New Study Examines Root Cause Of LGBT Mental Health Issues
In the past decade, debates over “cancel culture,” identity, and discrimination have become increasingly heated. Much of that discussion has centered on the mental health of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. A common explanation has been that higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems within sexual minority […]
In the past decade, debates over “cancel culture,” identity, and discrimination have become increasingly heated. Much of that discussion has centered on the mental health of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. A common explanation has been that higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems within sexual minority populations are largely the result of discrimination, stigma, bullying, and social rejection.
However, a recent analysis published through Cambridge Core challenges the idea that minority stress alone explains these disparities. The researchers argue that family and genetic factors may account for a significant portion of the difference in mental health outcomes between heterosexual and non-heterosexual people.
“Compared with heterosexual persons, non-heterosexual persons have worse mental health. Sexual Minority Stress Theory (SMST) explains the disparity as resulting from stigma and discrimination,” the researchers wrote. “To the extent that heterosexual genetic relatives reared with non-heterosexual persons also have worse mental health, SMST is falsified. We conducted a systematic meta-analysis of studies containing family-genetic comparison data to interrogate the empirical support for SMST.”
Jay Richards, vice president of Social and Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Washington Stand that he believes the minority stress explanation has always had serious weaknesses.
“The minority stress theory was always implausible. It makes little sense to argue that there’s more prejudice against ‘sexual minorities’ now than there was, say, 50 years ago. Indeed, the most influential parts of our culture go out of their way to praise newfangled ‘gender identities,’” Richards said.
The researchers examined more than 15 studies involving twins or siblings whose sexual orientation and mental health had been documented. Their goal was to determine whether the mental health differences typically associated with sexual orientation became smaller when researchers accounted for shared family background and genetics.
“We conducted a multilevel meta-analysis, focusing on the degree to which any sexual orientation disparity in mental health diminished with genetic relatedness,” the researchers explained. “Most of the mental health disparities between non-heterosexual and heterosexual persons were eliminated after controlling for family-genetic factors.”