The following article was published in a textbook to be taught to students. I paid money for the chance to read it. It’s titled “Same-Sex Sexuality and Adolescent Psychological Well-Being: The Influence of Sexual Orientation, Early Reports of Same-Sex Attraction and Gender” and was written in 2014. The title seems innocent, as it claims itself to be a report on the effects of sexual orientation, but the article only focuses on the negative effects of sexual orientation.
The researchers who wrote the article decided to refer to people who are LGB+ as sexual minorities (SM). Although they already have an international acronym to describe their group, they are only referred to as their minority status. They claim that based on studies done, “SM report somewhat lower levels of of psychological well-being”.
The article specifically focused on the effects of coming out during early adolescence, because we know that early adolescence (around middle school) is the biggest developmental stage to one’s psychological mindset. The article stated that some SM people recognize their LGB+ identification by early adolescence, but based on the data provided from their research, people’s ages varied from 8 years old, to 10-11 years old as the earliest.
Their hypothesis was that most SM would report lower levels of psychological well-being by early adolescence, which were measured with consideration to depression, and self-esteem. Only those two. They also predicted that as SM people aged, their mental health would improve.
They predicted that the younger age that SM people were aware of their SM status, the lower psychological well-being they would report. Something that caught my attention was the claim that “Among those of SM status, we expected those of bisexual status to report lower psychological well-being at the onset of adolescence”, because they were seen as even more of a minority than homosexuals.
The data was collected from the National Longitudinal study of Adolescent Health, which was made up of three “waves” of interviews with its participants, so they could track progress across adolescence. In total, there were 6,889 heterosexuals (the control group), and 844 SM participants, which was made up of 129 homosexuals, 140 bisexuals, and variations of straight with same-sex attraction were 575 people. There was no mention of any other acronym of LGB+.
Another idea that is important to point out was that there was no consideration for gender influences in this article. Participants were only asked if they were attracted to females or males, not anything else, and they were not asked what their gender was.
From the whole sample, report of depression levels were relatively lower than they expected at early adolescence, and there was no growth in the depression levels as participants aged through adolescence.
The different SM groups didn’t differ in levels of depression and self-esteem from each other, but they did show differences from the control group, heterosexuals, reporting higher levels of depression symptoms than the control group.
Self-esteem was, as a whole, high, and grew higher over time. Again, the SM groups had lower levels of self-esteem than the control group, but all of the participants generally experienced a growth in self-esteem over time.
Because most of the differences they found were between the control group and the SM group, they analyzed the growth or decline of self-esteem and depression in the SM group over time. There seemed to be a general “recovery” when “the disparities narrow over time” throughout adolescence.
However, this was mainly due to the fact that those who came out at a younger age had lower levels of psychological well-being, so there was more room to improve over time, which is why there was improvement over time.
Nonetheless, their general hypothesis was somewhat correct, that people who came out at younger ages had higher levels of depression and lower self-esteem.
I was desperate for this article to provide me with something, and under the tab “Why Is the Negative Relation in Place by Early Adolescence?”, it began well, saying that after coming out, SM people may face homophobia and bullying that may cause this damage. After this statement, it gets questionable.
Their main reason for explaining why SM people are so depression with low self-esteem is because of the loss of identity. In middle school, students for the first time are noticing differences between themselves and their peers, and for those who are SM are different on a whole other level. This causes a sense of isolation because they are surrounded with members of the sexual majority.
The article itself doesn’t immediately come off with a strong homophobic bias, but there are problems with it that I want to address. There is no mention of how the authors define “coming out”, because part of their investigation was seeing how coming into terms as a sexual minority affects mental health, but coming out in public versus to oneself have different processes and effects.
Not all aspects of the LGBT+ community were represented in the article, being only gay and bisexual members were strictly mentioned, and some who identified as straight, but with same-sex attraction. Other than no consideration for pansexuals, asexuals, questioning, queer, et cetera people, there was no mention of gender. Participants who were female we asked specifically if they were attracted to females, instead of using the term “opposite gender” or “other gender(s)”.
The study itself had an exponentially larger amount of people in the control group than others, which is another problem. Because their results mainly were made up of differences between the control group and the other groups, not the SM groups differing amongst each other, it’s important that the SM group and control group are even in seize, and these differences don’t just rely on size.
Their conclusions from the study’s data are drawn with the consideration that the rest of adolescence is supposed to be a time to recover from the hardships of early adolescence. Growing up shouldn’t just be considered a recovering period, it’s about change, identity, and adapting to accept oneself, so I’m not fond of their use of “recovery.”
In the end, they blame the damage presumably done to mental well-being on the person who is coming out, not the other factors in their life. Homophobia and bullying is briefly mentioned, but it is not brief in the lives of SM people. It does make sense that feeling different from peers can cause a sense of depression or low self-esteem, but the fact that the authors imply every SM person is surrounded by sexual majorities in their early adolescence, and never see another SM person for years.
I wanted to share the contents of this article because it’s important for these things to be talked about. As someone who knows a lot about this community, and the people within it, I knew that I’m the right person to talk about this article. I can’t stop people from having their own opinions, and it’s important that you have your own as well. I don’t hate this article because the basis of it sounds homophobic, but I wanted to explain the issues there are with the claims being made and why.