Microaggressions are generally characterized as brief, daily assaults on minority individuals, which can be social or environmental, verbal or nonverbal, as well as intentional or unintentional ( Sue et al., 2007). While much of the literature has focused on major discriminatinatory events, more recent work has begun to examine microaggressions that occur in daily life. Minority stress can appear in a number of different forms. Minority stressors may act directly upon on health through chronic biological stress mechanisms (e.g., higher circulating levels of E-selectin in African American men, Friedman, Williams, Singer, & Ryff, 2009), lead to psychological distress ( Krieger et al., 2008) and/or may influence health behaviors (e.g., smoking cigarettes, Krieger et al., 2008) and use of health services ( Hausmann, Jeong, Bost, & Ibrahim, 2008).
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Minority stress theory examines the ways in which the unique stressors experienced by minority individuals may relate to mental health disparities in health ( Meyer, 2003). Such disparities are often linked to stressful experiences of stigma and discrimination that accompany a minority social identity ( Hatzenbuehler, 2009).
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For example, sexual minority individuals are at higher risk for mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, as well as suicidality ( Cochran, 2001). Indeed, disparities in mental and physical health outcomes have been well-documented among oppressed populations, including racial/ethnic minorities ( Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000 Williams & Mohammad, 2009) and sexual minorities ( Herek & Garnets, 2007 Lewis, 2009 Meyer, 2003). Social oppression in its many forms takes a toll on the health of individuals. Men scored higher on the LGBT-PCMS than women, lesbians and gay men scored higher than bisexual women and men, and Asian Americans scored higher than African Americans and Latina/os. The measure includes three subscales: (a) Racism in LGBT communities, (b) Heterosexism in Racial/Ethnic Minority Communities, and (c) Racism in Dating and Close Relationships, that are theoretically consistent with prior literature on racial/ethnic minority LGBTs and have strong psychometric properties including internal consistency and construct validity in terms of correlations with measures of psychological distress and LGBT-identity variables.
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The LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale is an 18-item self-report scale assessing the unique types of microaggressions experienced by ethnic minority LGBT adults. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a three-phase, mixed method empirical study to assess microaggressions among LGBT-POC. To date, research on this population has been hampered by the lack of a measurement tool to assess the unique experiences associated with the intersection of these oppressions. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals who are also racial/ethnic minorities (LGBT-POC) are a multiply marginalized population subject to microaggressions associated with both racism and heterosexism.