The Sociocultural Environment and the Mental Health of Sexual and Gender Minority Parents

Purpose Our work examined the relationship between individual, interpersonal, and community-level sociocultural factors and mental health among sexual and gender minority (SGM) parents and SGM non-parents, and whether these relationships differ by parenthood status. Methods Data were collected from 2018-2020 through The PRIDE Study, a national cohort of SGM adults. Our sample included 1,460 SGM parents and 1,460 age-matched SGM non-parents. We estimated associations between sociocultural factors and depression and anxiety symptoms (measured using the PHQ-9 and GAD-7), stratified by parental status. We considered individual (e.g., SGM identity disclosure), interpersonal (e.g., past-year discrimination), and community-level factors (e.g., community acceptance of SGM people). Results SGM parents more frequently reported living in communities unaccepting of SGM people (17.6% versus 12.1%, p<0.001) and less frequently disclosed their SGM identities (6.06 versus 6.68, p<0.001) than non-parents. Community-level factors (protective: access to safe LGBTQIA+ spaces; harmful: living in an unaccepting community) had stronger associations with mental health symptoms among SGM parents than non-parents. Conclusion Sociocultural factors related to identity disclosure, social support, and access to SGM community resources were strongly associated with mental health disparities among SGM parents with clear implications for structural interventions.