About the Book
This guidebook is designed to increase readers’ personal resilience, self-acceptance, and growth from minority stress. Readers are encouraged to clarify their beliefs and improve their relationship with themselves to develop self-awareness, self-value, and self-direction. Conflicts can be resolved as readers develop knowledge of themselves and others and consider resilient ways of experiencing sexual and/or gender diversity.
The LGBTQIA+ Peacemaking Book Project offers two guidebooks, Feel Secure in Yourself and Relate to Others with Confidence, and twelve e-resources self-published by each set of chapter coauthors. The chapter coauthors are scholars, clinicians, and/or community leaders, with differing and sometimes politically opposing viewpoints. They collaborated to find common ground, reduce prejudice, and improve LGBTQIA+ health and self-development for a wide range of readers.
These self-help resources are written for the general public and can be used by academics, clinicians, researchers, religious leaders, parents, and other providers who want to learn updated and integrated ideas and skills about sexuality, gender, race and ethnicity, faith and purpose of life, emotional health, resilience, and relationships. This book project is a social experiment of bridge-building and hope to empower readers with identity and skill development and to reduce the side-taking that impairs growth.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
A. Lee Beckstead, Jacks Cheng, Sulaimon Giwa, Mark A. Yarhouse, and Iva Žegura
Chapter 1: Strengthen Resilience: Live True to Yourself
Debra Harley, Sara Mishly, R.A., Stephen P. Stratton, Maksim, Neo Samas, Jeannie DiClementi, Nate Cannon, Weston V. Donaldson, Jenna Brownfield, Alejandro Gepp-Torres, Alex Toft, Katina Sawyer, A. Lee Beckstead, and S. Candice Metzler
Chapter 2: Examine Attitudes About Sexual/Gender Diversity
A. Lee Beckstead, Matthew Nielson, Samuel Eshleman Latimer, Heather Hoffmann, and Eduardo Peres
Chapter 3: Develop Emotional Health
A. Lee Beckstead, Kristina Pham, and Lauren Wadsworth
Chapter 4: Develop Your Sexual/Gender Self-Knowledge
A. Lee Beckstead, S. Candice Metzler, Pichit Buspavanich, Elizabeth Morgan, and Marty A. Cooper
Chapter 5: Find Peace with Religious, Sexual, and Gender Conflicts
Edward (Ward) B. Davis, Tyler Lefevor, Sulaimon Giwa, Jeanna Jacobsen, Jeff Paulez, Samuel Eshleman Latimer, Annelise Parkes Murphy, Helen Harris, Janet B. Dean, Jay Tekulve Jackson-Vann, and A. Lee Beckstead
References
Index
About the Contributors
About the Author :
About the Editors
A. Lee Beckstead (he/him), PhD, is white-Peruvian, gay, cisgender, currently nondisabled, and spiritual; was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and has been in a primary relationship with a man since 1997. He has been a psychologist in private practice since 2003 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He provides weekend retreats for male survivors of sexual abuse (MenHealing.org) and he is part of a diverse research team studying the health and satisfaction of individuals who are single and celibate or noncelibate or in a same-gender/queer or mixed-orientation relationship.
Jacks Cheng, PhD, EdM, (ta, he, they) is a queer migrant of Taiwanese heritage to Canada and the U.S. Ta works as supervising psychologist at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi and assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ta is also the 2023 Chair of the Committee on Early Career Psychologists of the American Psychological Association.
Sulaimon Giwa, PhD, (he/him/his) is an associate professor and interim dean of social work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Sulaimon is a scholar-activist who self-identifies as Black, Muslim, and gay. He authored the 2022 book, Racism and Gay Men of Color: Living and Coping with Discrimination.
Mark A. Yarhouse, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who specializes in conflicts tied to religious identity and sexual and gender identity. He is the Dr. Arthur P. and Mrs. Jean May Rech Chair in Psychology at Wheaton College, where he runs the Sexual and Gender Identity (SGI) Institute. He is an award-winning teacher and researcher and is the past recipient of the Gary Collins Award for Excellence in Christian Counseling. He is currently the Chair of the task force on LGBT issues for Division 36 (Psychology of Religion and Spirituality) of the American Psychological Association. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and is author or co-author of several books, including Understanding Sexual Identity: A Resource for Youth Ministers and Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture. His most recent books are Sexual Identity & Faith and Costly Obedience: Listening to and Learning from Celibate Gay Christians.
Iva Žegura (she/her) graduated from and specialized in clinical psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, in Zagreb and is currently pursuing doctoral studies at Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Austria. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and is educated in gestalt integrative therapy, cybernetic psychotherapy, and sexual therapy. She works at the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce in Zagreb, and collaborates with several national universities and departments of psychology. She is a member of the national list of experts for transgender health care at the Croatian Ministry of Health. She is the president of the Section for Clinical Psychology and Section for Psychology and Human Rights, and vice president of the Section for Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Gender. She is president-elect of the board of directors of the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH). In 2022, she received the APA Division 52 International Psychology Global Citizen Psychologist Citation Award and in 2024, she received the highest professional award in Croatia “Ramiro Bujas” from the Croatian Psychological Association.
Contributors
R.A., A. Lee Beckstead, Jenna Brownfield, Pichit Buspavanich, Nate Cannon, Jacks Cheng, Marty A. Cooper, Edward (Ward) B. Davis, Janet B. Dean, Jeannie DiClementi, Weston V. Donaldson, Samuel Eshleman Latimer, Alejandro Gepp-Torres, Sulaimon Giwa, Debra Harley, Helen Harris, Heather Hoffmann, Jay Tekulve Jackson-Vann, Jeanna Jacobsen, Tyler Lefevor, Maksim, S. Candice Metzler, Sara Mishly, Elizabeth Morgan, Annelise Parkes Murphy, Matthew Nielson, Jeff Paulez, Eduardo Peres, Kristina Pham, Neo Samas, Katina Sawyer, Stephen P. Stratton, Alex Toft, Lauren Wadsworth, Mark A. Yarhouse, Iva Žegura
Review :
This is an exceptionally thorough and detailed book aimed at supporting people across the LGBTQ community and even those who feel they sit outside it. The text particularly embraces the challenges of holding different attitudes towards faith, religion, and sexuality and so will be helpful for those who feel unable or unwilling to come out.
I applaud the clinicians, researchers, and community leaders who held divergent viewpoints but came together to produce Feel Secure in Yourself: A Guidebook for LGBTQIA+ People and Those with a Different Label or No Label. Their contribution to common-ground ideas about sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, faith and purpose of life, emotional health, resilience, and relationships will benefit readers who are also committed to collaboration, heterodoxy, and truth-seeking.
This is a book for those interested in making peace across different views. It is, in itself, an effort at peacemaking across differences in values and ideas about LGBTQIA+. Grounded in research and including over a hundred contributors, this book will make a contribution to scholarly literature, clinical practice, and individual readers.
An important resource for understanding more about gender and sexual orientation.
In an era of ideological and political polarization, Beckstead et al. set out to openly examine the contradictions inherent in diverse approaches to LGBTQIA+ lives. This uniquely conceived and executed collaborative text boldly gives voice to the opposition of—as well as the dignity of—LGBTQIA people, and, in the process, teaches compassion for the self. This text offers an approach to self- and other-interrogation that is valuable for mental health professionals, policymakers, advocates of all perspectives, and all curious readers. Ambitious, revelatory, compassionate, and intellectually responsible, Feel Secure in Yourself is informative and effective for anyone who struggles with self-acceptance around sexuality or gender, no matter how one believes what is or what should be.
