The Williams Institute at the School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Mar 3;16(3):e0246827. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246827. eCollection 2021.
During the past 50 years, there have been marked improvement in the social and legal environment of sexual minorities in the United States. Minority stress theory predicts that health of sexual minorities is predicated on the social environment. As the social environment improves, exposure to stress would decline and health outcomes would improve. We assessed how stress, identity, connectedness with the LGBT community, and psychological distress and suicide behavior varied across three distinct cohorts of sexual minority people in the United States. Using a national probability sample recruited in 2016 and 2017, we assessed three a priori defined cohorts of sexual minorities we labeled the pride (born 1956-1963), visibility (born 1974-1981), and equality (born 1990-1997) cohorts. We found significant and impressive cohort differences in coming out milestones, with members of the younger cohort coming out much earlier than members of the two older cohorts. But we found no signs that the improved social environment attenuated their exposure to minority stressors-both distal stressors, such as violence and discrimination, and proximal stressors, such as internalized homophobia and expectations of rejection. Psychological distress and suicide behavior also were not improved, and indeed were worse for the younger than the older cohorts. These findings suggest that changes in the social environment had limited impact on stress processes and mental health for sexual minority people. They speak to the endurance of cultural ideologies such as homophobia and heterosexism and accompanying rejection of and violence toward sexual minorities.
在过去的 50 年中，美国性少数群体的社会和法律环境有了显著改善。少数群体应激理论预测，性少数群体的健康取决于社会环境。随着社会环境的改善，压力的暴露会减少，健康状况会得到改善。我们评估了应激、身份认同、与 LGBT 社区的联系以及心理困扰和自杀行为在三个不同的美国性少数群体队列中的变化。我们使用 2016 年和 2017 年招募的全国概率样本，评估了我们称之为自豪（出生于 1956-1963 年）、可见（出生于 1974-1981 年）和平等（出生于 1990-1997 年）的三个预先定义的性少数群体队列。我们发现，在出柜的里程碑上，不同队列之间存在显著而令人印象深刻的差异，年轻队列的成员比两个年长队列的成员更早出柜。但我们没有发现迹象表明，改善的社会环境减轻了他们对少数群体应激源的暴露——包括暴力和歧视等远端应激源，以及同性恋恐惧症内化和被拒绝的预期等近端应激源。心理困扰和自杀行为也没有改善，事实上，年轻队列的情况比年长队列更糟。这些发现表明，社会环境的变化对性少数群体的应激过程和心理健康的影响有限。它们反映了同性恋恐惧症和异性恋主义等文化意识形态的持久存在，以及对性少数群体的拒绝和暴力。
