Considering queer heterogeneity: Do immigrant Latinx sexual and gender minorities have poorer health outcomes than their U.S.-born counterparts?

Abstract

The current study sought to assess if differences in mental and physical health exist between U.S-born and immigrant Latinx sexual and gender minority adults. To do so, we analyzed publicly available national data from the Social Justice Sexuality Project (N = 950), the findings from which indicate that immigrant Latinx LGBT adults have better physical health, but not mental health, than their U.S.-born counterparts. We also assessed the moderating effects of family support and racial community climate on the nativity-health relationships; neither were significant. Our work substantiates the need to consider the identified heterogeneity among this population and the implications therein, and the importance of not conflating all racial-ethnic LGBT persons as a single group.

Keywords:

• Ethnicity
• gender identity
• health
• Latino/a
• Latinx
• LGBT
• mental
• nativity
• race
• sexuality health

Notes

1 Throughout this paper, unless citing extant research that uses a different term (e.g., “Latino/a”), we use the term Latinx as a way to encompass all those whose gender expression and/or identity are not represented by the binary linguistic practices of the Spanish language (Santos, 2017).