6 - (IOP 26) Reverberations of the Past: Defining and Exploring the Concept of Historical Trauma in Relation to the Health of LGBTIQ+ People

Background: Traumas do not need to be directly experienced to be impactful; one example of this is historical trauma, which is associated with negative health outcomes (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Mutuyimana & Maercker, 2023). This concept has been explored among Indigenous populations, Jewish individuals, and Black Americans, but not among LGBTIQ+ individuals.

LGBTIQ+ people express anger, sadness, and loss due to the events that have impacted other LGBTIQ+ individuals, such as genocide during the Holocaust, governmental persecution, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. For this study, we developed and piloted a new measure of LGBTIQ+ Historical Trauma.

Method: Our team adapted the Historical Loss Associated Symptoms Scale (Whitbeck et al., 2004) to LGBTIQ+-related events. Nine items in this measure assess how often participants think about events significant to LGBTIQ+ history; 24 items assess both traumatic reactions and potential resilience factors. We surveyed undergraduate psychology students at two universities (N=448 total), asking them about LGBTIQ+ Historical Trauma, current symptoms of depression and anxiety, and knowledge of LGBTIQ+ history.

We hypothesized that: 1) LGBTIQ+ individuals will report more frequent thoughts about LGBTIQ+-related traumas than cisgender, heterosexual individuals, 2) knowledge of LGBTIQ+ history will be positively related to our Historical Trauma measure, and 3) for LGBTIQ+ participants, Historical Trauma scores will positively correlate with other mental health measures.

Results: A substantial proportion of the participants (29.9%) self-identified as LGBTIQ+. Consistent with our hypotheses, LGBTIQ+ participants reported more frequent thoughts about LGBTIQ+-relevant historical traumas on our measure, t(445) = 9.53, p < .001. This corresponded to LGBTIQ+ participants thinking about such traumas, on average, weekly or monthly; non-LGBTIQ+ participants reported such thoughts on a monthly or yearly basis. Knowledge of LGBTIQ+ history, assessed by another measure developed for this study, was significantly and positively related to LGBTIQ+ Historical Trauma, r = .357, p < .001. Also, LGBTIQ+ participants’ LGBTIQ+ Historical Trauma experiences were significantly associated with depression scores on the PHQ-8 (r = .171, p = .05), anxiety symptoms from the GAD (r = .203, p < .05), and with PTSD scores from the PCL-C (r = .296, p < .001). Notably, these correlations were also significant for participants who did not identify as LGBTIQ+.

Discussion: This study indicates that LGBTIQ+ Historical Trauma may be a measurable, clinically significant construct impacting LGBTIQ+ individuals. Affirmative treatments that address a shared sense of loss and trauma among LGBTIQ+ people, in addition to the proximal and distal stressors typically incorporated from Meyer’s Minority Stress model, could help to address aspects of the LGBTIQ+ experience that are often not discussed in treatment. Further refinement of the measure is needed in order to make it relevant to multiple generations of LGBTIQ+ people and to differentiate it from empathic responses that non-LGBTIQ+ people may have to their LGBTIQ+ friends and counterparts.