Psychotherapeutic work with lesbians is confounded by both sexist and heterosexist factors. This paper traces three aspects of women's socialization—self‐concept, feminine sex‐role behavior, and sexuality— which have particular implications for lesbians and discusses the implications of these three in therapy. The impact of women's conditioning to base self‐esteem on acceptance by others is noted, particularly as such conditioning combines with the cumulative stresses of lesbian life. Finally, examples of ways in which heterosexual bias may become apparent in therapy are given, and alternative therapeutic approaches are discussed.
Within the framework that same‐sex sexual preference can be a positive outcome, the developmental aspects of sexual identity are traced. It seems that gender identity is fixed in early childhood, rigid sex‐role identity has questionable effects while more flexibility in sex‐role behaviors has definite advantages, and sexual preference choices continue to evolve throughout one's lifetime. A review of the literature on role modeling leads to the conclusions that children internalize particular traits from a variety of models, and that gays are more likely to serve as nontraditional sex‐role models than as determiners of same‐sex sexual preference.
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