Childhood Experiences and Mental Health of Sexual Minority Adults: Examining Three Models

ABSTRACT

Three models of recalled childhood gender nonconformity (GNC) and maltreatment are proposed to explain disparities in current psychological distress and lifetime suicidality among sexual minority individuals, using a United States probability sample of cisgender lesbian/gay (n = 701), bisexual (n = 606), and other (e.g., queer, n = 182) adults. Indirect effects indicated that lesbian/gay individuals were more likely than bisexual individuals to experience maltreatment and suicidal ideation as childhood GNC increased. Other indirect effects found that bisexual individuals reported more psychological distress and greater likelihood of lifetime suicidal ideation and attempts than lesbian/gay individuals as maltreatment increased. The direct effects of sexual orientation were stronger than the indirect effects via maltreatment or GNC, with bisexual individuals reporting more maltreatment, distress, and suicidality than lesbian/gay individuals. Significant findings for individuals with other identities were similar to those of bisexual individuals. Adjusted findings were comparable for women and men. The findings indicated that sexual minority individuals reported experiences consistent with sexual minority stress during early developmental periods, before being aware of their sexual orientation. It is necessary to understand the early lived experiences of sexual minority individuals, differences between lesbian/gay and bisexual individuals in those experiences, and their implications for adaptation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Independent of the object’s inference or suspicion, a nascent sexual minority child exists at birth because sexual orientation is under the influence of prenatal, biological processes, as literature reviews have detailed (e.g., Bailey et al., 2016; Rosario & Schrimshaw, 2014). More recently, the genetic markers of same-sex behavior have been identified (Ganna et al., 2019). The child will become aware of the unfolding sexual orientation during sexual identity development, which begins for many individuals around puberty (Rosario & Schrimshaw, 2013). The part of this development that concerns identity formation – which refers to becoming aware of sexual attractions, engaging in sexual behavior, and self-identifying as lesbian/gay, bisexual, heterosexual, or variations or synonyms thereof – is completed for most individuals by early adulthood, during the middle twenties to early thirties, as a representative sample of the US population found (Kaestle, 2019). It is important to add that although sexual orientation is influenced by biological processes, this does not mean that the environment plays no role in the individual’s sexual orientation. Both nature and nurture influence sexual orientation, as the very research supporting the biological roots of sexual orientation indicates.

² We use GNC as a noun (gender nonconformity) and adjective (gender nonconforming) to describe behaviors.

³ The direct and indirect effects may seem contradictory to some, when, in fact, they are providing different information. The direct effect is the relation, on average, between two variables. It does not indicate why that relation exists. The indirect effect addresses a mechanism by which two or more predictors are linked to an outcome. Finding that bisexual individuals reported more maltreatment than lesbian/gay individuals is distinct from finding that lesbian/gay individuals, relative to bisexual individuals, experienced more maltreatment as childhood GNC increased. The mediational finding allows one to understand the role of GNC in the relation between sexual orientation and maltreatment and, therefore, why lesbian/gay individuals were maltreated.

Additional information

Funding

This report was supported by a research grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01HD078526.