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People find some questions insulting.. this is no surprise and probably reflect deep rooted issues in society about identity, prejudice, etc... A few decades ago, when ethnicity monitoring was introduced, many people found the questions difficult, irrelevant, etc.... Even today, peoples' reactions to questions vary from refusing to answer questions to creating strange ethnic identities (like Jedi !)... The reasons for these are multiple, but shouldn't stop researchers with good intentions to do their jobs. Ethnicity monitoring is more acceptable to many people nowadays for a variety reasons... One of them is that people have been consulted and asked how they would self identify. I believe that this same principle of self-identification should be applied to questions on sexuality/sexual orientation. In 2003, I took part in the Mayisha II study - a community based survey of attitudes and lifestyles among five African communities (from Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zaire, Zambia) living in the London boroughs of Camden and Islington. This study had specific piloted questions on same sex relationships. Details of these can be on the appendix of the main report (see web link )http://www.ahpn.org/downloads/publications/Mayisha_II.pdf A lesson from the Mayisha II study is that in order to avoid 'insulting questions', you need to pilot your questions with the specific LGBT communities (in this case we did it with some of gay and lesbian people from the African communities in question) . Given that Mayisha II was about sexual lifestyles, researchers (all sexual health field workers) were probably less likely to be homophobic, this probably explains why the sexual orientation question was relatively easier to ask... Regards Cheikh Traore Health Inequalities Programme Lead Policy Support Unit Greater London Authority City Hall The Queen's Walk London SE1 2AA Direct Tel: 0207 983 4641 -----Original Message----- From: Health of minority ethnic communities in the UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Fountain Sent: 19 February 2007 14:52 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Asking questions about sexuality Dear listmembers Does anyone have any experience / references, etc to share of asking members of, particularly, Black and minority ethnic communities about their sexuality in a research project? Researchers should do this (alongside asking samples' ages, ethnicity and about any disabilities) in order to report diverse needs to service planners, commissioners and providers. Serivce providers should ask these questions of their clients to show that they are catereing for the needs of all members of their population. One issue is that, for some communities, the words 'heterosexual', 'homosexual', 'lesbian', gay man', and 'bisexual' are simply not understood in English, and do not translate meaningfully into some languages. Another issue is that some respondents see this question as, unfortunately, insulting, despite the researchers explaining why it is being asked (this reaction is not exclusive to Black and minority ethnic respondents). Any comments on any aspect of this welcome. Thanks in advance Jane Professor Jane Fountain Centre for Ethnicity and Health University of Central Lancashire Preston PR1 2HE UK 01772 892 780 GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EMAIL NOTICE: The information in this email may contain confidential or privileged materials. Please read the full email notice at http://www.london.gov.uk/email-notice.jsp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------