Community connection is associated with lower psychological distress for sexual minority women who view community connection positively

Abstract

We examined factors associated with sexual minority women’s evaluations of belonging to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community in Australia, and assessed whether a positive view of community participation impacted levels of psychological distress. 2424 cisgender sexual minority women participated in a national, online, cross-sectional survey of LGBTIQ adult Australians’ health and well-being. Multivariable regression analyses were conducted to investigate sociodemographic factors associated with sexual minority women’s belonging to the LGBTQ community, feelings towards community connection, and associations between community connection and recent psychological distress. Most sexual minority women (58.9%) reported feeling that they are part of the LGBTQ community, and a majority of the participants felt positive about being connected to this community (68.5%). Participants who were bisexual, non-university educated, and who resided in an outer-suburban location were least likely to evaluate participation in the LGBTQ community positively. Feeling positive about community connection was associated with lower levels of psychological distress. Feeling a part of LGBTQ community was associated with lower psychological distress, but this link appears contingent upon positive feelings about community participation. Sexual minority women’s’ relationships to the LGBTQ community are often complex, and community connection and participation in and of itself is not a panacea for the negative outcomes associated with sexual minority stressors.

Keywords:

• Sexual minority women
• LGBTQ
• community
• mental health
• Australia

Introduction

Sexual minority women in high-income nations are consistently found to experience elevated levels of depression (Brown-Beresford and McLaren 2022), suicidality and self-harm (Hill et al. 2022; Treharne et al. 2020), report higher rates of alcohol and tobacco consumption (Brown-Beresford and McLaren 2022; Evans-Polce et al. 2022; Praeger et al. 2019), and experience higher rates of breast cancer, hyperglycaemia and obesity than their heterosexual counterparts (Caceres et al. 2021). Sexual minority women represent an especially vulnerable group whose members are exposed to both gender-based (e.g. sexism) and sexuality-based (e.g. heterosexism) stressors (Scheer et al. 2022). Non-heterosexual sexual orientations are not inherently psycho-pathogenic (Grey 2022), and these elevated rates of adverse mental health concerns stem predominantly from sexuality-based stigma and discrimination (Dyar, Feinstein, and London 2014; Frost et al. 2022; Hill et al. 2022). These detrimental outcomes are frequently conceptualised within the scholarship as ‘minority stress’, which suggests that health disparities between sexual minority populations and their non-minoritised counterparts stem from the accrued stress of ‘prejudice, chronic everyday forms of discrimination, expectations of rejection, stigma concealment, and internalised stigma’ (Frost et al. 2022, 2300).

Minority stress frameworks contend that these stressors can be attenuated via minority-specific coping resources – chief among which are feelings of connectedness towards community and other LGBTQ individuals (Brooks 1981; Meyer 2003). Minority stress theories imply that improving social conditions for minoritised individuals should attenuate the detrimental impact of minority stressors. However, despite considerable legal and social gains, recent research suggests that minority stressors, and the resulting health disparities stemming from these have persisted (Frost et al. 2022; Meyer et al. 2021) and may even have even widened by some measures (Russell and Fish 2019). As such, there is an imperative to closely re-examine the drivers of health and wellbeing in sexual minority populations (Meyer et al. 2021). Classically, several factors have been found to confer a protective benefit against the negative mental health outcomes associated with sexual minority stress. Chief among these, connectedness to community is emphasised as a crucial, contributing factor to the mental health and well-being of sexual minority women (McLaren and Castillo 2020, 2021; Roberts and Christens 2021). While the notion of a collective LGBTQ community is largely a construct of discursive convenience (Roberts and Christens 2021), research consistently demonstrates that community connectedness uniquely underpins resilience among sexual minority women (Morandini et al. 2023).

Community connectedness is thought to denote access to non-stigmatising spaces, identity affirming experiences and social support (Frost and Meyer 2012) but has also been found to exert a protective effect against negative mental health outcomes independent of the material and social benefits of these connections (Roberts and Christens 2021). Sociological scholarship points to the contemporary erosion of lesbian- and sexual minority women-specific spaces and institutions such as lesbian bars, bookshops and neighbourhoods (Forstie 2020; Gieseking 2020), even as gay male (and LGBTQ culture, more broadly) has enjoyed growing popularity within the mainstream (Mowlabocus 2021). In addition to shifting definitions of community and community participation, recent work has complicated the notion that connectedness to the LGBTQ community is universally important to all sexual minority women. These findings demonstrate that self-alignment with, and involvement in the LGBTQ community can often be fraught for certain subgroups of sexual minority women. For instance, connectedness to the LGBT community can often be elusive for racial/ethnic minority persons (Roberts and Christens 2021), older LGBTQ individuals (Lyons et al. 2015), and residents of non-urban localities (Currin, Giano and Hubach 2020; Grant and Nash 2018). Likewise, lateral discrimination against meta-minority (e.g. minority within a minority) identities within the LGBTQ community (see Li and Chen 2021; Craney et al. 2018; Power et al. 2014) may diminish the protective benefit of community connectedness and involvement for multiply-minoritised (e.g. individuals who hold multiple minority identities) LGBTQ individuals (McConnell et al. 2018; Roberts and Christens 2021).

