![]() ![]() Over the years, the perspective was expanded to also include women, and subsequently, more attention was paid to people’s identities, using terms such as “gay” and “lesbian”.’ The “B” was added when researchers found out that there were also people who had sex with both men and women, and that many people identified with the label “bisexual”. Baams explains: ‘The socioscientific research that started about 40 years ago mainly focused on HIV and HIV prevention, and therefore mainly on men who had sex with men – regardless of whether they identified as gay. The abbreviation ‘LGBT’ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) can be expanded with the letters ‘Q’ (questioning or queer), ‘I’ (intersex), and ‘A’ (asexual or aromantic), and sometimes a ‘+’ as well.īoth the LGBT community itself and the research field are relatively young. As a budding researcher it was nice to be able to read about myself.’ Baams went on to do PhD research at Utrecht University and became a developmental psychologist, focusing in particular on the mental health of LGBT adolescents. I found it very interesting to discover that academic articles had been written about this topic. This meant that her identity was different from what she had always thought: she was not ‘straight’ but ‘bi’. It was during her psychology studies in Amsterdam that Laura Baams discovered that she was not only attracted to men, but also to women. Text: Jurgen Tiekstra / Photos: Reyer Boxem Laura Baams is looking into how this is possible. Why do sexuality and gender continue to be such sensitive topics within our society? Despite our liberal climate, members of the LGBT community face physical and mental health issues more often than others, even in the Netherlands. ![]()
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