Sexual minority self-identification: Multiple identities and complexity

The present research explores the range and complexity of sexual minority self-identification. Using a feminist intersectional approach, patterns of self-identification are considered across both sexual identity and gender identity. Participants represent an online convenience sample and included 448 sexual minority individuals. Participants endorsed monosexual (lesbian, gay) and plurisexual (bisexual, pansexual, queer, fluid) sexual identity labels and included both cisgender and transgender individuals. Participants answered a series of open- and closed-ended questions regarding their primary and secondary sexual identities. Monosexual participants were less likely to provide a definition for their primary sexual identity than were plurisexual individuals; and when they did provide a definition they used fewer words. Likewise, monosexual participants were less likely to report secondary sexual identities; and when they did, they provided fewer secondary identities than plurisexual individuals. Transgender individuals were more likely than cisgender individuals to provide a definition for their primary sexual identity and to indicate a secondary sexual identity. These findings suggest that individuals with non-normative identities (plurisexual and transgender) were less likely to endorse single identity labels, and more likely to provide additional context for their identity labels than were individuals with normative identities (monosexual and cisgender). The present findings support the notion that with regard to sexual identity normative identities go unexamined, and that both sexual identity and gender identity contribute to the normative conceptualization of sexuality. This is consistent with our finding that sexual orientation rumination is explained, in part, by primary sexual orientation identity and sexual orientation complexity.