Gender Non-Conformity and Minority Stressors: From a Queer Perspective
By: Sarah Janco
Everyone deals with daily stressors. Whether that be losing a job, losing a loved one or getting ill. Yes, all of these things are terrible to imagine, but at least we know that a majority of the world experiences these stressors at some point in their lives too… right?
Now imagine experiencing daily homophobic remarks, internalized homophobia, the feeling of not being accepted, and having to hide your sexuality because if you don’t, you'll get fired. Does everyone experience these stressors? Or does only a minority of people experience these stressors? If you guessed the latter, you'd be right.
These unique stressors: experiences of prejudiced events, internalized homognegativity, expectations of rejection, and concealment of sexual orientation are all stressors that make up what is known as the minority-stress model.The minority stress model by Meyer theorizes that those who identify as LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual), experience unique stressors which fall into one of two categories, distal or proximal. Distal stressors are external and include expectations of prejudiced events while proximal stressors are internal and consist of internalized homogeneity, expectations of rejection, and concealment of sexual orientation.
In a meta-analysis (fancy word for examining trends across a combination of various topic-relevant studies), conducted by Thoma and others (2021), the researchers aimed to see how gender nonconformity in LGB individuals is associated with the distal and proximal stressors identified in Meyer's model. Gender non-conformity is characterized as gender expression that doesn't conform to society’s ideals or standards of an individual's gender that was assigned at birth.
The researchers hypothesized that lower levels of concealment, greater frequency of experiences of prejudice events, lower levels of internalized homonegativity, and higher expectations of rejection would be associated with greater levels of gender nonconformity in LGB individuals. Additionally, the researchers hypothesized that gay and bisexual men would be more strongly linked with minority stress experiences than lesbian and bisexual women.
Results go on to show that as gender nonconformity in LGB individuals increases, experiences of prejudiced events increase. Gender was a significant moderator of this correlation. A moderator is considered the “third variable”, it can affect how strongly associated variables are with one another. Gender helped moderate this correlation because the effects for gay and bisexual men were stronger than that of gay and bisexual women. Gender also moderated the correlation between expectations of rejection and gender nonconformity in LGB individuals, which are positively correlated. Moving forward, results suggest that as gender nonconformity in LGB individuals increases, disclosure of sexual identity increases as well as expectations of rejection.
In terms of the second hypothesis, the research suggest that gender nonconformity can play a bigger role for gay men, than for gay women, when it comes to minority stress experiences. This shows that gender can be a significant moderator in these associations. Importantly, when including transgender participants, the effect sizes yielded stronger results showing that transgender individuals report higher levels of gender nonconformity than compared to cis-gender LGB individuals.
These results are important because it proves there is a link between minority stress experiences among LGB individuals and gender nonconformity. Although higher levels of gender nonconformity are associated with lower levels of internalized homonegativity, gender nonconformity can still put LGB individuals at an increased risk for negative health outcomes due to the heightened frequency of prejudiced events/expectations of rejection.
So, taking a look back at all this information it is clear that gender nonconformity can play a role in a LGB individual’s experiences of minority stressors. As a gender non-conforming gay woman, I sympathize with the experiences that gender nonconforming LGB individual’s face. It’s not easy dealing with the daily stressors of life but taking the time to understand the way minority stressors uniquely affect the lives of minorities can hopefully make us all a little more kind to those who need it the most.
References:
Thoma, B. C., Eckstrand, K. L., Montano, G. T., Rezeppa, T. L., & Marshal, M. P. (2021). Gender nonconformity and minority stress among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(6), 1165–1183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620968766