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ABSTRACT
The Institute of Medicine has called for an increase in efforts to investigate the understudied area of LGBTQ health and relationships. This study furthers the research by illuminating social support predictors of positive relationship functioning and resilience from a large national sample of those in same-sex relationships (N = 1,303) who continue to face minority stigma and stress in society. Primary findings underscore the centrality of partner social support and the importance of combating depression in sustaining positive relationship outcomes (commitment, satisfaction, closeness, and couple resilience) in same-sex romantic relationships. Findings also may point to increasing social legitimacy of same-sex couples and less reliance on LGBTQ-specific social supportive environments. Future research is needed to further explore the personal and relational health of same-sex couples.
Notes
Some members of the LGBTQ community may self-identify as “straight.” Because sexual orientation and gender identity are different constructs, someone may identify as transgender and straight, or non-binary/gender non-conforming and straight, for example. Furthermore, it is also possible that a person may self-identify their sexual orientation as bisexual and identify as “straight” while in a romantic relationship with a same-sex partner. There was an extremely small subset of our LGBTQ participants who identified themselves or their partner as “straight” (1%) and this did not affect the overall results. Yet for diversity and inclusion purposes, we felt it important to retain these participants in analyses. As we note in the Method section, respondents must have met the inclusion criteria of being involved in a same-sex relationship for at least 6 months for their responses to be included in the analyses.