Negotiating multiple marginalizations: experiences of South Asian LGBQ individuals

Drawing from minority stress (Meyer, 2003) and feminist multicultural (Brown, 1994) theories, the present study investigated the additive and interactive relations between 2 types of external minority stress (heterosexist discrimination and racist events) and 4 internal stress processes related to identifying as a South Asian American lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) person (internalized heterosexism, acculturation, enculturation, and outness as LGBQ) with psychological distress. With 142 participants, Pearson's correlations, multiple regression, and simultaneous multiple moderation analyses were conducted. Experiences of heterosexist discrimination, racist events, and internalized heterosexism were correlated positively with psychological distress and enculturation was correlated negatively. In a test of the additive model, heterosexist discrimination, racist events, and internalized heterosexism accounted for significant and unique variance in psychological distress, but outness, acculturation, and enculturation did not. To test the interactive model, the simultaneous moderating roles of the internal stress processes were examined in the links between the external minority stressors to psychological distress. Only outness as LGBQ emerged as a moderator. The link between racist events and psychological distress was exacerbated in instances of higher outness, such that respondents with high racist events and high outness reported the highest levels of psychological distress. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed and future research directions focused on the needs of South Asian American LGBQ people are suggested.