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PurposeAims to present a report of a conference held at London Metropolitan University in June 2006 that presented and discussed the findings of a two‐year research project, funded by the Higher Education European Social Fund. The project investigated the experiences of LGB workers following the introduction of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulation 2003 in the United Kingdom.Design/methodology/approachThe research was a qualitative study carried out in 16 case study organisations, seen as representing "good practice" in the area of employment of LGB workers. The case studies involved: the analysis of company documentation and reports; interviews with 60 management, trade union and LGBT network group representatives, a short survey and in‐depth interviews with 154 LGB employees. The case studies were supplemented by a series of 25 national key informant interviews with individuals in UK organisations representing government, employers, employees, and LGB people charged with disseminating advice and promoting good practice.FindingsJust over half (57.8 per cent) of the LGB respondents were out to everyone at work. A third (33.8 per cent) were out to some people, while 8.4 per cent said that they were out to very few people or nobody at work. The research indicated that equal opportunities and diversity policies which include sexual orientation; the establishment and promotion of same sex benefits; positive employer and trade union signals; the existence of LGBT groups, the presence of LGB colleagues and LGB senior managers can help LGB people come out. However, LGB people may be prevented from coming out by fears about career progression; lack of visible senior LGB staff; temporary employment status; previous negative experiences of discrimination and harassment; desiring privacy; "macho" or religious attitudes/behaviours of co‐workers.Originality/valueLittle research exists in the UK on the experiences of LGB workers, and this is one of the first studies to focus on the experiences of LGB workers following the introduction of legislation to protect workers against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in 2003.

Abstract: We examine how the issues of gender and sexual orientation have been addressed in family therapy and identify critical issues as the field defines itself in a postmodern, inclusive era. We show how unintentional bias and creation of the category of "other" persist throughout the history of clinical practice despite a rise of interest in diversity. We suggest that family therapy approaches have been based on a view of sex‐gender that creates dichotomous categories, confounds gender and sexual orientation, and limits flexibility. A postgender approach organized around a relationship model based on equality rather than gender is advocated. Obstacles to postgender practice are identified, and guidelines for practice and challenges for the future are discussed.

In the 2005 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference's Diversity Track,
some 30 participants representing a wide range of colleges and
universities came together to discuss issues related to teaching and
learning about diversity. Diversity-focused pedagogy recognizes
commonalities of individual and group experience defined by race,
gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, and ability, but
it touches much broader circles. One of the most important aspects
of the track was the diversity of its participants—not usually one
of the discipline's strong points. The wide range of backgrounds and
experiences reflected by the track's participants highlighted the
value of diversity to the profession, as well as the fact that
political scientists carry different burdens at a wide range of
institutions. Participants in this track found that our senses of
what defines diversity, the importance of teaching about diversity,
and what teaching techniques effectively illustrate diversity were,
well, diverse.

Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- Introduction -- The culture of matter -- The matter of culture -- Conceptions of matter -- Science and patriarchy -- Signposting the narrative -- Suggested readings -- 2 Making Sex, Making Sexual Difference -- Introduction -- Pre-Enlightenment and the discourse of "one sex -- The Enlightenment and the discourse of "two-sexes -- The contemporary sex/gender binary -- The missing link - heteronormativity -- Suggested readings -- 3 The Body of Sexual Difference -- Introduction -- The "essence" of sexual difference -- Skeletons -- Gametes -- Hormones -- Genes -- Conclusions -- Suggested readings -- 4 New Materialism, Nonlinear Biology, and the Superabundance of Diversity -- Introduction -- Evolutionary theory -- Sociobiology and sexual selection -- New materialism and nonlinear biology -- Nonlinearity and self-organization -- Contingency -- Variation and diversity -- Feminists intra-acting with matter -- Conclusions -- Suggested readings -- 5 The Nonlinear Evolution of Human Sex -- Introduction -- Reproducing bodies -- Interacting bodies -- Evolving bodies -- Reproducing bodies -- Sexual reproduction and kinship -- All in the family -- Boundaries - inclusion and exclusion -- Conclusions -- Suggested readings -- 6 Sex Diversity in Nonhuman Animals -- Introduction -- Sex complementarity -- Sex diversity -- Intersex -- Transsex -- Transvestism -- Sexual diversity -- Family values -- Homosexuality -- Transspecies sexuality -- Conclusions -- Suggested readings -- 7 Sex Diversity in Human Animals -- Introduction -- The variability of sex -- A short history of intersex -- Monsters and society -- Rendering sex diversity harmless: the development of medicine and the reconstitution of monsters.