While engagement with the LGBTQ community can offer respite against heterosexist discrimination, experiences of stigma and discrimination perpetrated by other LGBTQ individuals may cause some sexual minority women to seek out community connection from other sources (McLaren and Castillo 2021). As research with sexual minority men (SMM) suggests, rejection by one’s peers within the LGBTQ community is often felt more keenly by sexual minority persons than rejection by the heterosexual community (Pachankis et al. 2020). Consequently, for such individuals, connectedness to the LGBTQ community and other LGBTQ individuals, while being highly valued, may be difficult to access, and/or may be outweighed by the desire to avoid intragroup discrimination (Morandini et al. 2023). Alternatively, for sexual minority women who place less importance on their sexual identities, who have lower levels of stigma consciousness, and/or who prioritise other aspects of their identity (e.g. racial, or regional identities) connectedness to the LGBTQ community may be viewed as less important (Davila et al. 2019). In such instances, sexual minority women often find other sources of community connection, disinclining them to seek out social connection within the LGBTQ community.

For instance, while the stigmatisation of same-sex attraction detrimentally impacts both lesbian and bisexual women, bisexual women additionally experience the delegitimisation and invalidation of their sexual identities from both members of the heterosexual community as well as from their LGBTQ counterparts, and frequently also contend with bi-specific forms of sexual fetishisation and objectification (Taylor et al. 2019). These unique experiences create unique needs in relation to identity affirmation and peer support which are often difficult to meet within the broader LGBTQ community (Gonzalez et al. 2021). Plurisexual (e.g. individuals who experience attractions to people of multiple genders – see: Mitchell, Davis, and Galupo 2015) sexual minority women may therefore meet these needs through avenues other than the LGBTQ community (Feinstein, Dyar, and London 2017; McLaren and Castillo 2021; Sexton, Flores, and Bauermeister 2018). Indeed, limited evidence suggest that connectedness to, and involvement with, the LGBTQ community may even predict problematic health behaviours in bisexual women (Feinstein, Dyar and London 2017; Prell and Traeen 2018). These findings suggest that bisexual women’s increased involvement with LGBTQ peers who are not affirming of their bisexual identities may paradoxically result in worse health outcomes for these women.

Hence, while connectedness to the LGBTQ community is undeniably a source of support and affirmation for many LGBTQ individuals, it may not be universally sought out by all sexual and gender minority persons. Despite this, there is a tendency for researchers and clinicians alike to view community connectedness to be a universal need among all LGBTQ individuals (Roberts and Christens 2021). There is evidently a need to interrogate this assumption vis-a-vis the multitudes of social variations inherent among sexual minority women (McLaren and Castillo 2021). Moreover, many of the above conclusions are drawn from analyses that either collapse sexual minority women and other sexual and gender minority groups into a single analytic category (Hill et al. 2022), or which operationalise sexual minority women as a unitary group (McLaren and Castillo 2020). While sexual minority women may share experiences of homophobia and sexism in common, these similarities are often over-emphasised within the research, while ignoring likely considerable intragroup differences and even lateral discrimination (Gonzalez et al. 2021; Taylor et al. 2019).

At present, there is little information about which sexual minority women subgroups are more likely to value connectedness to the LGBTQ community, and whether this has any bearing on the protective benefits of community connectedness for mental health and well-being (McLaren and Castillo 2021; Roberts and Christens 2021). Understanding this issue would benefit mental health promotion initiatives for specific subgroups of sexual minority women, as well as improve accessibility and safety for sexual minority women in LGBTQ and possibly other communities. This paper therefore aims to explore the associations between connectedness to the LGBTQ community and psychological distress among Australian sexual minority women. Additionally, we examine how sociodemographic variations, recent experiences of unfair treatment due to sexual identity, and sexual minority women’s evaluations of whether connectedness to community is positive modifies these associations. These questions were guided by an exploratory goal and a research hypothesis: namely to understand (i) how both feelings of belonging and positive perceptions of participation in the LGBTQ community are distributed among sexual minority women, and (ii) whether sexual minority women who do not hold a positive perception of the LGBTQ community would not report lower psychological distress even if they did feel that they belonged to the LGBTQ community.

