2019/02/13 by Ryan J. Watson, Christopher W. Wheldon, Rebecca M. Puhl · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Gender Roles and Identity Studies #Gender, Feminism, and Media #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
paper · doi:10.1111/jora.12488
openalex publication_date 2019/02/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Adolescence is a time of identity exploration, and preliminary evidence indicates the ways adolescents are describing their sexual and gender identities (SOGI) are changing. A nuanced understanding of SOGI is necessary for valid assessment in developmental research. Current measures do not capture the diversity of emerging identities among young people. Our study analyzed a national sample of 17,112 sexual and gender minority adolescents (13-17 years) to better understand how identity labels are reported across sexual, gender, and ethnoracial minorities. Adolescents reported 26 distinct SOGI categories; 24% of adolescents utilized nontraditional SOGI labels, such as pansexual and nonbinary. These identifications varied significantly as a function of ethnoracial identity. Results have implications for how scholars conceptualize and measure SOGI among adolescents.