What is minority stress?
The term ‘minority stress’ was first used by Meyer, and recognises that LGBTI people’s experiences of stigma, prejudice, the expectation of rejection, experiences of discrimination, and the pressure felt by some to ‘conceal’ their identities creates a hostile and stressful social environment that causes mental health problems.
This means that being LGBTI does not cause poor mental health, but we may develop poor mental health because of how we are treated within society.
Many researchers[13] state that LGBTI people experience this stress in the same way other marginalised groups might, and of course many people who are LGBTI are also further marginalised. There has been little research done to understand the impact of minority stress on people who have multiple marginalised aspects of their identity, for example, those who suffer because of racism and heterosexism.[14]
- What is marginalisation?
- Marginalisation is when groups or communities experience discrimination and exclusion (social, political and economic) because of unequal power relations in society.
reflection point
Footnotes
- Frost. D.M., Lehavot. K., Meyer. I.H. (2015) ‘Minority stress and physical health among sexual minority individuals’. Journal of Behavioural Medicine. 2015 Feb; 38(1):1-8. (Return to reference [13])
- McConnell. E.A., Janulis. P., Phillips. G., R., Birkett. M. (2018) ‘Multiple Minority Stress and LGBT Community Resilience among Sexual Minority Men’. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. 2018 Mar; 5(1): 1–12. doi: 10.1037/sgd0000265 (Return to reference [14])
