UCLA Department of Sociology
264 Haines Hall - Box 951551
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551
moore@soc.ucla.edu
310.206.9678
310.206.9838 (fax)

Mignon Moore received her PhD from the University of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at University of California, Los Angeles.  Moore is a family sociologist whose research examines within-group variation in processes and outcomes among disadvantaged groups. She is finishing a manuscript based on her intensive ethnographic, survey and interview study of racial minority same-sex couples. The book will be titled Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships and Motherhood among Black Women. This work explores how initial self-understandings based on race influence subsequent practice of same-sex desire, processes of union formation, routes to motherhood, and the enactment of gendered power relations in families headed by two women. The practice of lesbian sexuality is also explored through a context of racial group membership and involvement in racially similar communities.

Other on-going projects include an examination of the relationships African-American lesbians and gay men in Los Angeles have with their racial communities and religious institutions. And Moore recently began an NIH/NIA-funded pilot study to assess the physical and mental health outcomes that might be related to sexual identity, social support, community institutions, and regular sources of medical care for African-American lesbian and gay elders in New York and Los Angeles. A different component of this work will gather social histories of this population, looking at the social context of entering into a gay sexuality for black LGBT people during the 1960s and 1970s political movements, and current experiences with racial communities as they age.

NPR Network interview "To the Point" with Warren Olney, KCRW News, May 11 2009 on the black community's response to Proposition 8

Selected Publications:

Moore, Mignon R. in press. "Black and Gay in L.A.: The Relationships Black Lesbians and Gay Men Have with their Racial and Religious Communities," in Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities, edited by Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramon. NY: New York University Press.

Moore, Mignon R. 2009. "Independent Women: Equality in African American Lesbian Relationships," chapter 21 (pp. 214-227) in Families as They Really Are, edited by Barbara Risman. W.W. Norton.

Moore, Mignon R. 2008. "Gendered Power Relations among Women: A Study of Household Decision-Making in Black, Lesbian Stepfamilies." American Sociological Review vol 73, 2: 335-356.

Moore, Mignon R. 2006. "Lipstick or Timberlands? Meanings of Gender Presentation in Black Lesbian Communities." SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol 32, 1: 113-139.