$10,000; GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality (GLMA) Lesbian Health Fund (LHF) program

Let's tok about s3x: Patterns and possibilities of utilizing TikTok and other video-based social media to improve LGBTQ+ women's sexual health

Principal Investigator: Marlow Guerrant, visiting assistant professor of psychology and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies

LGBTQ+ inclusive sexual education is an important factor in addressing sexual and reproductive health disparities for gender and sexual minority women. While 38 states mandate sexual education, only 10 require LGBTQ+ inclusive content. Furthermore, three others require negative information on homosexuality with a positive emphasis on heterosexuality. These education gaps combined with systemic barriers result in a knowledge gap among LGBTQ+ women and those assigned female at birth (AFAB) and often leads these populations to seek information from online resources more frequently than heterosexual women.

Through three studies, PI Guerrant aims to understand how LGBTQ+ women and those AFAB who are emerging adults (age 18-29) utilize online resources, particularly video-based social media content, to fill knowledge gaps resulting from inadequate sexual education and how they perceive the accuracy and effectiveness of these resources, as well as pilot a peer education intervention using video-based social media content which is accessible, efficacious, cost effective, and replicable across multiple social media platforms.

This project will provide a foundation for future research and intervention development surrounding sexual and reproductive health for LGBTQ+ persons AFAB, particularly adolescents and emerging adults.