“They peed on my shoes”: foregrounding intersectional minority stress in understanding LGBTQ youth homelessness

Abstract

Minority stress is a cause of health challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth experiencing homelessness. However, in over-focusing on family rejection, the research on LGBTQ youth homelessness often misses how minority stress itself can shape the youth’s perceived pathways into and experiences of homelessness. A main objective of this study, then, foregrounds minority stress in understanding LGBTQ youth homelessness. To achieve this objective, the author conducted ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas and interviewed 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The author shows how experiencing intersecting minority stressors, especially within families and youth-serving institutions, is part of the perceived pathways into homelessness. The author also documents how experiencing homelessness in conjunction with experiencing anti-LGBTQ perceived discrimination, violence, and other minority stressors such as racism impact the youth’s mental health challenges while living on the streets. A second objective of this study, then, shows how anti-LGBTQ discrimination intersects with other forms of prejudice and discrimination to shape the youth’s stressors and pathways into and experiences of homelessness. The author concludes that intersecting minority stressors shape perceived pathways into homelessness and compound with the socially stressful experiences of homelessness, but social support, especially LGBTQ-specific support, can help ameliorate these challenges.