Intersectional Discrimination, Psychological Distress, and Physical Health Symptoms Among Latinx Sexual Minority Adults

Latinx sexual minority adults experience diverse types of discrimination, including heterosexism and ethnic/racial discrimination, which may contribute to worse physical health. Yet little research has examined how intersectional forms of discrimination, for example, discrimination within another marginalized community contribute to physical health. Greater experiences of discrimination can lead to greater psychological distress which may then exacerbate physical symptoms. It was hypothesized that the association between intersecting forms of discrimination and physical symptom severity would be mediated by psychological distress. Participants (N = 369) identified as Latinx/Hispanic/Latino and as a sexual or gender minority. Data were collected via a self-report web-based survey. Using structural equation modeling, this study tested two theory-informed structure equation models (SEM) proposing pathways between perceived general and within-group discrimination (i.e., Model 1 = racism and racism within LGBTQ+ community; Model 2 = heterosexism and heterosexism within ethnic/racial community), psychological distress (i.e., anxiety and depression), and physical symptom severity. Both structural models demonstrated good fit to the data. As hypothesized, heterosexist discrimination (β = .184, p = .007) and racist discrimination (β = .284, p = .001) significantly predicted higher physical symptom severity in their respective models. Depression symptoms significantly mediated the association between ethnic/racial discrimination and physical symptom severity (β = .189, p = .003). Similarly, greater frequency of heterosexism within one’s ethnic/racial community was indirectly related with worse physical symptoms severity via depression (β = .200, p = .002). No other indirect effects were significant. Findings from this study support that Latinx sexual minority adults may be at risk for discrimination from outside and within their own minority groups which has detrimental effects on health. Noteworthy, depressive symptoms appeared to mediate the effects of heterosexism in one’s ethnic/racial group on physical symptoms. These results highlight how overlapping forms of stigma have differential effects on health via psychological distress. These findings have important clinical and scientific implications in understanding how overlapping forms of discrimination affect health among Latinx sexual minority adults.