At the request of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) Persons in Sociology conducted an investigation into two major aspects of the professional experience of LGBT people in the discipline. The study was conducted from August 2000 to December 2001.

The first aspect of the study is the experiences of LGBT graduate students. The second aspect of the study is the representation of LGBT scholarship in different venues of the profession. These included: (1) the representation of LGBT topics in Papers and Roundtables at the ASA annual meetings; (2) the representation of LGBT topics in mainstream sociology journals; and 3) the representation of LGBT book-length scholarship as reviewed by the book review journal, Contemporary Sociology. Although these dimensions in no way measure the totality of LGBT persons’ experiences, they do focus on key indicators of how LGBT graduate students and recent Ph.D.s perceive the discipline and their graduate training and how the discipline ‘treats’ LGBT scholarship. This investigation, moreover, is very preliminary limited by time and resources. We make several recommendations for future research. Based on these preliminary findings, we also make several substantive recommendations about how to improve the experience of LGBT persons in the discipline.

The report consists of an Executive Summary, a summary of research findings and directions for additional research, recommendations, and four appendices. The appendices contain the detailed findings for each of the topic areas listed above.

Eight major findings emerge from the specific reports included in the appendix:

• First, while graduate student responses to closed-ended questions reveal a moderate degree of satisfaction with their graduate training and with the social and academic culture of their program, open-ended responses suggest a significant degree of academic and social isolation.
• Second, some graduate students report a high degree of support for LGBT work but from a very limited number of faculty; others report that LGBT work is belittled or marginalized in their graduate programs.
• Third, graduate students report more support for LGBT work from fellow students than from faculty in their graduate departments.

Representation of LGBT Scholarship

• Fourth, there has been a significant increase in the visibility of LGBT scholarship in the various professional outlets of the discipline since the early 1990s.
• Fifth, this scholarship tends to be located in only a few of the traditional subfields of the discipline, namely social movements, identity, and community studies.
• Sixth, while this scholarship has been getting increased attention, it still represents only a fraction of the total scholarship showcased in CS book reviews, peer-reviewed sociology journals, and presentations at the national meetings.
• Seventh, and related to the above theme, only three papers on LGBT issues in the last forty years (1964 – 2001) have been published in the discipline’s premier journal, American Sociological Review
• The eighth and final theme emerges out of two deafening silences in these reports, the first having to do with the status of transgendered persons and transgendered scholarship in the discipline. Although we include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender identity groups under the moniker ‘queer,’ there has always been awareness within sociology that transgenderism requires a theorizing and scholarship somewhat separate from that on lesbian and gay sexuality. Another silence deals with the relative absence of scholarly attention to the interaction of LGBT issues with issues of race, ethnicity, and class. Similar to the case of transgenderism, we know that much of the traditional scholarship in either LGBT studies or race and ethnicity has ignored or has not sufficiently theorized or studied empirically the intersection of these differences.

These themes are documented in the appendices accompanying this document. Possible explanations are considered and data and methodological limitations are also detailed.

Graduate School Experiences

A major finding of this segment of the study is the academic and social isolation reported by LGBT graduate students and non-LGBT identified graduate students working in the area of LGBT sexuality (See Appendix I). These reports come from answers to open ended questions in the context of a self-administered questionnaire distributed via email and they suggest that, while there is increased interest in LGBT issues by graduate students, faculty are ill-equipped, unwilling or simply not available to provide the sociological training required to specialize in the sub field. Graduate students report that some faculty still teach ‘homosexuality’ in the context of deviance, have little knowledge of queer theory or LGBT scholarship, or caution against studying LGBT issues. In the words of one respondent, “we are a generation training ourselves.” Most of the open-ended responses reported negative experiences, but these negative reports were not reflected in these students’ overall assessments as reported in the closed-ended responses. Further research is necessary to explore this disjuncture.

Another interesting disjuncture that requires further investigation involves the apparent job market success of graduate students doing LGBT work in light of self-reports of academic and social isolation by graduate students. One possibility for the disjuncture could be a winnowing process by which all but the most determined or the ones lucky enough to work with the few faculty trained in LGBT studies survive the graduate school experience.

Representation of LGBT Scholarship

As is the case for other marginalized groups who seek both social recognition as well as opportunities to engage in scholarship regarding the nature of the group, the status of LGBT persons in sociology is complicated and in flux. On the one hand, LGBT scholarship in its various forms is getting increased attention. On the other hand, that attention is quite limited: relatively few papers appear to make it into journals (see text Table below), journal publishing tends to be limited to a few journals (e.g. Social Problems, Sociological Quarterly, and Gender and Society) clustered in relatively few sub fields of the discipline. For example, 35 % of LGBT journal articles were located in only three of 21 sub fields of the discipline (See Appendix III, Table 1). In addition, the review rates of LGBT book scholarship are not keeping pace with the surge in publishing (Appendix IV, Chart 1 and Table 3). Although papers on LGBT topics were diffused across many of the substantive areas within sociology at the paper-session and roundtable stages of the research dissemination process, this pattern changes at the journal article stage (Compare the findings in Appendix II and III). As mentioned above, LGBT journal articles appear to cluster within a few sub fields such as social movements and social identity. More research is needed to provide further clarification of this pattern. For example, we do not know if papers get derailed in the research dissemination process or whether there are two distinct research venues -- the paper and roundtable venue and the journal article venue – with little relationship between the two.