Abstract The sexual exchange of girls and women embodies deep cultural practices and is historically embedded in many family and kinship systems. Contemporary trafficking operations transform traditional bride wealth and marriage exchanges (prestations) by treating women's sexuality and bodies as commodities to be bought and sold (and exchanged again) in various Western capitals and Internet spaces. Such operations are also global with respect to scale, range, speed, diversity, and flexibility. Propelling many trafficking exchanges are political economic processes, which increase the trafficking of women in times of stress, such as famine, unemployment, economic transition, and so forth. However, the disparity between the global market operations, which organize trafficking, and the late nineteenth century social/public welfare system of counter‐trafficking suggests why the latter do not effectively address women's risks and may even expose them to increased levels of violence and stress. Drawing on historical accounts, anthropological theory, and ethnographic work in Viet Nam and Bosnia and Herzegovina, this essay examines how specific cultural practices embedded in family and kinship relations encourage and rationalize sexual trafficking of girls and young women in times of stress and dislocation. The essay also analyses how technologies of power inform both trafficking and counter‐trafficking operations in terms of controlling women's bodies, sexuality, health, labour, and migration. By analysing sexual trafficking as a cultural phenomenon in its own right, such an analysis seeks to inform and address the specific situations of girls and young women, who suffer greatly from the current migration regimes.

Though increasingly a focus of both political concern and academic research, `sex tourism' is a difficult term to define. This article presents both quantitative and qualitative data on the sexual behaviour and attitudes of single and/or unaccompanied heterosexual female tourists in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. In so doing it aims to contribute to the body of research evidence on the phenomenon, as well as to highlight some of the conceptual problems associated with existing analyses of both `sex tourism' and `romance tourism'. It calls for the development of a theoretical model of sex tourism which can accommodate both the diversity of tourist-related sexual-economic exchanges which take place in economically underdeveloped countries and the complexity of the power relations that underpin them.

This article will look at the Regulations introduced in the UK for the implementation of the EU non-discrimination Directives adopted in 2000.1 It provides an overview of the new legislation introduced in the UK to protect again discrimination on grounds of religion and belief, and sexual orientation as well as the proposals on age discrimination.2 These are all new grounds of discrimination, which were not previously covered in British discrimination law. This article also looks briefly at the amendments introduced to the Race Relations Act and Disability Discrimination Act to comply with the requirements of the directives. The government has taken a piecemeal approach to amending the law, and in the process has made discrimination law in the UK hugely complicated and somewhat chaotic. The end result has not furthered the overall aim of equality as far as it might.

This article explores the postwar performance of striptease in Vancouver, British Columbia, and sheds new light on received understandings of exotic dancing's "golden age," which flourished until the mid-1970s. Specifically, the racialization of the industry is charted using the hierarchically structured geography of the city's nightlife—West End vs. East End—as a frame through which to analyze archival documents and interviews. Inequalities structuring the business of bump and grind unsettle notions of stripteasers as a homogeneous category, while simultaneously revealing the diversity within dancers' experiences of stigmatization and their strategies of resistance. The article discusses the ways in which white women and women of color were differentially located within local and transnational circuits of erotic entertainment. That striptease staged the performance of not only sexual but also racial Otherness prompts a comparison of the prestige and profitability of white headliners with the resilient stereotypes and limited marketability that constrained dancers of color. An approach that probes the intersections of gender and sexuality with race and class captures the complexities of this industry and the rich histories of the business insiders, especially the erotic dancers, who gave it life.

The claims of Thomas Laqueur for a shift from a one–sex to a two–sex model of sexual difference are incorporated into many recent histories of gender in England between 1650 and 1850. Yet the Laqueurian narrative is not supported by discussions of the substance of sexual difference in eighteenth–century erotic books. This article argues that different models of sexual difference were not mutually exclusive and did not change in linear fashion, but that the themes of sameness and difference were strategically deployed in the same period. Thus, there was an enduring synchronic diversity which undermines claims for linear transformation.

The Minister for Children has recently suggested on the basis of research evidence that parents need to talk more to their children about sex in order to encourage them to start sex later and improve contraceptive use, with a view to reducing teenage conceptions.We report here on a mixed-methods project funded by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit and the Department of Health which draws on accounts of young people aged 15-18 from diverse ethnic groups in East London describing their inclination (or otherwise) to talk with parents, other family members, and peers about sex and intimate relationships.Recent sociological research describes diversity in sexual relationships, family practices and ways in which people love and care for each other, but work addressing ethnicity in these areas has been less well developed.Drawing on research into ethnicity, youth and identity formation in an urban multicultural area, our work indicates that Black African, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani young people living in East London talk to a range of people for support in addition to, or instead of parents. Thus, the siblings and extended families to whom they go for advice may well have a role in health promotion as may existing peer networks.The findings we report here reflect cultural diversity, re-working of cultural traditions and emerging youth identities in multicultural areas. Whilst there may be benefits in some families from more open talk between parents and children about sex, our work suggests that this could helpfully be supplemented by an increased appreciation of what cultural diversity and youth networks can offer.