Victimization rates and traits of sexual and gender minorities in the United States: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017

Abstract

Do sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) in the United States encounter disproportionate rates of victimization as compared with their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts? Answering this question has proved elusive because nationally representative victimization data have not included victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity. The National Crime Victimization Survey, the nation’s primary source of representative information on criminal victimization, began documenting sexual orientation and gender identity in 2016 and released data publicly for the first time in 2019. We find SGMs disproportionately are victims across a variety of crimes. The rate of violent victimization for SGMs is 71.1 victimizations per 1000 people compared with 19.2 victimizations per 1000 people for those who are not SGMs. SGMs are 2.7 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than non-SGMs. These findings raise the importance of further considering sexual orientation and gender identity in victimization and interventions.

Differences in Multimorbidity among Cisgender Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Adults: Investigating Differences across Age-Groups

“…It is also important that clinicians understand the environments and communities that their young sexual minority adult patients interact with on a daily basis. Sexual minority adults experience pervasive marginalization when compared to their heterosexual peers and are more likely to be victims of hate crimes and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse over their lives (Flores et al, 2020; Katz-Wise & Hyde, 2012). Strengthening resiliencies (e.g., community connectedness) have been suggested as a strategy to potentiate the effectiveness of health promotion interventions among sexual minority individuals (Herrick et al, 2014).…”

Rejection sensitivity across sex, sexual orientation, and age: Measurement invariance and latent mean differences.

“…For example, women, relative to men, are at increased risk for childhood sexual abuse (Cutler & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991), adolescent sexual harassment (Hand & Sanchez, 2000), relational aggression (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995), indirect forms of bullying (e.g., cyberbullying; Connell et al, 2014), and depression (Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994). Relatedly, sexual minorities exhibit increased rates of sexual abuse, parental physical abuse, peer victimization, and stress sensitive mental health problems compared to their heterosexual counterparts (Flores et al, 2020; Friedman et al, 2011; King et al, 2008). Further, developmental research shows that younger people are disproportionately exposed to relatively novel forms of interpersonal rejection (e.g., cyberbullying) during critical periods of development (e.g., adolescence, emerging adulthood; Arnett, 2000) and report higher levels of cyberbullying (Kennedy, 2021), more frequent interpersonal tensions (Birditt et al, 2005), lower relationship quality and satisfaction (Birditt & Fingerman, 2003), more problematic and ambivalent relationships (Fingerman et al, 2004), and greater sensitivity to social evaluation (Somerville, 2013) than older people.…”

Hazardous substance use among sexual and gender minority adults: A deeper look into distal minority stressors.

“…These findings extend prior research linking global-nonspecific distal stress exposure to substance use (Livingston et al, 2016; Phillips II et al, 2020), and implicate sexual harassment and assault as potential catalyzers of these associations. Previous research demonstrates a higher prevalence of sexual assault among SGM individuals in comparison to non-SGM individuals (Flores et al, 2020; Langenderfer-Magruder et al, 2016; Rothman et al, 2011), as well as a connection between sexual assault and higher rates of substance use within the SGM population (Grant et al, 2011; McCauley et al, 2020; Rhew et al, 2017). The current study extends these findings by controlling for other types of SGM-related victimization, and highlights SGM-related sexual assault and harassment as the primary drivers of the association we found between SGM-related victimization and hazardous substance use.…”