Methods

Sample and procedure

This paper presents a subset of findings from data collected for Private Lives 3 (PL3), a cross-sectional, nation-wide online survey of the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ Australians aged 18 years and above (Hill et al. 2020). Conducted between July and October 2019, the survey was completed by 6,834 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Gender Diverse, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and/or other similar non-heterosexual or cisgender-identifying individuals (LGBTIQ). Eligibility criteria were as follows: (i) being at least 18 years of age, (ii) identifying as LGBTIQ (or using synonymous term), and (iii) residing in Australia. Findings derive from a stratified sample of (N = 2,424) sexual minority cisgender women comprising 46.8% (N = 1,268) lesbian, 32.4% (N = 876) bisexual, 8.3% (N = 225) pansexual and 12.5% (338) queer-identifying women. A summary of the sample’s characteristics is provided in Table 1. Private Lives 3 received ethics approval from La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee.

Table 1. Sample characteristics (N = 2424).

	n	%
Sexual orientation
Lesbian/gay	1268	46.8
Bisexual	876	32.4
Pansexual	225	8.3
Queer	338	12.5
Age
18–24	940	34.7
25–34	779	28.8
35–44	477	17.6
45–54	285	10.5
55–64	161	5.9
65+	65	2.4
Education
Secondary or below	680	25.1
Non-university tertiary	548	20.2
University-undergraduate	780	28.8
University-postgraduate	699	25.8
Weekly income (pre-tax)
Nil income	172	6.4
$1–$399	678	25.3
$400–$599	317	11.8
$600–$999	391	14.6
$1000–$1999	850	31.7
$2000+	274	10.2
Country of birth
Australia born	2314	85.7
Other English-speaking country	286	10.6
Non-English-speaking country	100	3.7
Residential location
Capital city, inner suburban	1109	41.3
Capital city, outer suburban	772	28.8
Regional city or town	617	23
Rural/Remote	186	6.9
Feel a part of the LGBTIQ community
Yes	1,594	58.9
No	1,112	41.1
Feel that participation in the LGBTIQ community is a positive thing
Yes	1,851	68.6
No	848	31.4

Measures

Demographic information

Participants reported their (i) age; (ii) sexual orientation (Lesbian/Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Queer); (iii) highest level of educational attainment (secondary or below, non-university tertiary, university-undergraduate, university–postgraduate); (iv) pre-tax weekly income; (v) country of birth (Australia, Other English-speaking country, Non-English-speaking country); and (vi) residential location (capital city, regional city, rural/remote location). To determine the sexual orientation of participants, participants were asked to choose an identity term that best suited them from 12 options: ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual’, ‘pansexual’, ‘queer’, ‘asexual’, ‘homosexual’, ‘heterosexual’, ‘prefer not to answer’, ‘prefer not to have a label’, ‘don’t know’ and ‘something different.’ Gender identity was determined by asking participants what the sex was on their original birth certificate (‘male’, ‘female’, ‘prefer not to say’, ‘something different’) and to choose from a list of gender terms that best described them. Participants were categorised as cisgender women if they reported female on their original birth certificate and chose only ‘woman’ as their gender identity. For the purposes of the present study, only participants who were cisgender women and who identified as lesbian or gay, bisexual, pansexual or queer were included in the sample.

Connectedness to LGBTQ community

Connectedness to the LGBTQ community was measured through two items: (i) You feel you’re part of the Australian LGBTIQ community and (ii) Participating in Australia’s LGBTIQ community is a positive thing for you. Responses were recorded on a 5-point Likert scale and ranged from: (i) strongly agree, (ii) agree, (iii) neither agree nor disagree, (iv) disagree and (v) strongly disagree. Due to large variances, responses to both items were dichotomised into positive (‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’) and not positive (‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’). Both items were adapted and localised from the Connectedness to the LGBT Community Scale (Frost and Meyer 2012).

