Questionnaire data about criminal victimization experiences were collected from 2,259 Sacramento-area lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (N = 1,170 women, 1,089 men). Approximately 1/5 of the women and 1/4 of the men had experienced victimization because of their adult sexual orientation. Hate crimes were less likely than nonbias crimes to have been reported to police. Compared with other recent crime victims, lesbian and gay hate-crime survivors manifested significantly more symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. They also displayed significantly more crime-related fears and beliefs, lower sense of mastery, and more attributions of their personal setbacks to sexual prejudice than did nonbias crime victims and nonvictims. Comparable differences were not observed among bisexuals. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing hate-crime survivors' special needs in clinical settings and in public policy.

This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (heterosexism) and among individuals. The latter include enacted sexual stigma (overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes), felt sexual stigma (expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and internalized sexual stigma (personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e., sexual prejudice), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e., self-stigma, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (N ϭ 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma.

This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (heterosexism) and among individuals. The latter include enacted sexual stigma (overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes), felt sexual stigma (expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and internalized sexual stigma (personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e., sexual prejudice), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e., selfstigma, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (N ϭ 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma.

Using interview data from a convenience sample of 450 lesbian, gay, and

Although violence based on sexual orientation is now widely recognized as a serious problem in the United States, social science data concerning the prevalence and consequences of such crimes are limited. In the present study, questionnaire data about victimization experiences were collected from 147 lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (74 females, 73 males) in the Sacramento, CA area. In addition, 45 of the respondents participated in a follow-up interview. Forty-one percent reported experiencing a bias-related criminal victimization since age 16, with another 9.5% reporting an attempted bias crime against them. The distribution of bias-related victimization and harassment experiences in the sample resembled patterns reported in other U.S. surveys with similar samples. Compared to other respondents, bias-crime survivors manifested higher levels of depression, anxiety, anger, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Methodological and substantive issues in empirical research on hate crimes against lesbians and gay men are discussed.

There is a negative correlation between body weight and income in the United States, and epidemic numbers of people diet to become thin. In developing nations, on the other hand, there is a positive correlation between weight and income, and fatness is associated with wealth and abundance. Although these differing cross-cultural trends have been documented by anthropologists, there has been minimal cross-cultural research on attitudes toward obesity and thinness and corresponding dieting behaviors in the psychological literature. A sample of 349 students at a university in Ghana and 219 students at a U.S. university completed questionnaires about their weight, frequency of dieting and restrained eating, the degree to which their weight has interfered with social activities, their perceptions of ideal bodies, disordered eating, and stereotypes of thin and heavy people. Students in Ghana more often rated larger body sizes as ideal for both males and females and also assumed that these larger sizes were held as ideals in society, than did U.S. students. U.S. students (regardless of weight) were more likely to have dieted than were Ghanaian students, with U.S. females being most likely to diet. Additionally, U.S. females scored significantly higher on restraint, eating-disordered behavior, and experiencing weight as social interference. Findings illustrate that perceptions of ideal body size and corresponding behaviors are influenced by culture and gender.

The damaging side effects of the thinness pursuit are a growing social problem and public health threat causing concern for many health professionals. This concern stems from several areas of research outlined by the authors of this issue. First, research has consistently shown that weight loss programs do not have long-term positive outcomes. Continued participation in weight loss programs is associated with repeated weight loss and regain. This may cause problems, as weight fluctuation is associated with increased mortality and cardiovascular disease. Additionally, chronic restrictive dieting is a significant risk factor for the development of binge behavior and eating disorders. Direct adverse effects of weight loss programs and dangerous weight loss strategies such as laxative use, smoking cigarettes, very-low-calorie diets, prescription and over-the-counter diet pills, pose serious health risks. In a weight-centered approach toward health, thinness is viewed as a crucial goal for optimum health, and thus one to be strived for by all. Although thinness is believed to be synonymous with good health, this conclusion reflects only selective interpretations of research. There is considerable need to reinterpret previous data filtered through a thinness-biased lens that has led to inaccurate conclusions. The following past conclusions are reevaluated by the authors of this journal issue and summarized here: people can change their weight at will, dieting works and improves health, dieting makes you feel good, and fatness equal disease while thinness equals optimal health. Implications of this reconceptualization for a scientific and policy paradigm shift are discussed, and alternatives are proposed.

This research addressed how lesbians are influenced by and respond to beauty constructions of dominant culture while they simultaneously redefine and create their own meaning of beauty within lesbian communities. A sample of 181 lesbian and bisexual women from the Sacramento area completed a survey examining their reasons for exercising, amount and type of exercise, body image and satisfaction with weight, eating disorder symptoms, perceptions of lesbian health threats, degree of feminist identification, appearance as a form of lesbian identification, and change of appearance after coming out. Whereas feminism served as a buffer against negative body image, the body image results found lesbians to be bound to dominant culture's thinness expectations. Other findings, however, also suggest that lesbians define beauty in their own unique way. Moving beyond simply responding to traditional beauty pressures, lesbians in this study also used beauty markers as a creative strategy to find and identify each other, suggesting that one purpose of lesbian beauty is functional.