Culture, Sexual Orientation, and Distress Among LGBQ Asian and Pacific Islander Individuals

Abstract

Individuals of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) heritage who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ) are underrepresented within the racial/ethnic minority and sexual minority literature. The present exploratory study examined how API cultural variables (i.e., enculturation, collectivism, norm conformity) and sexual orientation stigma variables (i.e., internalized homonegativity, concealment, outness to family) separately and interactively predicted distress in a sample of 378 LGBQ API adults. Results revealed interaction effects for each of the cultural and sexual orientation stigma variables. For example, the relation between enculturation and distress was found to be negative at low levels of internalized homonegativity but positive at very high levels of internalized homonegativity. These findings illustrate the dynamic interplay between culture and sexual orientation for LGBQ APIs.