When identities collide: Conflicts in allegiances among LGB people of color.

Abstract

Little research has examined the management of multiple minority identities among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people of color, despite a growing theoretical literature on such identity intersections. The present study focused on the intersectional construct of conflicts in allegiances (CIA), defined as perceived incompatibility between one's racial/ethnic and sexual orientation identities. CIA was investigated in relation to experiences of parental heterosexism, racism in LGB communities, outness, and racial/ethnic and sexual orientation group identity. Participants were 124 LGB people of color (main sample) and 124 LGB White people (comparison sample) who completed self-report measures of the main variables as part of a larger survey of same-sex couples. CIA was positively correlated with experiences of racism within LGB communities and perceived heterosexism in one's mother (but not one's father), and negatively correlated with outness to family (but not outness to others in one's everyday life). An interaction was found between racial/ethnic and LGB group identity with respect to behavioral engagement: CIA levels were highest among participants with high racial/ethnic behavioral engagement and low sexual orientation behavioral engagement. Results highlight the role of minority and family contexts in CIA among LGB people of color, and, more broadly, the potential value of studying intersectional variables using quantitative methods. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to address questions about direction of influence raised by findings.

Intersectionality and Youth Identity Development Research in Europe

“…This can mean the use of scales capturing processes related to group membership, including instances of ascribed versus self-selected categorization, as well as the meaning derived from such instances. Multiple scholars have also advocated measuring the strength of one's association to social identity groups rather than static group membership (Sarno et al, 2015;Parra and Hastings, 2018). Within Latinx LGBTQ communities, for instance, it has been argued that strong Latinx identity may relate to greater exposure and engagement with anti-LGBTQ norms, whereas a strong LGBTQ identity may help to buffer the negative impact of facing such discrimination (Parra and Hastings, 2018).…”

Integrating an Intersectionality Lens in Theory and Research in Developmental Science

“…The methods used in the developmental sciences have heavily relied on between‐group or within‐group comparisons focused on a single aspect of a young person's life (e.g., ethnic–racial discrimination among youth of color or heterosexist experiences among queer youth), rather than the amalgamation of oppressions that they experience (e.g., racism and heterosexism among queer youth of color). While some existing measures attend explicitly to intersectional experiences—e.g., Sarno, Mohr, Jackson, and Fassinger () measures capturing conflicts in allegiances to one's sexual and ethnic–racial identities and perceived racism in the LGB community—most measures assess experiences with discrimination, for example, related to one aspect of one's identity (e.g., ethnic–racial discrimination, discrimination directed at sexual minorities, etc.). This approach assumes a monolithic experience of discrimination; that is, that all genders experience similar forms of discrimination attributed to race; yet, recent research demonstrates that experiences of discrimination are more nuanced (see, e.g., Lewis & Neville's [] construct of gendered racism).…”

A model of intersectional stress and trauma in Asian American sexual and gender minorities.

“…These include the emotionally painful risks of failing at filial piety (i.e., the cultural virtue of honoring parents' expectations and safeguarding the family's reputation; Hu & Wang, 2013), deviating from masculine/feminine norms and roles (e.g., "male" being equivalent to "husband" and "father" in the Hmong language; Boulden, 2009), and "losing face," thereby stigmatizing one's parents within one's ethnic community. As a result, LGBTQ Asian Americans are stuck in "conflicts of allegiances" to the Asian American and LGBTQ communities, where embracing one's LGBTQ identity may be a cultural norm for the latter, but not the former (Sarno, Mohr, Jackson, & Fassinger, 2015). In our model, the dual minority statuses of LGBTQ Asian Americans predispose them to experience structural oppression and cultural stigmatization, which facilitate the occurrence of interpersonal incidents of racism and heterosexism.…”