Treated unfairly based on sexual orientation

Unfair treatment based on participants’ sexual orientation was assessed by asking, ‘In the past 12 months, to what extent do you feel you have been treated unfairly because of your gender identity?’ Response options ranged on a five-point scale from ‘not at all’ to ‘very often.’ For analysis, large variances in response sample sizes necessitated the dichotomisation to responses into ‘no’ (responses of ‘not at all’) and ‘yes’ (all other responses). As the frequency of experiences of unfair treatment does not reliably denote the severity or impact of such experiences, responses were instead dichotomised to assess the presence or absence of these encounters.

The Kessler psychological distress scale (K10)

The K10 is a self-rated instrument measuring nonspecific psychological distress (Kessler et al. 2002) but includes items that correspond to both depressive and anxious symptomatology. Its widespread use can be attributed to its high internal consistency (e.g. a high Cronbach’s alpha) (Ongeri et al. 2022), high unidimensional factor loadings (Smout 2019), and consistent performance across socio-demographic groups (Furukawa et al. 2003). Participants answer 10 questions relating to affective experience in the past 4 wk, with these responses scored and summed to arrive at a total score ranging 10–50 points, with higher scores denoting greater psychological distress. Australian normative data has been used to establish standard cut-offs indicating low (10–15), moderate (16–21), high (22–30) and very high (31–50) psychological distress, respectively (Andrews and Slade 2001; Slade, Grove, and Burgess 2011). While normative data for sexual minority populations does not exist for this instrument, previous research affirms the validity of its use with these groups (see Tan et al. 2022). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the K10 scale in the present sample was 0.93, suggesting that the scale had good internal consistency within this study’s sample. Due to large variances in response sample sizes and for ease of interpretability, these responses were dichotomised into clinically relevant categories – specifically, ‘high or very high’ and ‘low to moderate’.

Statistical analysis

Statistical analyses were performed using STATA (Version 17 SE; StataCorp, College Station, TX). Firstly, descriptive statistics were run to describe all variables. Initially, moderation analyses were performed to examine whether sexual minority women’s perceptions of the LGBTQ community moderated associations between feelings of belonging to the LGBTQ community and psychological distress. These analyses produced non-significant results, and further engagement with the literature suggested the possibility sexual minority women’s non-positive perceptions of the LGBTQ community may simply reflect their reliance upon other sources of support for coping with sexual minority stressors. We subsequently opted to conduct a series of univariable (unadjusted), and multivariable (adjusted) logistic regression analyses. These were used to explore correlates of both evaluating participation in the LGBTQ community as positive, and feelings of belonging to the LGBTQ community. Robust standard errors were used to account for different sample sizes across the various demographic categories. Outcome variables for our analyses included: (i) perceptions of belonging to the LGBTQ community, (ii) whether participation in the LGBTQ community was viewed as positive and (iii) K10 scores. These models included all other study variables as predictor variables. Results are reported as unadjusted (univariable) odds ratios (ORs) and adjusted (multivariable) odds ratios (AORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and p < 0.05 used to assess statistical significance.

Results

Sample description

A total of 2,424 cisgender sexual minority women were included in the study sample. Details of the sample demographic characteristics and rates of community connection are provided in Table 1. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 88 years, with most participants (81.1%) aged under 45 years. Lesbian sexual orientations accounted for nearly half (46.8%) of the sample, followed by those identifying as bisexual (32.4%). Overall, 58.9% (n = 1594) felt that they were a part of the LGBTQ community in Australia, and 68.6% (n = 1851) of the sample felt that connection to the LGBTQ community was a positive thing for them. Furthermore, three-quarters (76.8%; n = 1422) of participants who felt that connection to the LGBTQ community was a positive thing for them also felt that they belonged to the community, while 23.8% (n = 429) did not feel that they were a part of the community. In comparison, over one tenth (10.8%; n = 172) of participants who reported feelings of belonging to the LGBTQ community also evaluated participating in the community non-positively.

Factors associated with feeling that LGBTQ community connection is positive

Table 2 displays the regression results for factors associated with participants’ feeling that community connection is a positive thing for them. Compared to lesbian women, bisexual women had lower odds of evaluating community connection positively (instead of either non-negatively or ambiguously), while queer women were more likely to evaluate LGBTQ community connection positively. Compared to the youngest age bracket (18–24 years), participants who were aged 35–44 years had lower odds of feeling that connection to the LGBTQ community was positive, while no other age bracket showed a significant difference. Participants with a non-university tertiary education had lower odds of feeling that LGBTQ community connection was positive compared to those with a secondary school education. Participants who lived in outer-suburban locations had lower odds of feeling that LGBTQ community connection was a positive thing compared to those living in inner-suburban areas, and there was no significant difference for those living in regional or rural areas. Finally, women who reported having ever been treated unfairly based on the gender identity or sexual orientation had higher odds of feeling that connection the LGBTQ community was positive.

