Is Being Queer Traumatic? All About Minority Stress
Traumatic experiences or stressors that effect groups of people have the potential to disrupt relationships and community functioning beyond the individual level (Galán et al., 2022). Among folks who identify as part of the sexual and gender minority, minority stress — although usually present to some degree — has increased significantly in response to current political, social, and cultural shifts (Jones et al., 2022). The transgender and nonbinary community in particular tend to experience high levels of verbal harassment, sexual assault, and/or intimate partner violence in addition to high rates of unemployment, experiencing high rates of housing discrimination, and high rates of mistreatment by police (Jones et al., 2022; Counselman-Carpenter & Redcay, 2023). Gender-based discrimination and violence — including lack of familial support — contribute to negative health and mental health outcomes for transgender and non-binary individuals at particularly high rates (Jones et al., 2022; Counselman-Carpenter & Redcay, 2023).
When considering the impact of trauma involving sexual and gender minority folks, it is important to specify the cause of the trauma. Building on the minority stress theory, both distal stressors (external social structures which create stress such as prejudice and discrimination) and proximal stressors (internal, cognitive constructs which create stress such as expectations of future rejection, internalized homophobia, and compulsive heteronormativity) contribute to experiences of chronic stress and chronic trauma (Jones et al., 2022; Counselman-Carpenter & Redcay, 2023; Szymanski et al., 2023). The hostile social structures and messages around gender which encourage the (often violent) punishment or mistreatment of gender nonconforming individuals also motivate more acute stressors such as housing discrimination, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional neglect. Psychologically, hostile social contexts and internalized negative social appraisals can negative effect transgender and non-binary people’s ability to function in romantic relationships as well (Jones et al., 2022).
While gender and sexuality based discrimination and mistreatment have had a profound and largely negative impact on individuals within sexual and gender minority groups, elements of resiliency and post traumatic growth have also been isolated and explored within these groups (Counselman-Carpenter & Redcay, 2023; Szymanski et al., 2023). Many of the cultural and social narratives that are offered by popular media depict the experience of transgender and nonbinary individuals as being largely traumatic, that their identity as a transgender/nonbinary person causes harm to their family and to society at large, and that they are wrong or morally wrong for identifying in a way that is outside of their assigned gender at birth (Hughto et al., 2021). Members of sexual and gender minority groups have often been accused of being unsafe in some way, having a higher rate of committing sexual assault, or being threatening or disgusting because of an assumed HIV/AIDS status (Hughto et al., 2021; Szymanski et al., 2023).
Despite these narratives — which are largely unsupported by any reputable data — many transgender/nonbinary individuals as well as other members of sexual and gender minority groups have been able to develop a persistent sense of resiliency and posttraumatic growth (Counselman-Carpenter & Redcay, 2023; Szymanski et al., 2023). The concepts of resilency and posttraumatic growth, similar to the idea of a system that is antifragile, refer to positive skills or attributes that one is able to develop in response to a stressful or traumatic experience (Chen et al., 2021; Hillson, 2023). These positive changes can occur at the individual or relational/communal level and could include things like a greater sense of personal strength, a richer existential or spiritual life, clarity of communication or purpose, increased emotional resilience, or changes to how systems function (Chen et al., 2021; Munoz et al., 2022).
Although sexual and gender minority groups have demonstrated levels of resilience and posttraumatic growth, the mechanisms which encourage the development of these positive outcomes are unclear and difficult to isolate from other mitigating factors and intersecting identities (Jones et al., 2022). The presence of some positive outcomes has also lead to the belief that all members of sexual and gender minority groups are morally compelled or expected to manage their trauma in a similarly positive and productive way — a perspective which lacks awareness of intersectional factors which may lessen the negative effects of discrimination (such as presenting male or being white) as well as those that increase the effects of discrimination (such as presenting female or being non-white) and threatens to delegitimize the experience of sexual and gender minorities as something they should just get over or cope with (Jones et al., 2022).
Strategies that can help to encourage posttraumatic growth and the development of resilience include creating and disseminating positive social and cultural messages (which can help to create positive expectations of the future for transgender and nonbinary individuals), making mental health care systems and providers more affirming to sexual and gender minority clients, engaging in local activism activities, cultivating a sense of personal purpose, decreasing or challenging transphobic/homophobic messages and constructing trans-positive/queer-positive messages, and developing personal sense of pride in identity and expression (Jones et al., 2022; Szymanski et al., 2023).
References
Chen, R., Sun, C., Chen, J.-J., Jen, H.-J., Kang, X.L., Kao, C.-C. and Chou, K.-R. (2021). A large-scale survey on trauma, burnout, and posttraumatic growth among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 30, 102-116. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12796
Counselman-Carpenter, E., & Redcay, A. (2023). Deepening understanding of nuanced identity within the transgender community through an exploration of posttraumatic growth. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 10(3), 429–439. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000415
Galán, C. A., Auguste, E. E., Smith, N. A., & Meza, J. I. (2022). An Intersectional-Contextual Approach to Racial Trauma Exposure Risk and Coping Among Black Youth. Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 32(2), 583–595. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12757
Hillson, D. (2023), "Beyond resilience: towards antifragility?", Continuity & Resilience Review, 5(2), 210-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/CRR-10-2022-0026
Hughto, J. M. W., Pletta, D. Gordon, L., Cahill, S., Mimiaga, M. J., & Reisner, S., L (2021). Negative transgender-related media messages are associated with adverse mental health outcomes in a multistage study of transgender adults. LGBT Health, 8(1), 32-41. http://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0279
Jones, A. K., Wehner, C. L., Andrade, I. M., Jones, E. M., Wooten, L. H., & Wilson, L. C. (2022). Minority stress and posttraumatic growth in the transgender and nonbinary community. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000610
Munoz, A., Billsberry, J. & Ambrosini, V. (2022) Resilience, robustness, and antifragility: Towards an appreciation of distinct organizational responses to adversity. International Journal of Management Reviews. 24: 181–187. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12289
Szymanski, D. M., Goates, J. D., & Strauss Swanson, C. (2023). LGBQ activism and positive psychological functioning: The roles of meaning, community connection, and coping. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 10(1), 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000499