Another source of concern revealed by the investigation is the virtual absence of LGBT-themed papers in the discipline’s premier journals (See Appendix IV). Particularly striking is the finding that only three such papers have appeared in the American Sociological Review in the past forty years! Further research is necessary to ascertain the causes of this lack of professional attention; in particular, whether it is due to bias on the part of editors to accept LGBT manuscripts or hesitancy on the part of scholars to do this type of research or to submit it to journals such as ASR. With regard to the still low-rate of publication of LGBT scholarship in sociological journals in general, we do not have information on the number of LGBT manuscripts accepted for publication relative to the number of LGBT manuscripts submitted. Further, we do not know how that rate of success compares to the rate in other areas.

Notes: Data provided by Steve Epstein (Contemporary Sociology), Kristin Esterberg (ASA journals), and Michelle Robertson and Amy Wharton (papers and roundtables presented at Annual Meetings).

The Committee also expressed the concern that, while LGBT themed papers are scattered throughout the sessions and roundtables of the Annual Meetings, there is no easy way to locate them across the various sub fields. Again, this is a consequence of the somewhat increased production of LGBT scholarship. As mentioned above, the diversity of this scholarship at the meeting level is not sustained at the journal level. Just as significant, the embeddedness of this meeting-level scholarship within the various sub field sessions of the Meetings makes it difficult to locate (beyond the sessions explicitly devoted to LGBT social movements, for example).

Many of the following recommendations flow directly from the specific reports on LGBT graduate training and LGBT scholarship. Others emerged from discussions within the Committee and are tangentially related to the specific reports.

1. Given the marginalization and lack of resources mentioned by many graduate students, we recommend that ASA facilitate the creation and maintenance of a mentoring program that links faculty trained in gender and sexuality (and LGBT studies in particular) with graduate students interested in doing research in this area. This could be part of the ASA workshops for chairs of graduate programs and could be modeled on the Society for Women in Sociology (SWS) mentoring program or the mentoring aspects of the Minority Fellowship Program. The current Committee would be glad to work with the Executive Office to implement this program.
2. We also recommend that ASA include a set of questions on the status of graduate programs vis a vis LGBT issues in their survey of department chairs. Perhaps a special module could be developed with the cooperation of the ASA Research Program and the Committee.
3. In light of the findings on publishing of LGBT scholarship in sociology journals, we recommend that editors make an effort to establish editorial boards with representation from LGBT scholars (or in gender and sexuality in general). Related to this, we recommend that these boards make an effort to establish and expand their network of LGBT scholars who can serve as reviewers of research and can funnel LGBT scholarship particularly from younger scholars to these journals. We recommend that this mandate be passed from Council and the Publications Committee to journal editors and be monitored by the Council liaison to the LGBT Status Committee.
4. In light of the findings on the concentration of LGBT scholarship in only a few sub fields, we recommend that the ‘status committee’ be given an additional session earmarked as a co-sponsored session so that the ASA can begin to encourage the incorporation of LGBT research and theory into some of the ‘traditional’ sub fields of the discipline. (One possibility could be in the area of race and ethnicity.)
5. In light of the increase in LGBT scholarship in sociology and related disciplines, we recommend that Contemporary Sociology commission a review essay on the state of LGBT studies. The Chair of the LGBT Committee will communicate this recommendation to the editors of Contemporary Sociology, and the Council liaison to the Committee will monitor the response.
6. In light of the preliminary nature of this report, we recommend that the status of LGBT persons in the discipline be investigated further by continuing to monitor the social and academic climate in graduate programs and the production, distribution, and visibility of LGBT scholarship paying particular attention to the still unaddressed questions identified in this report. We also recommend expanding the focus to include other dimensions not specifically included in this report (e.g. the invisibility of transgendered persons and issues in the discipline and the lack of attention to issues of race, class and sexuality).

1. Experiences of LGBT Graduate Students.
2. Journal Publishing on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Topics, 1964-June 2001.
3. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues as Reflected in Papers and Roundtables Presented at the American Sociological Association Meetings, 1986-1999.
4. Book-Length Scholarship on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues as Reflected in Contemporary Sociology, 1972-2000.

Prepared by the Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Persons in the Discipline