Minority Stress and Mental Health: A Review of the Literature

2021/11/23 by Charles P. Hoy-Ellis, Charles P. Hoy‐Ellis · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Social and Intergroup Psychology

paper · doi:10.1080/00918369.2021.2004794

openalex publication_date 2021/11/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations experience significant health disparities, theorized to result from LGBT specific minority stressors. The fully conceptualized Minority Stress Model was published more than 15 years ago. Minority stressors include external conditions and events, such as discrimination and victimization. Internal minority stressors include expectations of rejection and discrimination, concealment of minority identity, and internalizations of negative dominant cultural attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes, and values. Connection to sexual and gender minority communities is theorized to moderate the effects of minority stressors. In this integrative review, I examine two decades of research on minority stress. Based on this review, I highlight strengths and limitations of the model, and suggest next steps for moving minority stress research forward.

Citations

• The Forms and Mechanisms of Stress Proliferation: The Case of AIDS Caregivers
• The Complexity of Intersectionality
• Minority Stress and Mental Health in Gay Men
• Demonstrating the Importance and Feasibility of Including Sexual Orientation in Public Health Surveys: Health Disparities in the Pacific Northwest
• Stress, Coping, and Social Support Processes: Where Are We? What Next?
• Mechanisms Linking Social Ties and Support to Physical and Mental Health
• Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence.
• The Life Course as Developmental Theory

Cited by

• Elements of Minority Stress and Resilience in LGBTQ+ Students’ Experience of Education

Related

• Minority Stress and Mental Health in Gay Men
• Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence.
• A developmentally informed adaptation of minority stress for sexual minority adolescents
• Couple-level Minority Stress: An Examination of Same-sex Couples’ Unique Experiences
• Health disparities between genderqueer, transgender, and cisgender individuals: An extension of minority stress theory.