Calculated each year by the Web of Science® (Thomson Reuters), a journal’s impact factor (IF) for a given year is a measure of the frequency with which its recent articles are cited on average during that year. “Recent” refers to the two prior calendar years. Thus, Archives’ 2011 IF is the number of times that its 2009 and 2010 articles were cited in 2011, divided by the number of articles the Archives published in 2009 and 2010. Although the IF is the best known metric for citation analysis, there are other measures, including the Immediacy Index (II) and the Cited Half-Life (CHL). The II is a measure of how frequently the journal’s “average article” is cited the same year in which it is published. Thus, the II for a year is calculated as the number of times articles from that journal are cited during that year, divided by the number of articles that journal published that year. The CHL is a measure of the longevity of the frequency of citations to articles in the journal, that is, for how long the average article maintains its currency. The CHL for a year is determined by the time required to account for a cumulative total of 50 % of that year’s citations to the journal. The scientometrics of scholarly impact is a specialty field that is worth studying, but I retain the view, as does Brody (2012), that the IF is still a pretty damn good metric.

I had an IF fantasy for 2011. In the April 2010 issue of Archives, we published a number of review papers from the DSM-5 Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Workgroup. I figured they would attract a lot of attention. So, my fantasy was that the IF for 2011 would “soar” to at least 4.0, which would impact me far better than a White Russian or Baileys (which is as about as good as it gets for me).

Table 1 shows the IF of the sex and gender periodicals, broadly defined, for the year 2011. Alas, the IF of Archives remained stable: at 3.66 in 2010 and 3.52 in 2011. I better stick to the White Russians for now.

Table 1 Impact Factor for the year 2011: Sex- and gender-related journals (N = 72)

The meaning of the IF can be crudely gauged in comparative perspective: For 2011, of 2,943 Social Science journals, Archives was ranked 102nd (96th percentile). Of 109 journals classified as Psychology (Clinical), Archives was ranked 11th (90th percentile). Of 89 journals classified as Social Science, Interdisciplinary, Archives was ranked 1st. Not bad.

In previous Editorials, I have observed that there are many sex and gender journals that are not given an IF by the Web of Science®. Colleagues pointed out to me that Sexualities, a social constructionist periodical, has now been issued an IF (it’s about time, since it was first published in 1998). Its 2011 IF of .63 nested it in-between GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies and Feminism and Psychology. That seems to be the right fit (or maybe the left).

We appear to be in an era of a mini-boom of new sex and gender journals. In 2012, Journal of Language and Sexuality was launched. The American Psychological Association’s Division 44 has announced the launching of Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (Editor, John Gonsiorek, Ph.D). The publisher Mary Ann Liebert announced the launching of LGBT Health (Editor, William Byne, M.D., Ph.D.), and Duke University Press announced the launching of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (Editors, Paisley Currah and Susan Stryker).

On the listserv SEXNET, some colleagues expressed worry that the field is already saturated with too many journals. My view is more empirical. To quote President Bush: “Bring ‘em on.” As to the saturation problem, consider the wise, eloquent words of Donald Rumsfield: “As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Submissions and Disposition

Figure 1 shows the number of new submissions per year between 2002 (when I became Editor) and 2012. There were 80 submissions in 2002 and 359 in 2012, a 4.5-fold increase. To assist in the handling of this marked increase, I am pleased to note that in 2013 the Archives now has 7 Associate Editors. Drs. Martin L. Lalumière and Michael C. Seto have come on board. Dr. Andrea Bradford has replaced Dr. Marta Meana, who ably served as an Associate Editor for the two prior years. The other Associate Editors Brotto, Carey, Dworkin, and Parsons have all done a superb job and have made my own life as Editor much less complicated.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Number of submissions (2002–2012)

Figure 2 shows the Editorial decision data for the original submissions as a function of year (2002–2011). The percentage of manuscripts that were accepted or provisionally accepted ranged from 12.4–21.2 %; the percentage of manuscripts that were subject to major revision ranged from 28.4–47.5 %; and the percentage of manuscripts that were rejected ranged from 31.2–57.7 %.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Manuscript disposition after initial submission (2002–2011)

Transitions

After serving on the Board since 2002, David L. Rowland has stepped down. He has always been immensely helpful in handling submissions pertaining to sexual dysfunction in males. He will be hard to replace. I am pleased to report that we have added 10 new members to the Board: Helen M. Conaglen, Aniruddha Das, Annelou L. C. de Vries, Baudewijntje Kreukels (after a few White Russians, I can even sort of pronounce Baudewijntje), Amy D. Lykins, Michael E. Newcomb, Pedro J. Nobre, Natalie O. Rosen, Thomas D. Steensma, and Kelly D. Suschinsky. My Managing Editor, Dr. Hayley Wood, has abandoned me in favor of motherhood (her son, Woody, is much easier to get along with than me) and has been ably replaced by Amanda Fuentes, M.A., a doctoral student in clinical psychology.

2012 was a personal transition for me. After being in the same building and same office since 1975 (I was a graduate student back then), my department moved to a new building at a new location, along Queen St. West, one of the coolest locations in Toronto. It was quite a feat packing up my office, which contained 3000 books, along with my “satellite” student offices, one of which housed the entire set of hard-copy manuscript submissions, reviews, and decision letters for Archives. My new office is about a fifth the size of my old office and the walls are not strong enough to hold bookshelves. So, I am down to about 30 books from 3000. The rest are stored in banker boxes in my basement, as I patiently wait for my 25-year-old daughter to move out already (she has some nice long walls in her bedroom). The Archives banker boxes are currently safely stored in a subbasement room at the new site, just in case.