Sexualities and Geographic Mobility Between Childhood and Adulthood in the United States

Though research sug-gests that sex-ual minor-i-ties (e.g., nonheterosexual indi-vid-u-als) are more geo-graph-i-cally mobile in the tran-si-tion to adult-hood than their het-ero-sex-ual coun-ter-parts, quan-ti-ta-tive esti-ma-tes are rare and pre-vi-ously used data sources have sig-nif-i-cant lim-i-ta-tions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 11,705) that directly mea-sure sexualities across dimen-sions (i.e., iden-tity, behav-ior, and attrac-tion), I exam-ine var-i-a-tion in geo-graphic mobil-ity between child-hood (ages 11-17) and adult-hood (ages 26-34) across var-i-ous sexualities (e.g., gay/les-bian and bisex-ual). Threefi nd-ings emerge. First, mobil-ity varies across sexualities. Individuals with gay/les-bian iden-tity, same-sex behav-ior, and same-sex attrac-tion are more geo-graph-i-cally mobile than indi-vid-u-als with het-ero-sex-ual iden-tity, dif-fer-ent- sex behav-ior, and dif-fer-ent- sex attrac-tion, respec-tively. By con-trast, indi-vid-u-als with bisexual iden-tity, both-sex behav-ior, and both-sex attrac-tion tend to be sta-tis-ti-cally indis-tinct from indi-vid-u-als with het-ero-sex-ual iden-tity, dif-fer-ent- sex behav-ior, and dif-fer-ent- sex attrac-tion, respec-tively. Second, mobil-ity dif-fer-ences are larg-est and most prev-a-lent when sexualities are operationalized according to iden-tity. Third, evi-dence sug-gests that the effects of gay/les-bian iden-tity, same-sex behav-ior, and same-sex attrac-tion on mobil-ity are larger for men than for women. In pro-vid-ing thefi rst quan-ti-ta-tive esti-ma-tes of geo-graphic mobil-ity dif-fer-ences across broader sex-ual minor-ity and het-ero-sex-ual pop-u-la-tions, this study expands inquiry related to sexualities and mobilty.