either:

• Born outside the U.S. and arrived in the country after the age of 15, or
• Born outside the U.S., arrived in the U.S. between the ages of 7 to 15, and were determined to be connected to the culture of their home country to a degree similar to people born outside the country and immigrated to the U.S. after age 15. This determination was based on a series of questions decided upon by the research team. These questions asked about whether they consume media in English or their native language; how often they participate in holidays and practices associated with their origin country; how well they remember growing up in their origin country; and how many of their friends are Asian but of a different ethnicity than theirs. Respondents were invited to participate in the immigrant focus group only if their answers to at least three of the four questions were considered similar to those who immigrated after age 15 (i.e., they consume media in their native language more often or equally as often as in English; participate in their origin country’s holidays and practices very or somewhat often; remember growing up in the origin country very or somewhat well; and at least some of their friends are Asian but of a different ethnicity).

All focus groups were conducted in person. The table below details locations, which Asian origin groups were recruited, and low-income thresholds applied.

Eligible participants were identified by PSB and then reviewed and approved by the Pew Research Center team for participation. For each focus group, researchers selected eight preferred participants from the 10 recruited participants, ensuring diversity across dimensions for which there were no hard quotas, including gender, educational qualifications and partisan identification. If one of the eight preferred participants did not show up to the focus group or experienced other difficulties to the extent that they could not participate, they were replaced by one of the two overrecruited participants. When replacing participants, the research team strove to keep the groups as diverse as possible with a special emphasis on maintaining gender parity.

Moderator and interpreter qualification

PSB Insights partnered with GC Global to help facilitate focus group moderation and interpretation. Recruitment for focus group moderators emphasized the importance of having native language speakers as well as matching moderators’ ethnicity to each origin group. This would help build rapport and facilitate an open conversation with participants. All moderators were briefed on the discussion guide and research objectives prior to the focus groups by PSB Insights. For less experienced moderators, an additional moderator training session was provided.

The research team also hired interpreters to provide on-site simultaneous translations when immigrant focus groups were conducted.

Data analysis

Focus group conversations were video recorded. All conversations were transcribed, translated if conducted in a non-English language and checked for transcription errors. To analyze the focus group transcripts, Center researchers used ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis and research software.

All 18 focus group transcripts were coded using the following structure for individual participants within each focus group:

• Origin group
• Employment status
• Immigration generation
• Years in the U.S. (for immigrant participants)

The transcripts were also coded by topic, including but not limited to:

• Current economic situation
• Communities and resources
• The American dream
• Immigration experiences (for immigrant focus groups)
• Experiences growing up (for U.S.-born focus groups)

Within each topic, we used a list of detailed codes to identify the theme of each response. For example, the research team used the following codes to label responses related to discussions on attitudes toward reaching the American dream:

• (code label: “American dream: easy to achieve”)
• (code label: “American dream: hard to achieve”)

Several quality control checks were conducted. After coding all transcript documents, researchers viewed organized quotes with demographic codes alongside them. A different researcher then evaluated the codes and made suggestions for changes. Any discrepancies were resolved between the primary coding researcher and the reevaluating researcher. When they could not reach an agreement, the lead researcher would reconcile the coding and set standardized coding practices for similar quotes.

The finalized quotations were exported by research topics into a spreadsheet where each row represented one quote. The research team identified the themes within each detailed topic code and rearranged and extracted quotations into different themes for publication.

While we highlight the sentiments expressed by individual participants in the data essay, they are chosen to highlight the themes discussed by the group more broadly. They are not necessarily representative of the majority opinion in any group.

Quotations in the data essay have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings

Report Materials

Table of contents, bangladeshis in the u.s. fact sheet, key facts about asian americans, a diverse and growing population, key facts about asian origin groups in the u.s., asian americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the u.s., demographic and economic data on the thai immigrant and u.s.-born populations in the united states., most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

As a Captive, I Learned that Violence Is What Terrorists Use for Music

I was held prisoner in Syria for two years by a group that included both Al Qaeda and ISIS, though one of the things I learned in my captivity was that there's no real difference between them. Another thing I learned was the purpose of the violence the jihad inflicts on those who live within it. You’re supposed to withdraw yourself from earthly time right now. You’re supposed to live every moment of your life as if the ancient dream—the caliphate, the invulnerability, God’s ongoing, bloody revenge against the infidels—is coming true this instant. Will you sit idly by? If you have the courage and the physical capacity, you are meant to act.

