Minority Stress Proliferation and Mental Health: Partner Erasure and Depressive Symptoms across LGBTQ+ Identities

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6: Sexuality and Health

Abstract

LGBTQ+ individuals experience higher levels of depression due to various societal factors, such as discrimination, stigma, bullying, and other social inequalities. However, little attention has been focused on the sources of depression that can arise from within the LGBTQ+ communities, such as a partner's deployment of stereotypes and the erasure of one’s identity. While research has shown that depression and internalized homophobia are unique factors that can influence relationship problems and strain, less has looked at the reverse: how the deployment of internalized homophobia impacts the depression of their partner. In the presented work, homophobia from a partner is operationalized as Partner-Induced Identity Erasure, which asks how often one's partner pressures them to change their sexual identity label, threatens to “out” them, or tells a partner to “act straight” around people. Results indicate that identity erasure from a partner is impactful on the presence of depression for all LGBTQ+ individuals in the sample; however, the impacts were not evenly distributed across the LGBTQ+ communities examined. While Bi+ and individuals of other sexual identities report higher levels of depressive symptoms (measured through the CESD-10) at baseline, experiencing at least one instance of Partner Identity Erasure increases Gay and Lesbian individuals’ depressive symptoms by 3.356 units (p < .05). This increase in depressive symptoms places them at similar levels to Bi+ and individuals of other sexual identities. Future research will want to investigate when partner erasure becomes more salient for bisexual, queer, pansexual, omnisexual, and other sexual identities. Potential influences include, but are not limited to, how connected the individual is to the broader LGBTQ+ community and differences in how important or relevant sexual identity is in an individual’s life.

Authors

• Skyler K. Bastow, Florida State University

• Alexandra Catherine Hayes Nowakowski, Florida State University

• Miles G. Taylor, FSU