Sexual Racism on Geosocial Networking Applications and Identity Outness Among Sexual Minority Men in the US

ABSTRACT

Although the use of geosocial networking (GSN) applications for relationship seeking is prevalent among sexual minority men (SMM), SMM of color may be vulnerable to sexual racism online. Little is known about how sexual racism relates to SMM of color’s identity outness, which is integral to the minority stress model and the focus of this study. Eighty SMM, recruited through social media (53.7% racial/ethnic minority), reported their experiences of race-based discrimination on GSN apps and identity outness. Chi-squared and Fisher’s tests examined differences in race-based discrimination online by participants’ race/ethnicity. A factorial MANOVA was performed on outness to family, peers, and healthcare providers. Nearly one-third of participants experienced race-based discrimination online. Higher percentages of SMM of color experienced race-based discrimination than White SMM. SMM who experienced race-based discrimination online reported lower outness to family than those who had not. Post-hoc analyses revealed that Asian SMM reported consistently lower outness than other groups. Our findings resonated with the mediation framework of minority stress, suggesting that sexual racism online may be a distal stressor that contributes to the group-specific process of identity outness. This also illustrated the importance of addressing sexual racism on GSN apps to buffer existing stress with outness among SMM of color.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual racism
• sexual minority men
• identity outness
• online dating
• geosocial networking applications
• intersectionality
• minority stress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), awarded to Drs. Keith J. Horvath and Jason V. Baker; [R34MH116878].