In my view, the outside world must learn what this dream looks like and sounds like. Though the dreamers are all around us, their dreams are as uninterpretable as hieroglyphs. We glimpse them only after it’s too late —on the day after October 7 th , for instance, and now, as we wonder over the lifepaths of the Moscow attackers .

In the early days of the Syrian civil war, when ISIS and al Qaeda still belonged to one big quarrelsome family , there were times when several squads of investigators, to borrow the Syrian euphemism for torturers, would interrogate multiple prisoners in a single room. The din on these occasions was much too overwhelming for anything like an inquiry to occur. I know about everyday practices in those interrogation rooms because in October of 2012, the Syrian al Qaeda faction accused me of spying for the CIA, then locked me into a cell in the basement of what had once been, before the war, the Aleppo eye hospital. In fact, my purpose in coming to Syria had been to write essays about the war’s music, photographers, and artists—and thus to make myself into this conflict’s go-to cultural correspondent. But no matter how I pleaded—and I was desperate for my life—I couldn’t make a single member of this sprawling terrorist family believe a word I said.

One night, after a squad of fighters had inflicted one of their investigations on me, I found myself lying face down at the feet of the hospital’s chief investigator. It was some time in early winter of 2013. I wore a bloody pair of hospital pants. The cement floor was the temperature of a sidewalk, back home, in winter.  My hands were cuffed behind my back. Perhaps I had lost consciousness at some point during the proceedings? I’m not sure. Anyway, I remember that it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that a second victim was being interrogated only feet from me. Evidently, this person was hanging by his wrists from a pipe beneath the ceiling. It occurred to me that this person’s feet were bicycling through the air, and that instead of engaging his interrogators, who were shouting at him at the tops of their lungs, he screamed upward, into the ceiling. There is no God but Go, he called out, over and over. I remember that the power in this person’s voice struck me as unnatural.  He seemed to scream as if all that remained to him on earth was his voice, as if it were a rope by which he meant to lash himself to the world of the living. 

In the midst of this cacophony, the chief investigator knelt down, then pushed his face into mine. He grinned. “Do you hear what that man is saying?” he shouted to me in his idiotic way. “Do you know these words?”  Of course, I did know them. They were inscribed on every black flag. They were in the air, over and over, at every prayer. How could I not?

“Good,” said the interrogator, screaming at me though his face was practically touching mine. “This noise you are hearing. This is our music.”

Read More: Islamist Terrorism Is Not Done With Us, Warns Former al Qaeda Hostage Theo Padnos

Over the following days lying alone on the floor of my cell, I contemplated this remark. Having known the interrogator for about three months by this point, I felt I had a handle on his character. He was an impish, boastful brute. Also, a bit of a showman. He loved to swish about the interrogation room in his black velvet cape, to speechify, and to promise me that one day, when the spirit moved him, as it surely would, he himself would kill me. For him, the interrogations were quite obviously performances. He often invited little crowds of fellow fighters to observe from the shadows. Now he ordered his squad of underlings to inflict pain, now he ordered them to hold off. Often, he shrieked at them. All of these underlings were Aleppo teenagers. Every once in a while, he commanded, by means of a glance, a teenager to stir his beloved maté tea.

In those days, before I had any inkling of how a terrorist organization functions, I assumed that because this man only presided over a ring of teenagers, and because I remained alive despite his threats, he was a mere flunky in the al Qaeda hierarchy.  

Over time, however, I came to understand what real power in the jihad is. It is derived from the obvious sources, to be sure—cold bloodedness, access to ready cash, fluent command of the sacred literature. But it also comes from the ability to entrance audiences. The natural born leaders conjure fantasies to life in an instant, then hold people and places under their spell indefinitely. This particular commander , who called himself Kawa, after a mythical Kurdish warrior, was poor. He rode around on a humble Chinese motorcycle, as no actual authority in the jihad would do. Yet he certainly had a knack for summoning an Islamic fantasy to life—for him it was a caliphate—with a few softly uttered phrases. Over the minds of the many teenagers who hung around in the eye hospital basement, he certainly exercised sovereign control.

Down there, over time, I learned that music really does help the fantasy come to life. 

Allegedly, Muslims of the kind who make jihads despise music. It is thought to derange the senses and to distance the listener from God. But the Koran is music. The call to prayer is music, and praying itself is a musical experience since it involves collective recitation of an explicitly musical text, and then, at the end, when the imam conveys the community’s wishes to God, a few minutes of call and response and, well, singing. Of course, in a jihad, there are also hymns. They play in the background in every conveyance, office, and corridor. In the evenings in the eye hospital basement, the fighters often gathered in the prayer room to sing the al Qaeda hymns in full throated unison. Sample lyric: “bin Laden is our leader/ we destroyed the trade towers, with civil airplanes we did it/ reduced them to dust.”

