Queer minority stress and resilience in everyday life

Abstract Queer people (i.e., sexual and gender minorities) report more adverse mental health than their cisgender and heterosexual peers. This disparity can be explained by minority identity specific stress and resilience factors. These include enacted (observable anti-queer stereotyping) and internalized stigma (negative beliefs), which are stressors associated with adverse mental health. These associations are inhibited by resilience factors (coping). The current study explored the daily importance of these constructs by assessing their variability and within-person associations with mental health. Ecological momentary assessment was applied across 14 days in late 2023, constituting five daily brief surveys (adherence = 52.5%). The sample (N = 22, M age = 23) was 100% sexual minority, 73% gender minority, recruited through local queer associations. Conditional Process Analysis was applied to explore within-person parameter estimates between constructs. Enacted stigma and community connectedness events had more within-person variability whilst all other constructs were better explained by differences on the between-person level. Momentary anxiety and depression were directly predicted by enacted sigma and indirectly through internalized stigma. Higher resilience correlated with lower anxiety and depression. For moderated mediation associations following enacted stigma, higher resilience inhibited associations of internalized queer-negativity on anxiety and depression. However, higher resilience exacerbated associations through identity concealment. The study affirms assumptions of queer minority stress and resilience theory, demonstrating event-level relevance. Enacted and internalized stigma hold relevance for the day-to-day mental health of queer individuals, underlining the importance of reducing societal minority stress and enhancing community resilience factors amongst queer people.