Sexual Orientation, Partnership Formation, and Substance Use in the Transitio…

Evidence suggests that lesbian and gay young adults use substances more frequently than their heterosexual peers. Based on the life course perspective, we argue that this difference may be due to the unavailability of marriage as a turning point in the lives of lesbian/gay young adults. We use data from a nationally representative sample of youth (N = 13,581, 52.4% female, 68.6% white, ages 18�…