Table 2. Factors associated with feeling connection to the LGBTQ community is positive (n = 2611).

			Adjusted multivariable
	n	%	OR(95% CI)	p
Sexual orientation
Lesbian/gay	874	69.0	REF	-
Bisexual	549	63.0	0.78 (0.63−0.95)	0.014
Pansexual	164	73.5	1.33 (0.94−1.87)	0.105
Queer	264	78.1	1.62 (1.20−2.18)	0.001
Age
18–24	651	69.7	REF	-
25–34	532	68.3	0.82 (0.63−1.07)	0.150
35–44	312	65.7	0.68 (0.50−0.93)	0.014
45–54	200	70.2	0.84 (0.59−1.19)	0.324
55–64	113	70.2	0.79 (0.52−1.22)	0.286
65+	43	66.2	0.75 (0.41−1.37)	0.352
Education
Secondary or below	478	70.8	REF	-
Non-university tertiary	332	60.7	0.66 (0.50−0.87)	0.003
University-undergraduate	551	70.8	0.97 (0.74−1.28)	0.854
University-postgraduate	490	70.1	0.85 (0.63−1.17)	0.322
Weekly income (pre-tax)
Nil income	120	70.6	REF	-
$1–$399	455	67.5	0.85 (0.58−1.24)	0.396
$400–$599	212	67.1	0.87 (0.56−1.33)	0.511
$600–$999	258	66.0	0.84 (0.55−1.28)	0.411
$1000–$1999	584	68.7	0.99 (0.66−1.49)	0.969
$2000+	204	74.7	1.33 (0.81−2.18)	0.259
Country of birth
Australia born	1576	68.3	REF	-
Other English-speaking country	196	69.0	1.05 (0.79−1.38)	0.743
Non-English-speaking country	74	74.7	1.30 (0.80−2.11)	0.288
Residential location
Capital city, inner suburban	809	73.1	REF	-
Capital city, outer suburban	477	62.0	0.66 (0.54−0.81)	0.000
Regional city or town	426	69.3	0.89 (0.70−1.12)	0.307
Rural/Remote	121	65.1	0.77 (0.55−1.09)	0.138
Treated unfairly based on sexual orientation
No	646	62.8	REF	-
Yes	1177	72.3	1.51 (1.27−1.80)	0.000

Note: Frequencies and percentages refer to the number of participants in each category who felt a part of the LGBTQ community.

Factors associated with feeling a part of the LGBTQ community among those who felt community connection is a positive thing

Table 3 displays the regression results for feeling a part of the LGBTQ community among sexual minority women who felt that community connection was a positive thing for them. Among participants who felt that connection to the LGBTQ community was a positive thing for them, lower odds of feeling a part of the LGBTQ community were found among those identifying as bisexual (compared to lesbian), were aged 25–34 years (compared to 18–24 years) and those who lived in outer-suburban areas, or regional or remote cities or towns compared to those living in inner-suburban areas. Additionally, among those who felt that LGBTQ community connection was a positive thing, participants who reported experiencing unfair treatment based on the gender or sexual identity had higher odds of feeling that they were a part of the LGBTQ community.

Table 3. Factors associated with feeling a part of the LGBTQ community among those who felt that connection was a positive thing for them (n = 1789).

