Gayle Pitman, author of Backdrop, is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Sacramento City College, where she teaches a course on the Psychology of Sexual Orientation. She lives in Northern California with her partner Amy and daughter Rowan. Dr. Pitman responded recently to our questions surrounding the topic of her book.
Windy City Times: In your acknowledgements you indicated the research the people in Backdrop did changed your life. Can you describe some ways in which this is the case?
Gayle Pitman: No one study has necessarily changed my life, per se—although I will say that Lisa Diamond's research on sexual fluidity ["situationally-dependent flexibility in women's sexual responsiveness," as defined by Diamond] struck a chord with me. I can personally relate to the sexual fluidity concept, and I've seen it play out countless times among my non-heterosexual female friends. Having said that, I think what's impacted me more powerfully than any one study is the strength and courage it takes for sexual orientation researchers to do the work they do and stand by their convictions. Conducting LGBTQ psychological research is not for the thin-skinned, because in this political climate researchers have to be prepared to navigate the waters of social and political controversy.
WCT: What are some of the unanswered questions in sexual-orientation studies that you'd like to see resolved?
GP: So much of the sexual orientation research focuses on white, exclusively gay, middle-class men, which isn't at all representative of the entire LGBTQ population. As I discuss in my book, non-heterosexual women may be less likely to experience the same developmental process that gay men go through. The absence of people of color and the intersection of racism with homophobia is a glaring omission from the literature. I think if we focused more heavily on the experiences of those who occupy the "fringes" of the LGBTQ community—for example, people who are bisexual, genderqueer, of color, polyamorous, BDSM—I think we'd learn so much more about the richness and complexity of the LGBTQ experience.
WCT: Do you personally subscribe to the biological basis for homosexuality, the social construction basis or something else?
GP: I think I tend more towards the biological side of the continuum, with some caveats. The biological evidence supporting the "born that way" theory of homosexuality is quite compelling, in my opinion, and my book covers a few of the major studies conducted in that area.
There's also some preliminary evidence that suggests that male-to-female transsexualism may be rooted in prenatal sex hormone exposure (or lack thereof) and resulting brain structural differences. That said, these studies almost unilaterally focus on exclusively gay men who enjoy race and class privilege.
If we included the experiences people who lived in the gray areas of the gender and sexuality continuum (bisexuals, pansexuals, genderqueers, transmen and -women, etc.), we might get a very different picture of what contributes to our sexual and gender identities.
WCT: Describe some of the things you've covered in your experimental class, The Psychology of Sexual Orientation. And, by the way, what is an "experimental" class?
GP: My class started out as an "experimental" class when I first offered it in 2007, and is now a permanent offering. At Sacramento City College, we have the option to "test the waters" with a new class before incorporating it into our permanent course catalog. We cover all sorts of things in my class, including the possible causes of sexual orientation; prejudice and discrimination against sexual and gender minorities; identity development and coming out; bisexuality; trans, intersex, and genderqueer identities; physical and mental health issues; monogamous and non-monogamous relationships; and religion and spirituality.
Given that many of my students are fairly young (between 18-22 is pretty standard), we've also been talking a lot about the climate for LGBTQ youth in high school and on college campuses—it's been in the news a lot, and it's very relevant to their lives. We also spend a lot of time talking about the interplay between psychological research and political activism, which I discuss a lot in my book.
WCT: A while back, you did research on the physical and mental health of lesbians. Tell us about that. What were your conclusions? Do you still stand by them? If not, what changed your mind?
GP: Most of my research focused on the connection between internalized homophobia and physical and mental health issues in lesbians. My dissertation study identified a connection between internalized homophobia and negative body image. I did a couple of later studies that indicated a link between internalized homophobia and physical illness. Over the past 10 years, since I did my own research, I've seen these findings confirmed over and over again.
The finding that connects internalized homophobia and physical illness is particularly disturbing to me, because a growing body of research indicates that homophobic attitudes among doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners are still alive and well, and that lesbians who experience homophobia in a healthcare environment are very likely to stop seeing their practitioner—even if they have a chronic illness. I'm hoping that, at some point, medical schools and nursing schools will require training on LGBTQ issues, and that more significant steps to eliminate homophobia in the health care sector will be taken.
