A Proposed Taxonomy for Categorizing Sexual Identities in Adolescence

Assessing adolescent sexual identity is complicated, and contemporary sexual identities are gaining greater complexity and variation. However, current measures do not capture the diversity of contemporary identities among adolescents. Thus, our study utilized a large national dataset of sexual minority adolescents aged 14-17 years (N = 2,558) in the United States to propose a taxonomy of sexual identities among adolescents. Participants responded to a close-ended sexual identity question, followed by an open-ended qualitative question. Using the steps outlined in content analysis procedures, two researchers independently coded the open-ended responses, which were then discussed to establish consensus. Coding of open-ended responses to the sexual identity question resulted in 8 categories, with more than 25% of adolescents identifying with less common sexual identity labels. We further tested differences in sexual identity among responses to the close-ended question, sociodemographic characteristics, and mental health outcomes using chi-square and analysis of variance tests. We found overall differences in sexual identification by close-ended responses, age, and assigned sex at birth. However, we did not find any difference in sexual identity by race and ethnicity or urbanicity. We also found differences in sexual identity by mental health symptoms and suicidal outcomes, especially among respondents who identified with less common sexual identity labels. Findings from our study provide cutting-edge information on sexual identities that better captures the current state of adolescent sexual identity classification in the U.S. Future research should employ this taxonomy of eight sexual identity categories to collect data that reflect contemporary evidence.