The Los Angeles County Men’s Jail segregates gay and transgender inmates and says that it does so to protect them from sexual assault. But not all gay and transgender inmates qualify for admission to the K6G unit. Transgender inmates must appear transgender to staff that inspect them. Gay men must identify as gay in a […]

Adolescence is an important time in human development. Teenagers spend much time questioning their core belief structures and developing the foundations of their identity. For students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), this path of development is difficult in American schools because of strongly held homophobic beliefs. Barriers in sexuality identity development […]

Purpose: Few studies have taken a holistic perspective to the lives of women with a serious mental illness (SMI). This qualitative study of women with an SMI describes and interprets women’s experiences and provides a new understanding about the nature and needs of these women. Methods: A convenience sample of 30 poor, urban, predominantly African-American […]

This study explored associations between peer victimization experiences and adolescents’ perceptions of life satisfaction. Public high school students (n = 1,325) completed a self-report questionnaire measuring being bullied and life satisfaction. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between being bullied and perceived life satisfaction across four race and gender groups. Results […]

Objective: This study evaluated gender differences in lifetime traumatic events. PTSD, and depression among VA primary care patients. Method: Participants were 865 adults attending primary care at one of four VA health centers (n = 681 males, 184 females). Results: Mental health findings included: male PTSD 12.3% vs. female PTSD 9.2% (p > 0.05); male […]

Sexual exploitation and prostitution of children and adolescents is a multibillion dollar industry in the United States (Estes and Weiner in Medical, legal & social science aspects of child sexual exploitation: A comprehensive review of pornography, prostitution, and internet crimes, vol I, G. W. Medical Publishing, Inc, St Louis, 2005; Milloy in Essence 33(5): 429-436, […]

Psychological symptoms, abuse characteristics, abuse disability, and coping were assessed in college women who either did or did not acknowledge victim status relative to rape or intimate partner violence. Women were asked directly whether they had experienced intimate partner violence or rape. They also completed the Conflicts Tactic Scale (CTS) and the Sexual experience Survey […]

Using the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance data (n = 13,917) of high school students, we examined the association between four domains of risk factors (alcohol/drug use, aggression, HIV risk-related behaviors, and health problems) and indicators of suicidality (considering a suicide attempt, making a plan to attempt suicide, and actually attempting suicide). Logistic regressions showed […]