A Qualitative Investigation of Sexual Orientation Identities Among Gender Diverse College Students

College student populations are reporting more diversity across several domains including sexual and gender identity. It has been noted that gender diverse (GD) individuals disproportionately identify as sexually diverse (SD), and that those that identify as both GD and SD might be at particularly high risk for poor health outcomes. Yet, this intersection of GD and SD identities remains poorly understood. The current study aimed to explore how GD students identify their sexual orientations: 212 GD students participated in a survey about their gender and sexual orientation identities and related experiences. Participants responded to an open-text response question asking them to list their sexual orientation identities and to describe what each identifier means to them. Same or similar identifiers were grouped together, and thematic analysis was used to identify themes separately within each identifier group. Almost all GD students identified with at least 1 diverse sexual orientation (99%). Furthermore, GD students identified with smaller/emerging and understudied subgroups of diverse sexual identities (e.g., queer, pansexual, asexual, demisexual). There were complex relationships between gender and sexual orientation identities regarding attraction to diverse genders, navigating sexual orientation terms rooted in a gender binary or newer identifiers perceived as less intelligible to others, use of multiple identifiers, and negotiating intersectional in- and out-group experiences. Findings from the present study highlight flaws in current measures of sexual orientation identity among GD people and provide ideas for improvements as well as additional considerations for future intersectionality research to better understand this growing, intersectional and at-risk population.