			Adjusted multivariable
	n	%	OR(95% CI)	p
Sexual orientation
Lesbian/gay	707	80.9	REF	-
Bisexual	384	69.9	0.57 (0.43−0.76)	0.000
Pansexual	115	70.1	0.68 (0.45−1.02)	0.065
Queer	216	81.8	1.16 (0.80−1.69)	0.426
Age
18–24	496	76.2	REF	-
25–34	386	72.6	0.60 (0.42−0.86)	0.005
35–44	244	78.2	0.72 (0.46−1.12)	0.143
45–54	160	80.0	0.78 (0.48−1.27)	0.310
55–64	99	87.6	1.42 (0.70−2.86)	0.334
65+	37	86.0	1.00 (0.37−2.71)	0.997
Education
Secondary or below	363	75.9	REF	-
Non-university tertiary	237	71.4	0.89 (0.62−1.29)	0.552
University-undergraduate	410	74.4	0.98 (0.68−1.41)	0.892
University-postgraduate	412	84.1	1.49 (0.97−2.29)	0.072
Weekly income (pre-tax)
Nil income	95	79.2	REF	-
$1–$399	339	74.5	0.75 (0.46−1.23)	0.256
$400–$599	159	75.0	0.75 (0.43−1.34)	0.333
$600–$999	185	71.7	0.67 (0.38−1.16)	0.148
$1000–$1999	452	77.4	0.82 (0.48−1.43)	0.490
$2000+	175	85.8	1.04 (0.53−2.06)	0.899
Country of birth
Australia born	1212	76.9	REF	-
Other English-speaking country	149	76.0	0.80 (0.55−1.15)	0.226
Non-English-speaking country	57	77.0	0.80 (0.45−1.43)	0.456
Residential location
Capital city, inner suburban	653	80.7	REF	-
Capital city, outer suburban	354	74.2	0.75 (0.56−1.00)	0.049
Regional city or town	304	71.4	0.66 (0.49−0.89)	0.006
Rural/Remote	96	79.3	0.88 (0.53−1.45)	0.618
Treated unfairly based on sexual orientation
No	478	74.0	REF	-
Yes	923	78.4	1.27 (1.00−1.61)	0.046

Note: Frequencies and percentages refer to the number of participants in each category who felt a part of the LGBTQ community.

Feeling connected to community and mental wellbeing

Table 4 displays the regression results exploring the association between community connection and high or very high psychological distress among participants who did and did not feel that being a part of the LGBTQ community was a positive thing for them. Among those who felt that connection with the LGBTQ community was a positive thing for them, those who felt that they were a part of the community had lower odds of reporting high or very high levels of psychological distress than those who did not feel a part of the community. Conversely, among those who did not feel that connection with the LGBTQ community was a positive thing, no significant association was found between feeling a part of the community and psychological distress.

Table 4. Relationship between feeling a part of the community and psychological distress among those who did and did not feel that community connection was a positive thing for them (n = 1789).

	Participants who felt that community connection was a positive thing for them				Participants who did not feel that community connection was a positive thing for them
			Adjusted multivariable				Adjusted multivariable
	n	%	OR (95% CI)	p	n	%	OR (95% CI)	p
Feel a part of the LGBTQ community
No	602	65.2	REF	–	1213	60.6	REF	–
Yes	1662	52.2	0.75 (0.58−0.97)	0.027	325	59.7	0.84 (0.56−1.25)	0.383

Note: Frequencies and percentages refer to the number of participants in each category who reported high or very high psychological distress among participants who felt that community connection was a positive thing for them and among those who do not feel it was a positive thing for them.

Discussion

The importance of connectedness to the LGBTQ community to most sexual minority women is consistently demonstrated within the wider research literature (McLaren and Castillo 2020, 2021; Roberts and Christens 2021). However, our findings point to significant variations in both sexual minority women’s views of participating in the LGBTQ community, as well as their feelings of belonging to the LGBTQ community. A sizeable majority of sexual minority women (58.91%) regard themselves as belonging to the Australian LGBTQ community, and a larger proportion of participants (68.5%) felt positively about community participation. For a sizeable segment of our sample, we observed a ‘disjoint’ between feelings of belonging and feelings toward community participation and suggest that these factors were independent of one another to some degree. That is, while some sexual minority women viewed community connection positively, they did not perceive themselves as belonging to the LGBTQ community.

In direct contrast, a significant portion of sexual minority women saw themselves as belonging to the community despite viewing this connection non-positively. This disjuncture may arise from the internalisation of heterosexist stigma, which in turn contributes to a non-positive view of the LGBTQ and is a topic that would benefit from focused qualitative enquiry. The present analyses also found non-meaningful associations between country of birth and all outcome variables, which suggests that natal origin had little bearing on views towards the LGBTQ community for sexual minority women within the sample.

Our findings largely affirm previous research that links connectedness to community with lower levels of psychological distress among sexual minority women (Rogers et al. 2021). However, while our findings appear to confirm this hypothesis, they suggest a crucial caveat to the above truism, as this association was only present for individuals who viewed community connection positively, suggesting that the protective benefits of community connectedness may be contingent upon more than just self-alignment. Feelings of community belonging and feeling positively about community participation were further also associated with a higher likelihood of reporting recent experiences of unfair treatment attributed to one’s sexual orientation. This likely suggests that community connection may assume greater relevance for individuals who have more recently experienced sexual minority stressors, and whose sexual minority identities may be more salient. That these individuals are furthermore likely to evaluate community participation positively implies that individuals who experience unfair treatment targeting their sexual orientation may come to perceive their minority sexual orientation as a more salient identifier to a greater extent than those without such experiences.

