Religion/Spirituality, Stress, and Resilience Among Sexual and Gender Minorities: The Religious/Spiritual Stress and Resilience Model

Abstract

Although many sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) consider themselves religious or spiritual, the impact of this religiousness or spirituality (RS) on their health is poorly understood. We introduce the religious/spiritual stress and resilience model (RSSR) to provide a robust framework for understanding the variegated ways that RS influences the health of SGMs. The RSSR bridges existing theorizing on minority stress, structural stigma, and RS-health pathways to articulate the circumstances under which SGMs likely experience RS as health promoting or health damaging. The RSSR makes five key propositions: (a) Minority stress and resilience processes influence health; (b) RS influences general resilience processes; (c) RS influences minority-specific stress and resilience processes; (d) these relationships are moderated by a number of variables uniquely relevant to RS among SGMs, such as congregational stances on same-sex sexual behavior and gender expression or an individual’s degree of SGM and RS identity integration; and (e) relationships between minority stress and resilience, RS, and health are bidirectional. In this manuscript, we describe the empirical basis for each of the five propositions focusing on research examining the relationship between RS and health among SGMs. We conclude by describing how the RSSR may inform future research on RS and health among SGMs.

Religious/spiritual struggles and life satisfaction among sexual minorities.

“…However, higher R/S struggles were predicted by a current Christian R/S affiliation and by childhood or current involvement in an R/S community perceived as less LGBQ+ affirming. These findings are consistent with minority stress theory (Meyer, 2003), multilevel stigma theory (White Hughto et al, 2015), and social stigma process theory (Frost, 2011) in that exposure to a stigmatizing religious context is often a significant source of external minority stress for R/S sexual minorities (Anderton et al, 2011;Lefevor, Etengoff, et al, 2022;.…”

“…At the community level, interventions to support and educate R/S communities on the impacts of stigmatization and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals may reduce minority stressors and increase experiences of love, support, and grace for R/S sexual and gender minorities as they navigate their intersectional identities. There may also be a need for interventions that help LGBTQ+ communities and groups address individual and collective R/S trauma (including interpersonal R/S struggles) and take steps to reduce the external and internalized stigma that R/S sexual and gender minority members may feel because they are R/S (Lefevor et al, 2021;Lefevor, Etengoff, et al, 2022).…”

“…Most alarmingly, similar to prior research on sexual minorities and TGNC+ individuals (Exline et al, 2021), this sample reported strikingly high interpersonal struggles. This finding makes sense given how much religion-based interpersonal stigma sexual minorities often encounter (Lefevor et al, 2021;Lefevor, Etengoff, et al, 2022) and given that interpersonal R/S struggles are "conflicts with other people and institutions about sacred issues; anger at organized religion; and feeling hurt, mistreated, or offended by others in relation to religious or spiritual issues" (Pargament & Exline, 2022, p. 9). Yet, it is concerning because prior studies of LGBTQ+ people have found interpersonal R/S struggles are linked to higher suicidal ideation, internalized stigma, minority stress, and felt stigma (e.g., avoidance due to negative expectations about future social interactions; Exline et al, 2021;.…”

“…At the same time, their religiousness/spirituality may have offered them a reliable source of comfort, security, meaning, and connection (Davis et al, 2023;Lefevor et al, 2021). By the time they reach adulthood, these sexual minorities often have encountered considerable twists, turns, and traumas in their journey to explore and integrate their intersecting sexual, gender, and R/S identities (Lefevor, Etengoff, et al, 2022;Rodriguez et al, 2019). The present study explores the contours and complexities of these intersections.…”

“…Indeed, research in the general population (Crocetti et al, 2013) and with sexual minorities (Lindsey et al, 2020;Rodriguez et al, 2019;Rosario et al, 2011) has found that identity diffusion-avoidance, uncertainty-ambiguity, and disintegrationconflict are linked to higher distress and lower well-being. Additionally, as sexual minorities encounter religion-based stigma from external sources (e.g., R/S cultures, families, and communities) and internal sources (e.g., internalized hetero-and cis-normative beliefs), they can experience negative health effects (Hatzenbuehler, 2009;Lefevor et al, 2021;Lefevor, Etengoff, et al, 2022), including higher R/S struggles and lower life satisfaction. This study tests such possibilities.…”