I have no doubt if he is still alive, as I hope he is not, Kawa would say of the film the ISIS fighters made of their Crocus City Hall attack just what he said of his own violence: this is our music . How happy the fighters are, he would say, what unity of purpose they exhibit, and how boldly they make the ancient dream live. There is no difference between the dream the Moscow attackers inflicted on the Crocus City Hall and the one with which Kawa bludgeoned his hospital prisoners, almost all of whom were Syrian Muslims, by the way. The dream is of invulnerability before the enemies of Islam, of simple families living in harmony with the Koran, while every day, in some far flung corner of the globe, the soldiers of the caliphate bring another one of the infidel’s capitals to its knees.

In the Syrian jihad, the authorities made this dream live through singing, prayer, and hour after hour of recitation, as one would expect. Mostly, however, they made it live through violence. When the walls of an interrogation room rang with screams, or when a roomful of young men were watching some atrocity occur on a video screen, and, now and then, when twenty-five young men ran out into the hospital parking lot to fire their Kalashnikovs at the stars, the emotion of the occasion went straight to everyone’s brain stems. I knew roughly what was happening then because it was happening to me, too. 

When violence of this order is on every screen, lies behind every door, and hides, just beneath the surface, in the eyes of everyone you meet, you stop being yourself. That person dies. Under such circumstances, in my opinion, you’re grateful for the life you have, but because you expect to leave it soon, you do everything you can to relinquish your attachments to the here and now. You say goodbye. Over time, your thoughts are bound to turn to the future. I don’t see how they could not. Perhaps, you hope, life, of some kind, will somehow continue. Perhaps you will be surrounded by love at last? So the hymns tell you. The jihad is a loveless place, I’m sorry to say. Everyone dreams of being in love. So maybe it will come? Who can say that it will not? Certainly, new life—and with it, new power—will come to some. So the hymns say.

For whatever it’s worth, in Syria, I found that many of the younger terrorists I came to know were adept at slipping into the dream when they were inside the hospital, and adept at slipping out of it, in the evenings, when they went home to mom and dad. Outside, in the streets, as these young men often told me themselves, they looked and spoke like everyone else. Inside, they were  like zombies. They talked, automatically, of their longing for glorious death. Even when they were by themselves, they sang the hymns they were meant to sing. When the order came to torture, they threw themselves at their “work,” to borrow their word. Afterwards, I’m pretty sure, they had only the vaguest notion of why they did what they had done. 

The jihad needn’t be as impenetrable as all that. In fact, summonses to the dreams are audible in a thousand war hymns to be heard right now on YouTube. They’re visible in the many videos people who sympathize with the jihad produce. Often these videos seem innocuous enough because they consist mostly of a cappella singing and shots of young men thumbing through the Koran in a forest. To believers across the world, however, and to those who would like to believe, they give direct documentary evidence: the dream is real, the videos say. To make it live in London or Paris or wherever you happen to be, all you really have to do is to believe.

The organizers of the Paris Olympics are surely aware that as ISIS was planning out its 2015 attack on a Paris concert venue , it was also preparing to blow up the spectators at a soccer game in the Stade de France, just north of Paris. Is the outside world aware that the leaders of the international jihad feel about sporting events in the west roughly as they feel about rock concerts? These are soporifics, they believe, with which we drug ourselves by the millions. Meanwhile, every hour, somewhere on earth, our airplanes slaughter Muslim families. Are the authorities in Paris aware that their counterparts in the jihad mean to wake us from our stupor?

The news itself is a problem. When the violence in Gaza is spliced up, set to music, then sent out over the social networks, this material is powerful enough to do to a certain class of vulnerable young men—roughly what screaming in an underground room in Aleppo does. It entrances. It horrifies. It reveals the enemy for who he really is. It has a way of bringing all those who feel they’ll never have much hope into a dangerous kind of alignment. Are the Paris authorities aware of this? I hope so. The Olympic opening ceremony is set to occur along the banks of the Seine on what will surely be a balmy but tense Friday night this coming July.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Biden’s Campaign Is In Trouble. Will the Turnaround Plan Work?
• Why We're Spending So Much Money Now
• The Financial Influencers Women Actually Want to Listen To
• Breaker Sunny Choi Is Heading to Paris
• Why TV Can’t Stop Making Silly Shows About Lady Journalists
• The Case for Wearing Shoes in the House
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]