Pablo Vallejo-Medina

Spanish Adolescents’ Attitudes toward Transpeople: Proposal and Validation of a Short Form of the Genderism and Transphobia Scale

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a short form of the Genderism and Transphobia Scale and assess adolescents’ attitudes toward transpeople. A total of 800 Spanish adolescents aged between 14 and 18 years (50.70% girls, 49.30% boys) completed the Spanish version of the scale and other related questionnaires. The short form of the scale is composed of 12 items clustered into two factors (Transphobia/Genderism and Gender Bashing) that explain 54.22% of the variance. All the items showed good discriminating power, and the present scale demonstrated adequate reliability and validity. In the study, boys exhibited significantly more negative attitudes toward transpeople than girls did, both in the affective/cognitive dimension (Transphobia/Genderism) and in the behavioral dimension (Gender Bashing). Moreover, adolescents showed significantly more negative attitudes toward gender-nonconforming men than toward gender-nonconforming women. These results are discussed in terms of their relevance to the maintenance of discriminatory attitudes toward sexual diversity.

Effect of Drug Use and Influence of Abstinence on Sexual Functioning in a Spanish Male Drug‐Dependent Sample: A Multisite Study

INTRODUCTION To date, it has been difficult to address the issue of sexual functioning and drug use, and many approaches to it have basic problems and methodological errors. AIM The present cross-sectional study compared the sexual functioning scores of a group of drug users with those of a group of nondrug users. It explored the relationship between drug abstinence and sexual functioning. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES A sample of 905 males participated in this study (549 met the substance dependence criteria and 356 were controls). All of them were assessed with the Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire-Drugs version. METHOD The assessment was conducted from September 2009 to January 2011. The clinical sample was evaluated in nine different substance abuse treatment facilities. RESULTS Results show that, overall, all dimensions (pleasure, desire, arousal, and orgasm) were moderately impaired. Yet, differences regarding preferred substance were observed. Pleasure and orgasm were the two areas most significantly impaired. In these areas, all drugs seemed to negatively affect sexual functioning. However, desire and arousal were not affected by all the substances. In addition, at least after 2 weeks of drug abstinence, no relationship was found between drug abstinence and improvement in sexual functioning. The sample studied had an average of 1 year of drug abstinence and was found to have poorer sexual functioning than the control group. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, these results seem to contradict those that argue that drug use only impairs sexual functioning temporarily. Moreover, they suggest that sexual functioning does not improve just by stopping drug use.