Gender, spirituality, and sexuality: Exploring men's intersecting identities

Abstract

The present study examined the intersection of sexual orientation identity, spirituality, and gender in queer male university students. Many higher education institutions offer a supportive, secure environment for queer persons to explore and grow into their understanding of self, resolving any potential conflicts arising from their intersecting identities. While the literature indicates that many identity conflicts may arise from a clashing of sexual orientation and religious beliefs, new studies are beginning to reveal the roles that masculinity and beliefs about male role norms can play in potential identity conflicts. The literature is predominantly qualitative in nature; focused on constructing models of development and revealing the experiences of queer persons. The present study expands on the field by utilizing quantitative methodology to construct a predictive model for internalized homonegativity. Furthermore, the present study compared Christian participants to Atheist ones. A significant model was found predicting internalized homonegativity for the overall sample as well as for the Christian subset. No significant model was found for the Atheist subset. The primary findings indicate the power of self-rated masculine gender performance in predicting internalized homonegativity. Future directions for research, theory, and practice are discussed.