Minority Stress Theory & Transgender Day of Rememberence
Hello everyone from Washington, DC. I am at the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Associations (ARNOVA) conference. This is a conference that I attend every year and learn about the nonprofit research (and see my friends I see once a year! Howdy to all the ARNOVAns who read my newsletter). I am also presenting three of my papers this year:
How nonprofits, governments, and influencers used social media to get people to take action during the mpox epidemic and how they can work together to support minority communities.
The LGBTQIA+ experience in sports and how sports organizations can better support LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Using Minority Stress Theory (MST) to explore how nonprofits can better support transgender clients and communities.
As I am going to be discussing MST at the conference, I wanted to mention it here as it is a useful frame for thinking about the LGBTQIA+ experience, understanding the way that LGBTQIA+ people navigate life, and provides a good framework for thinking about how nonprofit organizations can support LGBTQIA+ people.
What is Minority Stress Theory?
Life is stressful. Being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community is even more stressful because of the societal and personal influences which go out of their way to make life harder for queer people. To better understand the stressors that LGBTQIA+ people face, Meyer (1995) (not me) proposed a model that Meyer (2003) expanded to explore the complex processes that the LGB population experience (below). Importantly, this model provides room for both external stressors (distal) such as societal prejudice and internal stressors (proximal) such as internalized homophobia.
This model is complicated because life is complicated. What leads to positive or negative outcomes for LGBTQIA+ people is a big mix of life experiences and interpersonal relationships, which can change over time. It continues to be a useful framework today as a way to understand the LGBTQIA+ community.
Stressors and Buffers:
Within MST, there is the idea that there are specific things that make the stress worse (stressors) and things that can ameliorate the stress (buffers). Below, you can see a list of the main stressors and buffers identified in MST:
Some of these stressors, once seen, are not too surprising. The experience of discrimination and the awareness of being stigmatized are not one-time things but constant pressures from society. In the current political climate, where Republicans spent $215 million on anti-trans ads, stigma awareness and discrimination is sure to be a major stressor, especially in states where Republicans are going out of their way to terrorize the transgender community. This list is not exhaustive (in fact, part of my research explores some of the organizational buffers and stressors of MST), but allows us to put a name to what many LGBTQIA+ people experience.
What can nonprofits do?
The basic answer is try to provide buffers instead of stressors. Based on the four main buffers identified:
Cultivate Self-Acceptance: Help people build up their self-acceptance, which means having LGBTQIA+ positive materials within the organization and either supports that are LGBTQIA+ specific or have connections to LGBTQIA+ specific organizations that you can refer out to.
Family & Social Support: Provide family supports for families that are better trying to understand LGBTQIA+ people (PFLAG is a great resource). And, of course, be a social support. In the LGBTQIA+ community, family is complicated. Many of us have our own found family and little to no interaction with some or all of our family members. Providing that safe social space is an important way to allow LGBTQIA+ people to have a buffer from the stressors of stigma and discrimination.
Collective Action: It is not just about your organization getting involved in supporting the LGBTQIA+ community through advocacy, but helping LGBTQIA+ people find their voice. Working with LGBTQIA+ people to explore advocacy and social justice that connects to their world and perspective (as well as their availability) is a way to fight minority stress, creating a group-level coping mechanism.
Concealment: Sometimes a stressor, helping people create a concealment strategy can help mitigate some of the stressors that people face. Importantly, it is never your job to say when someone should or should not be out; instead, it is important to help individuals figure out what works best for them in different situations.
Understanding the stressors that impact LGBTQIA+ people is important in supporting the community. Minority stress is a good framework that nonprofits can use to think about how the political environment and local climate may be negatively impacting LGBTQIA+ people and ways your organization can provide a safe space that mitigates these stressors.
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Yesterday was Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is observed every year on Nov. 20th. This day commemorates all of the transgender people who have lost their lives due to anti-trans violence. GLAD has an in memoriam to remember some transgender people who have lost their lives over the past year. HRC has a great report on this epidemic of violence against transgender individuals. Importantly, there is an intersectional aspect to discuss: BIPOC transgender individuals are significantly more likely to be victims of violence than white transgender individuals. As always, it is important for nonprofits to observe and acknowledge the realities that transgender people are facing, especially in today’s political climate.