CW// health issues, death, suicide, homophobia, racism
When I was little, I thought that “drama” and “trauma” were the same thing. Middle school drama consisted of which popular long-haired sk8er boy was scooping the boobs of which popular pubescent girl; whose secrets were exposed when someone was ousted from their friend group; which 8th graders were dating high school seniors. While, in my experience, these words can often describe each other--drama can be traumatic and vice versa--they mean two different things. However, looking back on my childhood as I got older, I realized the way I had used them interchangeably was, well, correct.
Whether it’s “Big-T Trauma” or “little-t trauma,” the psychological and physiological responses are the same. Big-T Trauma is an event that happens once but is extremely impactful all at one time, for example, death, assault, and attack, or witnessing an attack. These instances are often more accepted by wider society as stressful. Little-t trauma is by no means less traumatic. However, these recurring events are often invalidated and normalized by society; the burden is often shifted to the victim with the expectation that one should just “get over it.” Examples of these include chronic bullying, racism, body-shaming, sexism, and other forms of everyday violence and discrimination. What determines whether we call it trauma in the first place is how we feel after the experience. The more frightened or helpless you feel, the more likely that this is trauma.
Having to let boys playfully “scoop” your boobs every day at school or risk social ostracization? Trauma. Having your deepest darkest secrets exposed at school? Trauma. Being ousted from your friend group? Trauma. Dating someone way too old for you? Trauma. Being the only Black kid at your school? Trauma. Trying to pass for straight? Trauma. Hiding your gender identity from everyone you know? Trauma. No one deserves that.
Minority Stress is a little-t trauma (in contrast to the big-T Trauma of a hate crime). The term minority stress refers to the excess recurring stress to which individuals from stigmatized social categories are exposed as a result of their position as a social minority. This stress from alienation accumulates over time and results in both physiological and mental health issues.
How Trauma Affects the Body
Increased blood pressure: have you ever heard the expression “higher than a Black man’s blood pressure?” Some epidemiological studies have found that exposure to racial discrimination was positively related to elevated levels of blood pressure in Black people (1). Experiencing discrimination in a broad range of contexts can induce considerable stress.
Higher rates of chronic disease: Everyday discrimination is positively associated with coronary artery calcification (9), diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, depression, cancer, and early death (12). Because of this, not only do POC (specifically Black people) experience worse health earlier, but this deterioration accumulates giving rise to higher cortisol levels and inflammation in racial, sexual, and gender minorities alike (13).
Poor sleep: Black people are less likely than white people to have a decline in blood pressure during sleep, which is associated with increased risk for mortality and traumatic cardiovascular events like heart attacks (11).
Birthing mortality: The weathering hypothesis proposes that the health of Black women may begin to deteriorate in early adulthood as a physical consequence of cumulative socioeconomic disadvantage. This age the body via an increase in allostatic load, the physiological burden imposed by stress: norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol, and DHEA-S which gives rise to elevated blood pressure & cholesterol (14). During childbirth, these problems are correlated with higher rates of fetal/neonatal death and death of the birthing person as well as low birth weights and prematurely born babies.
Mental health and physical health are inextricably linked.
How Trauma Affects Us Socially & Emotionally
Psychological distress: Perceptions of discrimination are related to high levels of psychological distress, low levels of life satisfaction & happiness, depressive symptoms, poorer physical health (2), & cognitive impairment (10). Internalized racism is correlated with higher levels of alcohol use (3) while internalized homophobia correlates to higher levels of illicit drug use.
Fatalism: Understanding one's position as a victim of oppression, rather than lessening the degree of personal responsibility, diminishes feelings of self-efficacy. This leads to a fatalistic attitude that reduces coping effort in the face of adversity (4,5) and, in gay men, is correlated to increased risk of death by suicide.
Stereotype threat: When someone is aware of the negative stereotypes that are applied to them, this creates expectations, anxieties, and reactions that can adversely affect social & psychological functioning (6). When a stigma of inferiority is activated for Black people in experimental conditions, exam performance worsens. Similarly, women who were told that they perform worse than men had lower exam scores than control groups (7). Stereotype threat can increase anxiety, reduce self-regulation, & impair decision-making processes and communication abilities (8).
