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Lesbian Gender Identities: An Expansion Of Bern's Sex-Role Inventory, Sheilagh Van Belthowing

Dissertations and Theses

The central research question of the current study had to do with self - an stereotypically- gendered identities of lesbians. The purpose was to determine the nature and form of gender identity and gender stereotypes among women who self-identify as lesbians, and more specifically, to determine whether or not “gender” means the same to lesbians as it does to heterosexual women. Identity measures were Bern’s (1974) Sex-role Inventory (BSRI) and a butch-femme rating scale. The sample consisted of 65 women who self-identified as lesbian. The lesbians in the current sample did identify more strongly with masculine attributes (Masculinity scale mean …