Mental well-being of sexual minority individuals: Exploring the role of intraminority stress

The recently posed intraminority gay community stress theory states that sexual minority (SM) men may experience stress within their community resulting in lower levels of mental well-being. However, only few quantitative studies have evaluated this theory, and none of these studies examined the impact of intraminority stress on the mental well-being of SM female populations. In Dutch-speaking SM individuals who were assigned male at birth (N = 293) and SM individuals who were assigned female at birth (N = 527), this exploratory study examined associations between the four facets of intraminority stress and five mental health symptoms. When controlling for demographics and minority stress, intraminority stress was positively associated with psychological distress, body dissatisfaction, and interpersonal awareness in both SM male and SM female individuals, while positive associations with timidity were only found in the latter. As for the intraminority stress facets, particularly the SM community’s focus on competition and exclusion of social diversity seem to impact the mental well-being of SM individuals. The results support the notion that intraminority stress – along with minority stress – has important value in explaining mental health problems in SM male and SM female populations. Future research may examine how intraminority stress relates to the protective effects of community connectedness and having a sense of belonging, and to what extent and how intraminority stress should be addressed in interventions for stress-sensitive mental health symptoms in SM populations.