Abstract
Aims and method The relationship between homophobia (varying from actual and perceived to internalised) and measures of well-being is well documented. A study in Athens, Greece and London, UK attempted to examine this relationship in two cities with potentially different levels of homophobia. One-hundred and eighty-eight men who have sex with men (MSM) living in London and 173 MSM living in Athens completed a survey investigating their views on their sexuality, perceptions of local homophobia and their identity evaluation in terms of global self-esteem.Results The results confirmed a negative association between homophobia and self-esteem within each city sample. However, Athens MSM, despite perceiving significantly higher levels of local homophobia than London MSM, did not differ on most indicators of internalised homophobia and scored higher on global self-esteem than London MSM. The city context had a significant impact on the relationship.Clinical implications The findings are discussed in relation to the implications they pose for mental health professionals dealing with MSM from communities experiencing variable societal stigmatisation and its effect on a positive sense of self.
Highlights
One-hundred and eighty-eight men who have sex with men (MSM) living in London and 173 MSM living in Athens completed a survey investigating their views on their sexuality, perceptions of local homophobia and their identity evaluation in terms of global self-esteem
Clinical implications The findings are discussed in relation to the implications they pose for mental health professionals dealing with MSM from communities experiencing variable societal stigmatisation and its effect on a positive sense of self
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to investigate the differences seen in Table 1 between London and Athens MSM in their views on how they think the general local public and people close to them see gay men (Table 2)
Summary
In analysing the data, missing values met within any section of this survey were not treated in any way, and cases with missing values were excluded analysis by analysis. Athens MSM perceived other people’s homophobia, whether general public, friends, family members or colleagues, to be higher compared with London MSM perceptions. In the separate analyses for each dependent variable, all differences between Londoners and Athenians were found to be highly statistically significant (Table 3). In investigating the differences between the two samples in relation to ‘internalised homophobia’ as again seen, a one-way between-groups MANOVA showed that there was a narrowly statistically significant difference between Londoners and Athenians on the combined dependent variables (F(3, 340) = 2.65, P50.05; Wilks’s l = 0.98, partial Z2 = 0.02). To test whether city explained the relationship between homophobia (internalised and perceived) and self-esteem, a stepwise hierarchical regression was conducted. In model 2 has a significant impact on the relationship between internalised and perceived homophobia of others and self-esteem (adjusted R2 = 0.12, P50.001). Both homophobia scales in the model independently explain self-esteem significantly
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