Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Feb;38(3-4):3563-3585.
doi: 10.1177/08862605221108087. Epub 2022 Aug 8.

Structural Stigma and Sexual Minority Victimization Across 28 Countries: The Moderating Role of Gender, Gender Nonconformity, and Socioeconomic Status

Richard Bränström  1 , Daniel Fellman  1 , John Pachankis  2
Affiliations

Structural Stigma and Sexual Minority Victimization Across 28 Countries: The Moderating Role of Gender, Gender Nonconformity, and Socioeconomic Status

Richard Bränström et al. J Interpers Violence. 2023 Feb.

Abstract

Objective: Country-level structural stigma toward sexual minority individuals (i.e., discriminatory laws and policies and prejudicial attitudes) shows robust associations with sexual minority individuals' mental health and individual-level stigma processes, such as identity concealment. Whether structural stigma is also associated with interpersonal-level stigma processes, such as victimization, is rarely studied. Whether the association between structural stigma and sexual minority individuals' interpersonal mistreatment varies across gender, gender nonconformity, and socioeconomic status also remains to be determined.

Methods: In 2012, sexual minority adults (n = 86,308) living in 28 European countries responded to questions assessing past-12-month victimization experiences (i.e., physical or sexual attack or threat of violence). Country-level structural stigma was objectively indexed as an aggregate of national laws, policies, and population attitudes negatively affecting sexual minority individuals.

Results: Country-level structural stigma was significantly associated with victimization (adjusted odds ratios [AOR]: 1.13, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04-1.22; p = .004). However, this effect varied by gender, gender nonconformity, and socioeconomic status. For both sexual minority men and women, gender nonconformity and lower socioeconomic status were associated with increased risk of victimization. The strongest association between country-level stigma and victimization was found among gender nonconforming men with lower socioeconomic status (AOR: 1.32, 95% CI: 1.14-1.52; p < .001).

Conclusions: A much larger proportion of sexual minorities living in higher stigma countries reports victimization than those living in lower stigma countries. At the same time, the association between country-level structural stigma and victimization is most heavily concentrated among gender nonconforming men with lower socioeconomic status.

Keywords: bisexual; discrimination; gay; lesbian; mental health; prejudice; stigma.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Past-12-month victimization among sexual minority individuals by country-level structural stigma in the EU-LGBT Survey 2012.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Past-12-month victimization by country-level structural stigma and gender nonconformity among: (a) sexual minority men and (b) sexual minority women, in the EU-LGBT Survey 2012.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Past-12-month victimization by country-level structural stigma and socioeconomic status among: (a) sexual minority men and (b) sexual minority women, in the EU-LGBT Survey 2012.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Andersen R., Fetner T. (2008). Economic inequality and intolerance: Attitudes toward homosexuality in 35 democracies. American Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 942–958.
    1. Barnes D. M., Hatzenbuehler M. L., Hamilton A. D., Keyes K. M. (2014). Sexual orientation disparities in mental health: The moderating role of educational attainment. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 49(9), 1447–1454. 10.1007/s00127-014-0849-5 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Berg R. C., Ross M. W., Weatherburn P., Schmidt A. J. (2013). Structural and environmental factors are associated with internalised homonegativity in men who have sex with men: Findings from the European MSM Internet Survey (EMIS) in 38 countries. Social Science & Medicine, 78, 61–69. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.11.033 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Blondeel K., de Vasconcelos S., García-Moreno C., Stephenson R., Temmerman M., Toskin I. (2018). Violence motivated by perception of sexual orientation and gender identity: A systematic review. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 96(1), 29–41L. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bowleg L. (2012). The problem with the phrase women and minorities: Intersectionality—An important theoretical framework for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 102(7), 1267–1273. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources