“I feel as if I’m lying to them”: Exploring Lesbian Muslims’ Experiences of Rejection, Support, and Depression

ABSTRACT

The current exploratory study utilized a mixed-methods design to study 18 lesbian Muslims’ mental health in relation to familial and online social support (M Age = 24, Sd = 9). Due to the threat of familial rejection, the majority of participants (n = 11) selectively disclosed their sexual identity and four participants publicly disclosed. Half of participants scored as mildly to severely depressed on the Beck Depression Inventory (M = 15, Sd = 9). Participants reporting changes in their familial relationships due to their sexual orientation scored as the most highly depressed, F (2, 15) = 4.75, p = .025. Participants’ depression scores varied significantly between those that belonged to online support groups addressing religion and sexuality (n = 8, M = 8.712, SD = 6.183) and those that did not (n = 10, M = 20.250, SD = 7.772), t(16) = 3.416, p = .004. Future research would benefit from exploring how therapeutic alliances and family of choice networks can help buffer lesbian Muslims’ experiences of familial rejection.

KEYWORDS:

• Muslim
• lesbian
• depression
• family
• rejection
• resilience

Acknowledgments

This paper is a part of a larger project, the LGBTQ Muslim Experience Study (Chana Etengoff, PI), and has generously been supported by Eastern Michigan University’s Equality Knowledge Grant. Portions of this work were presented at the International Congress on Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection in Madrid, Spain and the Eastern Psychological Association Conference in New York, New York. The authors wish to thank the participants who gave their time to this research project and whose personal life experiences are the heart of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The research review focuses on quantitative and qualitative (e.g., case study narratives) scholarship; autobiographies and media articles are outside of this scope.