Certain groups of participants were less likely to feel that community participation was positive for them - and therefore may derive less of the protective benefit against psychological distress found to be associated with community connectedness. Consistent with other findings, being bisexual was associated with the lowest odds of viewing community connectedness positively, and with the lowest odds of reporting connectedness to the Australian LGBTQ community (McLaren and Castillo 2020). Hence, although some bisexual women value connectedness to community, they may refrain from direct involvement with the LGBTQ community to avoid experiences of discrimination (McLaren and Castillo 2021). Noticeably, similar associations between sexual identity and feelings of connectedness among queer- and pansexual-identifying women were found, reflecting previous findings suggesting that women of diverse sexual orientations may not be similarly alienated from the LGBTQ community as their bisexual counterparts (Bishop, Crisp, and Scholz 2022; Feinstein, Dyar, and London 2017; Morandini et al. 2023). McLaren and Castillo (2021) suggest that identification with ‘non-traditional’ identity labels like ‘pansexual’ or ‘queer’ may be seen to denote a greater degree of self-affiliation with the LGBTQ community as compared to ‘traditional’ labels like ‘bisexual’, which may be perceived as a liminal and/or transient identity that straddles the boundary between heterosexuality and homosexuality (McLaren and Castillo 2021).

Sexual minority women who lived in outer suburban or regional cities or towns had lower odds of feeling that community participation was positive for them. While the predominant assumption is that sexual minority women residing outside of urban centres experience greater levels of homophobic discrimination and may therefore seek out safer spaces within LGBTQ community, more recent research has challenged this generalisation (Grant 2021). At least in Australia, non-urban spaces may offer sexual minority women a sense of belonging and community that was previously thought to be elusive within these settings – particularly for younger sexual minority women (Cover et al. 2020; Grant 2021). Indeed, as a growing body of scholarship on queer migration suggests, sexual minority women who choose to live in non-urban settings may choose to define themselves less in terms of their sexuality, and place correspondingly lower importance on their connectedness to the LGBTQ community (Grant and Nash 2019). Simultaneously, Kazyak (2012) noted that sexual minority women in these settings may actively distance themselves from the broader, urbanite LGBTQ community to emphasise their status as ‘good’ and ‘ordinary’ rural persons.

The finding that sexual minority women aged 35–44 were the least likely of any age group to view community participation positively was not entirely unexpected; the prevalence of age-related discrimination is well established within a cultural context that tends to be enmeshed with broader youth cultures (Lyons et al. 2021). Furthermore, members of this age group are likely to be parents, which in turn implies some degree of connection with local communities attached to pre-schools and schools. These affiliations may temporarily enhance the focus on parenting identities over LGBTQ identities, which then fades as children enter adolescence and beyond. Nonetheless, community connectedness may retain considerable perceived significance for individuals outside this age group. Younger sexual minority women may be especially reliant on the LGBTQ community for both identity-affirming experiences and other tangible forms of support, given the nascency of their sexual identity development and relative lack of economic autonomy (see Robinson and Schmitz 2021). On the other hand, community connectedness may hold particular significance for sexual minority women from older age cohorts who came of age prior to more recent improvements to social conditions for LGBTQ persons, and in an era characterised by the strengthening of LGBTQ community institutions (Meyer et al. 2021). For both age groups, community connection may therefore figure prominently in processes of resilience, if for somewhat different reasons, thus explaining their higher likelihood of positively appraising community connection.

As Morandini et al. (2023) show, non-bisexual sexually diverse identities may be perceived by other sexual minority women as more legitimately ‘queer’ than those of bisexual women, enabling them to escape the kinds of de-legitimisation and invalidation which is thought to sometimes characterise the experiences of bisexual women within the LGBTQ community. That bisexual women were both less likely to: (i) regard themselves as belonging to the LGBTQ community, and (ii) view participating in the LGBTQ community positively may be explained by elevated levels of internalised homophobia among bisexual women (compared to lesbian women) (Brown-Beresford and McLaren 2022; McLaren and Castillo 2021). McLaren and Castillo (2021) suggest that a combination of internalised homophobia and experiences of rejection within sexual minority women communities could potentially result in some bisexual women developing negative feelings towards LGBTQ communities, instead pushing bisexual women to self-identify as heterosexual.