Trauma makes it hard to trust others; it makes us want to self-isolate from friends and family, snap at loved ones more frequently, makes us more susceptible to disease and chronic flare-ups, and startle more easily. Traumatic experiences, especially ones we face daily and have little control over (microaggressions, anyone?), can lead to hopelessness and chronic mental illness. And while white cisgender heterosexuals have problems too, the problems that oppressed minority groups face have a much larger effect on their cardiovascular systems and overall health.
Discrimination and oppression are literally killing people. In a capitalist society where you are only as valuable as your economic or reproductive output (#tbt to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade), where women and minorities are barred access to equal healthcare, thus decreasing their values as workers, the cycle of poverty continues.
Ever wonder where the Angry Black Woman stereotype came from? Ever think that maybe her anger was justified?
While this article focuses on Black people and cishet white gay men, let's remember the overall message: experiencing oppression (external and internalized) causes mental and physical health problems that are NOT YOUR FAULT. These experiences are compounded at the intersections of our marginalized identities which further aggravates the tangible effects of systemic oppression. And guess what? You deserve fucking better.
Click here for some self-care ideas and techniques!
Sources
1. Krieger N. & Sidney S. Racial and discrimination: risk factors for high blood pressure? Social Science & Medicine. 1990; 30 (12): 1273-81.
2. Williams & Chung, in press (NSBA)
3. Taylor, R. J., & Chatters, L. M. (1991). Nonorganizational religious participation among elderly black adults. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 46(2), S103-111.
4. Jones, E., & Matsumoto, D. (1982). Psychotherapy with the underserved: Recent developments. In L. Snowden (Ed.), Reaching the underserved: Mental health needs of neglected populations. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
5. Neighbors, H. W., Jackson, J. S., Broman, C. L., & Thompson, E. (1996). Racism and the mental health of African Americans: The role of self and system blame. Ethnicity and Disease, 6(1-2), 167-175.
6. Fischer, C. S., Hout, M., Jankowski, M. S., Lucas, S. R., Swidler, A., Voss, K. (1996). Inequality by design: Cracking the bell curve myth Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
7. Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613-629.
8. Inzlicht, M., Kang, S. K. (2010). Stereotype threat spillover: How coping with threats to social identity affects aggression, eating, decision making, and attention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(3), 467-481.
9. Lewis, T. T., Barnes, L. L., Bienias, J. L., Lackland, D. T., Evans, D. A., Mendes de Leon, C. F.(2009). Perceived discrimination and blood pressure in older African American and White adults. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 64A(9), 1002-1008.
10. Barnes, L. L., Lewis, T. T., Begeny, C. T., Yu, L., Bennett, D. A., Wilson, R. S. (2012). Perceived discrimination and cognition in older African Americans. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 18(5), 856-865.
11. Profant, J., Dimsdale, J. E. (1999). Race and diurnal blood pressure patterns: A review and meta-analysis. Hypertension, 33(5), 1099-1104.
12. National Research Council (US) Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life; Anderson NB, Bulatao RA, Cohen B, editors. Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2004. 14, Significance of Perceived Racism: Toward Understanding Ethnic Group Disparities in Health, the Later Years. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25531/
13. Gender differences in age-related changes in HPA axis reactivity.
Seeman TE, Singer B, Wilkinson CW, McEwen B
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2001 Apr; 26(3):225-40.
14. Price of adaptation--allostatic load and its health consequences. MacArthur studies of successful aging.
The world would be so much better if people didn't internalize the hate thrust upon them. Like, no fat people with internalized fatphobia, no queer people with internalized homo-, bi-, inter-, trans- or aphobia or anything of the sort, no BIPOC people with internalized racism. Conservatives would have so little backhold, it would be laughable
And no, this is not arguing that it's okay to be hateful to a group you don't belong to or that any of those -isms are any better if they're held by straight white cis people. I just got a paragraphs long message from someone with migration background arguing why immigrants are bad and I still can't wrap my head around it.
Confused as to why the possibility of Omar Mateen being gay (or msm/bi/queer/pan) would make this any less of a hate crime. It only means that he also hated himself.
