LGBT mental health in the Trump era

While there is no specific theme of this issue of the Journal, as one peruses the titles of the included articles, it is difficult not to contemplate the shifting political climate in the U.S. and world-wide. Intolerance. Isolationism. Increasing vitriol amongst those with differing views. How will this affect the mental health and well-being of the LGBT population? Will repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. make it more difficult for marginalized people to obtain needed mental health care? This is all very disturbing, to say the least, and will require vigilance and activism by all health professionals.

Nakash et al. revisit the concept of the Hostile World Scenario previously explored in this Journal (Shenkman & Shmotkin, 2016) and find that perceived control has a moderating effect on emotional distress associated with the Hostile World Scenario only in the lesbians in their sample of Israeli gay and lesbian people.

Mental health issues remain highly prevalent among gay men. The article by Tse and Kwon suggests that extraversion may interact with social support and emotional openness to increase resilience in gay men and protect against depression. Their study found that gay men benefited from social support regardless of their level of extraversion. They also found that emotional processing played an important role in increasing resilience. These findings may help guide our treatment of gay men seeking treatment for depression.

Birnkrant and Przeworski present their study of support-seeking parents of transgender youth looking at the coming-out process, their perspective, and their views on their children's level of support in the school environment and with extended family.

Barbir, Vandevender, and Cohn examine the contact hypothesis of stigma reduction by looking at the association between transphobic attitudes and social contacts with transgender people in a sample of college students.

Zaki, Gross, and Pachankis note that young adult minority women may be particularly vulnerable to stigma. This may lead to an increase in suicidal ideation and/or non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) or behavior. They studied the frequency of NSSI, suicidal ideation, help-seeking behavior in a cohort of sexual minority young adult women compared to a cohort of heterosexual women. The results were mixed and partially unexpected. While the sexual minority cohort endorsed more suicidal ideation, the heterosexual group reported greater lifetime NSSI. Help-seeking behavior was also mixed among the cohorts, indicating that “sexual minority” is far from a homogeneous group. Bisexual youth may be particularly vulnerable and in need of additional outreach.

Finally, we include a review of the recently published biography Barbara Gittings: A Gay Pioneer. Her selfless activism may serve as a template for the work that lies ahead of us in the coming years.