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Gender Nonconformity, Perceived Stigmatization, and Psychological Well-Being in Dutch Sexual Minority Youth and Young Adults: A Mediation Analysis

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Abstract

Dutch sexual minority youth and young adults (106 females and 86 males, 16–24 years old) were assessed to establish whether there was a relation between gender nonconformity and psychological well-being and whether this relation was mediated by perceived experiences of stigmatization due to perceived or actual sexual orientation and moderated by biological sex. The participants were recruited via announcements on Dutch LGBTQ-oriented community websites and then linked to a protected online questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to measure gender nonconformity, perceived experiences of stigmatization, and psychological well-being. Gender nonconformity was found to predict lower levels of psychological well-being and the mediation analysis confirmed that lower levels of psychological well-being were related to the perceived experiences of stigmatization. This mediation was not moderated by biological sex. These findings show that both research and interventions should pay more attention to gender nonconformity among young people in order to create a more positive climate for young sexual minority members.

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Notes

  1. Because the biological sex × gender nonconformity interaction showed a marginally significant result (p = .06), we will not interpret these results as a moderated mediation. However, the results were in line with previous studies on this topic with males reporting higher levels of perceived experiences of stigmatization than females (Bontempo & D’Augelli, 2002; D’Augelli et al., 2006; Herek, Gillis, & Cogan, 1999; Toomey et al., 2010). Inspection of the moderated mediation model showed that the mediation models holds for males (95% bootstrapped CI −.1328, −.0152), but less so for females (−.0499, .0005).

  2. The moderation of the relation between perceived experiences of stigmatization and psychological well-being by biological sex was also tested and found to be non-significant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, PO Box 80140, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Laura Baams

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Titia Beek, Helene Hille & Felice C. Zevenbergen

  3. Department of Educational Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Henny M. W. Bos

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  1. Laura Baams
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  2. Titia Beek
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  3. Helene Hille
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  5. Henny M. W. Bos
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Correspondence to Laura Baams.

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Baams, L., Beek, T., Hille, H. et al. Gender Nonconformity, Perceived Stigmatization, and Psychological Well-Being in Dutch Sexual Minority Youth and Young Adults: A Mediation Analysis. Arch Sex Behav 42, 765–773 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-0055-z

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