AbstractThis article explores the close relationships between LGBTQ+ Evaluation (LGBTQ+E) and Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE). First, we consider the role of CRE spaces, scholars, and practitioners in supporting LGBTQ+E, including Dr. Stafford Hood, who helped us break through barriers that kept LGBTQ+E practices marginalized in the evaluation canon. We reflect on parallel developmental trajectories, and explore how LGBTQ+E embodies CRE. Finally, we discuss how LGBTQ+E and CRE can evolve through deepening their relationships and attending more meaningfully to intersectional and international work.
AbstractEvaluation with Latinx LGBTQ+ communities calls for a culturally responsive and equity‐based approach that appreciates the rich diversity of experiences within the grouping "Latinx LGBTQ+." Recent advancements in Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) in Evaluation and LGBTQ+ Evaluation, as well as rich historical genealogies of feminisms of color within Queer Theory offer valuable insights for evaluators working with Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. This article encourages embracing a "queered" approach to LatCrit, which meaningfully delves into the complexities of these experiences and attunes itself to the experiences and nuances of trauma. A Queered LatCrit emphasizes the importance of creating a safe and empowering context that acknowledges historical trauma and oppression, while simultaneously refusing deficit‐based frames and engaging the strengths and assets of in‐betweenness. Touching on historical, cultural, and methodological considerations, we argue for evaluations that recognize the unique challenges faced by Latinx LGBTQ+ communities while calling for evaluation practices rooted in culturally responsive, empowerment, and transformative traditions.
AbstractThe time is long overdue for the field of evaluation to critically reckon with how we have failed to appropriately consider the needs and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) people. Perhaps even more importantly, there is a dire need for work that moves us forward in new directions which are more affirming and inclusive of LGBTQ+ people. To achieve this idealistic change in LGBTQ+ Evaluation will require a genuine, transformative paradigm shift within the evaluation field, encompassing everything from pedagogy to practice and all activities in between. As a first step toward a unified paradigm of LGBTQ+ Evaluation, this chapter proposes eight Principles of LGBTQ+ Evaluation to guide evaluators' work in partnership with and in service of LGBTQ+ communities, organizations, and individuals. Here we are not seeking to provide a script or a rigid framework but rather to create guiding signposts that light the way for evaluators new to LGBTQ+ Evaluation.
AbstractLGBTQ+ stories and histories have long been silenced as part of deliberate work by those in power to erase our identities and experiences. As evaluators, we contribute to the process of either silencing or uplifting LGBTQ+ stories. This aspect of our work begs a number of vital questions that each of us must reckon with when we approach an evaluation: What data are necessary to allow us to tell a story? What story will we tell with the data we have collected? And, most importantly, who does the telling of certain stories benefit, who might it harm, and what is our responsibility as evaluators to protect peoples' stories? Proceeding from these questions, this chapter has three distinct parts. In Part One, we establish a common language. By integrating perspectives from the social sciences and LGBTQ+ community scholarship, we provide an overview of the complex and contextually specific nature of sex, sexual orientation, and gender, and discuss the implications of these complexities on how we approach collecting LGBTQ+ data. In Part Two, we consider the power of the stories we tell to impact the lives of LGBTQ+ people, and the frameworks, theories, and ethical imperatives which may help us to contribute to a narrative of LGBTQ+ liberation through our work. Finally, in Part Three, we offer an example tool for readers to use as they consider how they would approach this work in their own practices.
In: Alcohol and alcoholism: the international journal of the Medical Council on Alcoholism (MCA) and the journal of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA), Band 56, Heft 4, S. 490-499
Aims Sexual minority youth (SMY) use alcohol at disproportionate rates compared to their heterosexual peers. However, sexual orientation is multidimensional. Analyzing alcohol use disparities only by one dimension of sexual orientation may result in critical disparities being obscured.
Methods Data from state and local versions of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey were pooled (2009–2017), resulting in a large, diverse sample (n = 201,671). Multivariable logistic regression models were used to analyze associations between sexual identity/sexual behavior and three alcohol use outcomes among sexually active youth: age at first drink, binge drinking and current drinking.
Results SMY, when categorized by sexual identity and sexual behavior, reported greater alcohol use than their heterosexual peers, though the magnitude of these disparities varied by subgroup. Both those who identified as bisexual and those who reported sexual behavior with both males and females reported the greatest levels of alcohol use. Decomposition analysis revealed that youth whose reported sexual behavior was not aligned with stereotypical behavioral expectations based on their sexual identity had higher odds of current drinking and drinking before 13 years as compared to other youth.
Conclusions Results highlight the need to incorporate multiple methods of sexual orientation measurement into substance use research. Interventions based solely on identity, rather than both identity and behavior, may not be sufficient; targeted research into the causes of alcohol use disparities is needed, especially for bisexual youth, youth whose sexual behavior and sexual identity are not stereotypically aligned, and youth who report a sexual identity of 'not sure.'
AbstractWe close this issue of New Directions for Evaluation by looking towards the future. In this chapter, the perspectives of 10 LGBTQ+ Evaluators whose voices and insights were not otherwise featured in this issue provide their critical insights on what LGBTQ+ Evaluation means to them, what it looks like in practice, and where they hope to see it grow in the future, including how the work of this issue of New Directions for Evaluation can be expanded and built upon. In closing the issue on a critical, futures‐oriented note, we reaffirm our assertion that this is neither the first, nor the final word on LGBTQ+ Evaluation, and we invite all evaluators to join in the process of articulating and exploring what LGBTQ+ Evaluation is, and can be.