The Impact of Internalized Stigma on LGBT Parenting and the Importance of Health Care Structures: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Research on LGBTIQ+ families has focused on the effects of being in a diverse family on the development of children. We seek to show the experience of parenthood from the perspective of LGBTIQ+ people, considering its particularities and the role that health care services play as a potential support network. We used the biographical method through open-ended interviews, participants were LGBT people, and key informants from Chile, Colombia, and Mexico were selected based on a sociostructural sampling. We found that internalized stigma impacts LGBTIQ+ parenting in five ways: the impossibility of thinking of oneself as a parent, fear of violating children’s rights, fear of passing on the stigma, fear of introducing their LGBTIQ+ partner, and the greater discrimination that trans and intersex people suffer. We identified gaps in health care perceptions: the need to guarantee universal access to health care, the need to include a gender perspective and inclusive treatment by health personnel, mental health programs with a community approach, access to assisted fertilization programs, and the generation of collaborative alliances between health services, civil society organizations, and the LGBTIQ+ community. We conclude that the health system is a crucial space from which to enable guarantees for the exercise of rights and overcome internalized stigma.

The Impact of Primary Care Providers’ Bias on Depression Screening for Lesbian Women

“…The majority (74%–79%) of Americans perceived that LGBT individuals face some discrimination in the United States today according to a poll by Kaiser Family Foundation in 2020 (Kirzinger et al, 2020). Discrimination is experienced by sexual and gender minorities not only in society, but also within the health care system (Alday-Mondaca & Lay-Lisboa, 2021; Ayhan et al, 2020). Health care providers including physicians (Prairie et al, 2018; Sabin et al, 2015), nurses (Englund et al, 2020; Grudzinski, 2019; Prairie et al, 2018; Stewart & O’Reilly, 2017), and mental health providers (Sabin et al, 2015) contribute to these discriminatory environments and experiences whether consciously or unconsciously.…”

“We Need a Father and a Mother!” Rationalities around Filiation in the State: The Invisibility of LGBTIQ+ Families

“…These assumptions come into tension since a neutral perspective is not possible in relation to a moral judgment, which will inevitably be influenced by the sociocultural, political, and religious context in which discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people has been built, i.e. : heteronormativity [1,14,51,52].…”

“…In this process, there is a change in the law that follows most clearly in terms of clarity of processes, availability to the public, and coherence in the language used. At the moment there are obstacles in the symbolic, institutional, and factual spheres, which are related to the exercise of parenthood from sex-affective diversity, which can generate affective self-limitations associated with the (im)possibility of thinking of oneself as a potential mother/father [5,51].…”

Meanings and perceptions of parenthood among transgender men who became pregnant before gender transition

“…Studies of parenthood involving trans men have shown how challenging the parental experience -comprising assisted insemination, pregnancy, childbirth and parenting -can be 11,15 . The challenges listed were: discrimination and prejudice, exhaustive concern with protecting children from possible attacks [16][17][18][19][20] , difficulty in aligning gender performance and normative notions of paternity 6,21 , need for legal support 22 , absence of family emotional support and impaired mental health 19,23 . Another study also revealed vulnerability to depression and anxiety 24 due to stigma and violence.…”