Internalized stigma among sexual minority adults: Insights from a social psychological perspective.

TLDR

The framework distinguishes institutional heterosexism from individual manifestations—enacted, felt, and internalized stigma. The article proposes a social‑psychological model of sexual stigma and investigates internalized stigma among sexual minorities, extending insights from heterosexual internalized stigma research. By applying concepts from prior studies on heterosexual internalized stigma, the authors model self‑stigma in sexual minorities and test it using a community sample of 2,259 lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. The sample data demonstrate the model’s usefulness for generating and testing hypotheses about self‑stigma in sexual minority populations.

Abstract

This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (heterosexism) and among individuals. The latter include enacted sexual stigma (overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes), felt sexual stigma (expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and internalized sexual stigma (personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e., sexual prejudice), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e., self-stigma, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (N = 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma.