Stress, Coping and Multiple Minority Status: The Intersection of Racial/Ethnic and Sexual Minority Status during Adolescence

Background: There is a lack of research on adolescents that identify as both racial/ethnic and sexual minorities (i.e., multiple minority).  When compared to their majority peers research with these groups independently find disparities including high rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, substance use, HIV risk behavior and suicide attempts.

These outcomes are attributed to exposure to chronic “minority-related” stressors (e.g., discrimination, homophobia).  However the experience of multiple minority status has rarely been explored. For example, sexual minority adolescents may hear homo-negative messaging from their family, but this experience may be compounded by racial/ethnic background, impacted by cultural expectations from the family (e.g., familismo, machismo).  Our study aimed to understand the ways in which adolescents that identify as a multiple minority experience minority stress differently (if at all) from their non-Hispanic white peers. 

Methods: Fifty SMA (age 13-19) were recruited across sexual orientation (L/G/B) and major race/ethnicity groups (Caucasian, Latino, Black, Asian) for 90-minute interviews from three social service organizations and two schools.  Protocols were developed in collaboration with an expert panel of nationally recognized senior scientists and a community advisory board.  A Life History Calendar (LHC) guided the semi-structured interviews, increasing participants’ ability to recall both events and associated feelings, and acknowledges the fluid and developing aspects of sexual, racial/ethnic, and gender identity formation.  Recordings were transcribed and entered into NVivo. Thematic analysis followed a process outlined by Boyatzis (1998).

Main Findings: Coders maintained a high level of inter-rater agreement (93%). Participants were diverse (38% Latino, 27% Caucasian, 13% African American, 20% Asian, and 2% other). Both Latino and African American participants indicated feeling as though being a sexual minority excluded them partially or fully from membership in their racial/ethnic group. These youth explained that being a sexual minority was universally perceived as unfavorable in their racial/ethnic group. Further, they cited numerous negative reactions (i.e., violence, verbal assault, disparaging statements, rejection) from family and racially similar others in the community or at school. Most Caucasian participants reported little to no connection to a racial group and either a positive view of sexual minority people within the Caucasian community or no knowledge of a shared attitude. Although Caucasian participants reported discrimination they did not attribute these to the Caucasian community. Most Asian participants reported knowledge of Asian community negative attitudes towards sexual minorities based on gender roles, and almost all reported no disclosure to family. Youth coped with feelings of perceived or actual isolation and rejection by their racial group by finding membership in sexual minority community groups, cognitively diminishing the importance of race, not disclosing their sexual minority identity to others in their racial group, and limiting their racial community interactions.  Implications for intervention will be discussed.