Black Sexual and Gender Diverse Scholars' Contributions to Psychology

Psychology has a long history of perpetuating scientific racism and pathologizing gender and sexually diverse individuals. The field has been criticized for the reproduction of racism, sexism, cissexism, and other social inequities. This intersectional epistemological exclusion has led to a lack of appreciation for the work of Black sexual and gender diverse (SGD) scholars within the field of psychology. To highlight and center the contributions of Black SGD scholars in the field, we conducted an in-depth literature search of the work of 62 Black SGD scholars whose names and curricula vitae were obtained through email listservs, Twitter, and snowball sampling. In analyzing the work of the scholars, a total of 34 Black SGD scholars met inclusion criteria and had their research included in our review. We summarize their major contributions to the field of psychology in this article. Implications of these scholars' works and their potential to help address the lack of visibility of Black SGD scholars in mainstream psychology journals are discussed.