by Tara Sprickerhoff
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals who have come out of the closet are less stressed than those who haven’t, suggests a study released Jan. 28 by the University of Montreal.
The study, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, measured hormones and psychiatric symptoms in 87 men and women around the ages of 25 who were of diverse sexual orientation, in order to determine their average stress levels.
Participants were asked to fill out psychological questionnaires and give blood, saliva, and urine samples over the course of several visits in order to measure levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, as well as to calculate “allostatic load,” the wear and tear on a body’s biological systems.
The results were surprising to researchers. Gay and bisexual men had fewer problems of depression and physiological health than heterosexual men. The study had hypothesized that just the opposite would be true.
At the same time, the study noted that within the lesbian, gay and bisexual group those who were “out of the closet” were less stressed than those who were not.
The study theorized that in the process of coming out to friends and family, as well as dealing with stigma-related pressure, lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals may have developed better coping strategies to manage future stresses.
Disclosure of sexual orientation, the study noted, was key.
However, “coming out might only be beneficial for health when there are tolerant social policies that facilitate the disclosure process,” lead author Robert-Paul Juster said in a press release.
“As the participants of this study enjoy progressive Canadian rights, they may be inherently healthier and hardier,” he said.
Luke Smith, a fourth-year political science student at Carleton University who is very active in the Ottawa gay community, said he agreed that where a person discloses their sexuality can affect how stressed out they are.
Smith said he has always been fully out as gay, but he experienced stress when he moved to small-town Tweed, Ont.
“You have to be constantly thinking, ‘How are they going to react? How are they going to react?’” Smith said. “I have no intention of moving back into the closet, but you can’t be too flippant about your own self security. It can’t be ‘Oh, everything’s fine,’ because sometimes gay-bashing is a thing. That was stressful.”
Sam Gruber, a Carleton history student, found that he had no major issues coming out as bisexual because of the urban setting of Ottawa.
“[In] an urban centre and it’s the gay bashers that are the odd men out. If you find yourself in a situation where someone says something homophobic to you . . . I can assume, especially in a place like Ottawa, that I have the support of most normal people around me.”
However, Smith said that only surveying 25-year-olds limited the study and that those who were 16 to 23 in the gay community were in a far more stressful place. By 25, he suggested, people were comfortable about their status.
The study also failed to look into the stresses trans* people might experience.
However, the study is the first of its kind, and Juster said he hopes it will have political implications in the development of more progressive legislation promoting LGBTQ rights.
