Mental Health and Well-Being of Sexual and Gender Minority Groups: Risk and Protective Factors

Dear Colleagues,

Despite their increasing visibility in many parts of the world, sexual and gender minorities continue to be stigmatized. Minority stress refers to stress that LGBTQ+ individuals experience because of their marginalized identity, including discrimination and prejudice or the internalization of social stigma. Negative associations between minority stress processes and mental health have been widely demonstrated. However, research has elucidated risk rather than protective factors for the well-being of this population. This focus on the association between psychopathology and sexual orientation and gender identity may inadvertently contribute to further stigmatizing LGBTQ+ individuals. In fact, sexual and gender minority individuals may share distinctive protective and positive experiences (e.g., belonging to a community or creating families of choice), which act as buffers against the deleterious effects of social stigma and promote resilience. In this Special Issue, we are looking for papers that go beyond a deficit-based approach, addressing risk and protective factors for the mental health and wellbeing of sexual and gender minority groups in different contexts (e.g., school, work, family, or geographic origin) and throughout the life cycle. The Special Issue is open to both research and review papers. Original studies using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods are welcome.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Healthcare.

Dr. Jorge Gato
Dr. Susana Coimbra
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• LGBTQ
• minority stress
• protective factors
• risk factors
• resilience

• Mental Health and Well-Being of Sexual and Gender Minority Groups: Risk and Protective Factors in Healthcare (1 article)