Measuring Multiple Minority Stress: The LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale.

  • Citation: Balsam, Kimberly F., Yamile Molina, Blair Beadnell, Jane Simoni, and Karina Walters. “Measuring Multiple Minority Stress: The LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 17, no. 2 (2011): 163–74.
    • Topics:
    • Movements for Inclusion
    • Keywords:
    • LGBTQ+
    • people of color
    • microaggressions
    • racism
    • heterosexism

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals who are also racial/ethnic minorities (LGBT-POC) are a multiply marginalized population subject to microaggressions associated with both racism and heterosexism. To date, research on this population has been hampered by the lack of a measurement tool to assess the unique experiences associated with the intersection of these oppressions. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a three-phase, mixed method empirical study to assess microaggressions among LGBT-POC. The LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale is an 18-item self-report scale assessing the unique types of microaggressions experienced by ethnic minority LGBT adults. The measure includes three subscales: (a) Racism in LGBT communities, (b) Heterosexism in Racial/Ethnic Minority Communities, and (c) Racism in Dating and Close Relationships, that are theoretically consistent with prior literature on racial/ethnic minority LGBTs and have strong psychometric properties including internal consistency and construct validity in terms of correlations with measures of psychological distress and LGBT-identity variables. Men scored higher on the LGBT-PCMS than women, lesbians and gay men scored higher than bisexual women and men, and Asian Americans scored higher than African Americans and Latina/os. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

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