The Differential Roles of Minority Stressors in LGB Identity Disclosure

Sexual minorities face multiple distinct stressors, including internalized stigma, felt stigma, and everyday discrimination. Prior research shows that these stressors are critical to their decisions to disclose their sexual orientation. However, many prior studies examined each stressor independently. It remains unclear how each minority stressor uniquely contributes to disclosure, and how they may relate to one another. This study addresses these gaps by analyzing a national probability dataset of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people in the United States (N = 944) that measured outness (i.e. how out you are) and disclosure behavior (i.e. told someone you’re LGB). Using multilevel path analysis, we tested a linear model and three distinct mediation models that describe the process of how minority stressors affect outness and disclosure behavior. Results revealed that when all minority stressors are considered simultaneously, disclosure behavior is best predicted by everyday discrimination, whereas outness is best predicted by internalized stigma. In addition, the best-fitting model suggests that on average, everyday discrimination predicts internalized stigma and felt stigma, which in turn predict less outness, but more disclosure behavior. We also explored the results by three age cohorts. Together, this work deepens a theoretical understanding of how minority stress shapes disclosure.