One category of this blog clearly explains that LGBTQ+ individuals are not regarded warmly by cisgender and heterosexual individuals in general, and that these attitudes have several influences. Now, we turn our attention away from the “in-group” and towards the “out-group”. How are LGBTQ+ individuals affected by the negativity that they face, and why do they tend to have such high rates of mental illness? In the past, being gay or transgender were regarded as mental disorders by the psychological community and the rest of the general public (Herek, 2010). Herek (2010) explains these conclusions that psychology made by stating that the studies which bore these results had issues in how they were conducted, and the researchers only sampled from populations that were in prisons or mental hospitals- populations which are likely to have psychological problems. It is true that not all LGBTQ+ individuals experience mental health issues, but several do- so what kind of explanation is there? Replacing the “homosexuality is an illness” model is the “minority stress model” (Meyer, 2003). A large quantity of research on LGBTQ+ identities now utilizes this model as a lens with which to interpret results indicating negative mental health.
One of the first things which students of psychology learn is that stress can kill. It can severely damage physical and mental health and is not to be taken lightly. The main point of this model is that being stigmatized results in multiple unique sources of stress for the individual, which can lead to more negative mental health outcomes such as anxiety, depression, drug abuse, and so on. These sources of stress are not present in the lives of non-stigmatized individuals, and even if they appear to do so, the source of that stress is not a result of being a stigmatized individual. Stressors can be proximal (personal and individual- for instance, internalizing negative attitudes towards one’s identity) or distal (occurring outside the individual and more objective- social oppression, events that result due to prejudice of others) (Meyer, 2003). These types of stress distinctive to stigmatized individuals combines with the stress already present in their daily environments and are influenced by social support to result in mental health outcomes. This explains the LGBTQ+ population’s increased vulnerability towards mental health issues without mistakenly placing the blame on their identities, but rather on the way their identities are valued by society.
The below video gives an overview of minority stress.
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