The findings have implications for mental health promotion for sexual minority women. Health care providers seeing sexual minority women with high levels of psychological distress should be aware of the individual woman’s sexual orientation and degree of salience she ascribes to that orientation to refer to appropriate services. For example, a woman who places a strong importance on being, say, lesbian or queer, may benefit from seeing lesbian or queer-inclusive counsellors or finding lesbian or queer peer support networks. Conversely, a bisexual women may prefer mainstream services or peer support. This was also found in an Australian study of sexual minority women that explored their alcohol use, mental health, and preferences for healthcare (Pennay et al. 2018). In Pennay et al. (2018) study, women with high LBQ identity salience preferred to disclose their sexual orientation to providers and have it acknowledged, while those with low salience did not.

Limitations

Several limitations should be noted. Firstly, neither causal conclusions, nor the directionality of associations could be ascertained in this study due to cross-sectional nature of the data. More specifically, while we have suggested that experiencing unfair treatment may lead sexual minority women to seek out community connection, it is similarly plausible that involvement with the LGBTQ community may cause one’s sexual minority identity to be more visible – potentially leading to more discriminatory encounters,

Secondly, our analyses were derived from a convenience sample recruited primarily through both LGBTQ community organisations and algorithm-based social media advertising (e.g. Facebook and Instagram) that targeted individuals who interacted positively with (e.g. as ‘liked’) a LGBTQ-related social media page. As such, the sample is likely skewed towards individuals who maintain some degree of involvement with either an LGBTQ community organisation, and/or who at least passively engage with other LGBTQ people through online avenues.

Thirdly, that our initial moderation analyses yielded non-significant results suggests that sexual minority women’s perceptions of participating in the LGBTQ community may not necessarily be an accurate reflection of their experiences within the community, but as scholars like Sanscartier and MacDonald (2019) note, are instead informed by a matrix of other factors – including LGB identity non-salience, as well as factors relating to attachment style schemas and internalised stigma. The current analyses also did not capture the reasons underlying sexual minority women’s non-positive perceptions of participation in the LGBTQ community, and we were unable to differentiate between sexual minority women’s negative experiences with community and other factors which are not reflective of the quality of community connections. This may explain why initial moderation analyses yielded non-significant results.

Lastly, most responses (96.3%) were derived from participants whose country of birth was either Australia or another Anglophone society. Immigrants from non-Anglophone contexts are a fast-growing demographic in Australia (Colic-Peisker and Peisker 2021), and sexual minority persons are thought to be well-represented within this group (Wilson, Temple, and Lyons 2021). As natal origin does not necessarily reflect ethnicity adequately, this should also be the basis of future investigation. Simultaneously, the impact of specific dimensions of lateral discrimination salient to the present discussion (e.g. racism, linguistic discrimination, etc., see: Li and Chen 2021) are likely understated within this study. Further research with a focus on the experience of sexual minority women from diverse cultural backgrounds should be undertaken to understand how experiences of racial discrimination impact whether racial minority sexual minority women’s perceptions of participating in the LGBTQ community, and whether they are privy to the protective benefit derived from community connection.

Conclusion

The present findings demonstrate the potential role of community connection in protecting the mental health of sexual minority women. However, they also highlight the limitations of conceptualising sexual minority women as a homogenous group and add credence to the notion that there is significant diversity in sexual minority women’s experiences. Associations between feelings of belonging and psychological distress were only found among those participants who felt that participating in the LGBTQ community was positive for them. Moreover, community connection was not experienced or evaluated evenly across subgroups. In particular, bisexual women and women residing in outer-suburban areas were least likely to feel that they were a part of the community or that community participation was positive for them, while women who had experienced discrimination were the most likely to feel a part of the LGBTQ community and evaluate participation positively. Programmes and interventions targeting sexual minority women should optimally be sensitive to these distinctions. While interventions delivered predominantly via LGBTQ community infrastructures and networks are likely to reach the majority of sexual minority women, a significant contingent of sexual minority women are likely to remain underserved. Hence, intervention delivery should not be exclusively centred upon the LGBTQ community spaces or channels, but should also be made accessible to sexual minority women who are not embedded within these contexts. Secondly, as a significant number of sexual minority women may be either unable or uninclined to participate in LGBTQ community, clinicians and other health providers must reconsider the appropriateness of LGBTQ community-centric support for individual sexual minority women.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no competing financial interests or other conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the Australian Lesbian Medical Association. Private Lives 3 was funded by the Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services and the Victorian Government Department of Premier and Cabinet.