Trapped in The Closet: Mental Health Implications for LGBTQ+ Youth
"What's the big deal? Why don't you just tell people and get it over with?"
These are the words that I heard from a classmate at my undergrad when my best friend was trying to explain the fear he had about coming out to the rest of our school as trans. I felt chills run down my back and an ache in my stomach as I listened to my friend try to calmly explain that coming out wasn't just a choice about privacy but one about safety and survival.
The fear, threats, and stigma against the LGBTQ community has a wide variety of psychological implications on its members. LGBTQ youth across all walks of society have a greater chance of experiencing concealment, anxiety, and other related disorders than sexual majority youth.
According to a study conducted in 2016 by Dr Jeffery M. Cohen and colleagues, sexual minority young adults reported higher levels of anxiety and related disorder symptoms than their heterosexual counterparts. In this study "157 sexual minority and 157 heterosexual young adults matched on age and gender completed self-report measures of the aforementioned disorders, and indicated their level of sexual orientation concealment" (Cohen et.al., 91). Participants in this study completed a variety of measures including the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionairre, The Panic Disorder Self-Report, The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist from the DSM-5, The Social Phobia Diagnositic Questionairre, Beck Depression Inventory II, and open ended questions about their sexual orientation and level of openness or concealment (Cohen, et.al., 94-95).
After the data collected was out through a series of analyses it was found that sexual minority youth reported experiencing higher and more clinical levels of symptomology than heterosexual youth in the study. Across the board in both the LGBTQ group and the heterosexual group women reported higher levels of anxiety than men in the study. It was also found that higher levels of concealment (being closeted) correlated to higher levels of social phobia in LGBT youth (Cohen et.al., 97).
Chronic exposure to threat has shown to link very strongly to anxiety via fear response according to behavioral theory and neurobiological data. "Socially stigmatized populations, such as lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals, hereafter referred to as sexual minorities, face repeated exposure to threat on the basis of minority status. Such threat can include childhood maltreatment, bullying, and physical and sexual assault at rates much higher than heterosexual peers as well as discrimination and rejection" (Cohen et.al., 91-92).
The potential threat to safety of coming out in various contexts greatly effects the mental health of LGBTQ Youth in our society. This is an issue that is greater than one of privacy or personal preference. It is the responsibility of everyone in our community to create safe spaces for LGBTQ youth and adults to be themselves without fear of physical or emotional harm.
Resources:
Cohen, J. M., Blasey, C., Taylor, C. B., Weiss, B. J., & Newman, M. G. (2016). Anxiety and Related Disorders and Concealment in Sexual Minority Young Adults. Behavior therapy, 47(1), 91-101.
