Effects of Minority Stress Processes on the Mental Health of Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women: A Qualitative Study

Emerging literature on minority stress among sexual minority populations has described the negative consequences that multiple minority statuses may exert on mental health and well-being. This literature has tended to focus on individuals whose self-identifications reflect sexual minority sexual categories, such as gay or bisexual, and has explored the intersection of these definitions with ethnic, racial, and class statuses. Few such studies have explored mental health among men who actively deny a sexual minority sexual identity label while engaging in same-sex sexual behaviors. The present study used ethnographic interview data from 20 non-gay-identified bisexually behaving Dominican and Puerto Rican men in New York City. Participants described discovery of same sex sexual behavior as a threat to their intimate relationships, community affiliation, and counter to expectations of Latino masculinity. Recounting a wide range of information management strategies used to avoid open disclosure about their sexual lives, participants experienced the potential consequences of disclosure as extreme and even life threatening. Men anticipated social isolation, depression, self-injury, and suicidality as possible outcomes from disclosing sexual behavior with other men to their female romantic partners. This analysis provides direction for future research on minority stress processes and mental health service delivery among Latino men who have sex with men and women

Labels of love: How migrants negotiate (or not) the culture of sexual identity

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 French lesbians, gays and bisex-uals (LGBs) living in the United States and 13 American LGBs living in France, this article examines how national cultural context shapes the way LGBs understand and frame their sexual identity. The meaning these mostly White middle-class migrants attributed to their sexual identity was revealed-and in some cases changed-through cultural mechanisms provoked by crossing borders. Their journey gave them a unique perspective on the dominant national understandings of sexual identity in both countries. Through interaction, they discovered on the one hand, the French cultural expectations that individuals downplay their differences in the public sphere, and on the other, American cultural expectations that individuals align themselves with a minority category in the public sphere. As theories on the relationship between sexual identity and culture would predict, some respondents expressed feeling more comfortable with the sexual identity model of the country in which they came to embrace their sexuality. Half, however, preferred the model of the new context. These findings suggest that further theorization is necessary to understand why sexual identity appears to be highly contingent on culture for some people but seemingly independent of it for others