Journal of LGBT Youth

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjly20

“They peed on my shoes”: foregrounding

intersectional minority stress in understanding
LGBTQ youth homelessness

Brandon Andrew Robinson

To cite this article: Brandon Andrew Robinson (2021): “They peed on my shoes”: foregrounding
intersectional minority stress in understanding LGBTQ youth homelessness, Journal of LGBT
Youth, DOI: 10.1080/19361653.2021.1925196

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2021.1925196

Published online: 17 May 2021.

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JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH
https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2021.1925196

“They peed on my shoes”: foregrounding intersectional

minority stress in understanding LGBTQ youth
homelessness
Brandon Andrew Robinson
University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Minority stress is a cause of health challenges for lesbian, gay, Received 8 January 2021
bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth experiencing Revised 23 April 2021
homelessness. However, in over-focusing on family rejection, Accepted 26 April 2021
the research on LGBTQ youth homelessness often misses how
KEYWORDS
minority stress itself can shape the youth’s perceived path- Minority stress;
ways into and experiences of homelessness. A main objective homelessness; youth;
of this study, then, foregrounds minority stress in understand- LGBTQ; coping strategies
ing LGBTQ youth homelessness. To achieve this objective, the
author conducted ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas and
interviewed 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The
author shows how experiencing intersecting minority stres-
sors, especially within families and youth-serving institutions,
is part of the perceived pathways into homelessness. The
author also documents how experiencing homelessness in
conjunction with experiencing anti-LGBTQ perceived discrimin-
ation, violence, and other minority stressors such as racism
impact the youth’s mental health challenges while living on
the streets. A second objective of this study, then, shows how
anti-LGBTQ discrimination intersects with other forms of preju-
dice and discrimination to shape the youth’s stressors and
pathways into and experiences of homelessness. The author
concludes that intersecting minority stressors shape perceived
pathways into homelessness and compound with the socially
stressful experiences of homelessness, but social support,
especially LGBTQ-specific support, can help ameliorate
these challenges.

Introduction
One in ten (about 3.5 million) youth, ages 18–25 years old, experience
homelessness each year in the United States (Morton et al., 2018). Lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth comprise around 40
percent of the youth homelessness population (Durso & Gates, 2012), and
they are disproportionately youth of color (Choi et al., 2015; Page, 2017).
They are also more likely to have higher rates of mental health challenges

CONTACT Brandon Andrew Robinson brandon.robinson@ucr.edu Department of Gender and Sexuality

Studies, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521.
ß 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 B. A. ROBINSON

such as post-traumatic stress and suicidal ideation compared to cisgender

heterosexual youth experiencing homelessness (Bruce et al., 2014; Cochran
et al., 2002; Gattis, 2013; Keuroghlian et al., 2014; Whitbeck et al., 2004).
LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, who were previously in child
custody systems, additionally reported higher rates of physical and sexual
victimization and substance use compared to their counterparts (Forge
et al., 2018). These challenges are exacerbated for transgender and gender-
expansive youth experiencing homelessness, who have to deal with the
stressors of navigating the gender segregation of shelters and services while
facing other obstacles such as trying to obtain an identification card and
clothing that aligns with their gender identity and expression (Keuroghlian
et al., 2014; Mottet & Ohle, 2006; Shelton, 2015). Notably, transgender
youth experiencing homelessness experience bullying, family rejection, and
physical and sexual abuse at higher rates than LGBQ youth experiencing
homelessness (Choi et al., 2015).
Part of the heightened mental health challenges among LGBTQ youth
experiencing homelessness can be explained through the minority stress
model – how prejudice and discrimination shape stressful environments for
marginalized groups, exacerbating mental health challenges (Meyer, 2003).
Research has examined minority stress as associated with and exacerbated by
homelessness (Bruce et al., 2014). However, research has not fully examined
how minority stress itself may be a potential pathway into homelessness. Past
research focusing on perceived pathways – the self-perceived reasons for
experiencing homelessness – for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness
include pathways such as family rejection, familial abuse, familial and resi-
dential instability, coming from backgrounds of poverty, and discrimination
within child custody systems (Castellanos, 2016; Cochran et al., 2002; Durso
& Gates, 2012; Reck, 2009; Robinson, 2018a, 2018b, 2020; Shelton & Bond,
2017). This focus on family rejection has led to family-level interventions in
addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness, missing how programs and policies
may also need to focus on community, institutional, and societal level-inter-
ventions in tackling discrimination and prejudice and in addressing minority
stress and its relation to homelessness. This study intervenes to highlight the
role of minority stress in shaping pathways into homelessness for some
LGBTQ youth and shaping the youth’s experiences of homelessness as well.

LGBTQ youth homelessness

A life course approach to understanding pathways into homelessness shows
how particular “turning points” – a significant change in one’s direction in
life – can push someone into homelessness (Brown et al., 2012; Maycock &
Corr, 2013). For LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, the youth often
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 3

grow up in situations of instability and poverty, whereby tensions around

the youth’s gender identity, gender expressions, and/or sexuality exacerbate
preexisting conflict (Castellanos, 2016). A host of discriminatory experien-
ces against LGBTQ youth within their families, in schools, in foster
homes, in communities, in various institutions, and from service providers
can push youth, especially youth who over the life course are in environ-
ments of instability and neglect, to the streets (Castellanos, 2016; Clements
& Rosenwald, 2007; Collins, 2015; Co^te & Blais, 2020; Cull et al., 2006;
Forge et al., 2018; Oakley & Bletsas, 2018; Tunåker, 2015; Wilson &
Kastanis, 2015).
On the streets, LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness deal with dis-
respect, differential treatment, and safety concerns at shelters and service
organizations (Connery, 2014; Cull et al., 2006; Hunter, 2008; Mottet &
Ohle, 2006; Oakley & Bletsas, 2018). These barriers related to being
LGBTQ and experiencing homelessness can leave the youth feeling stress
and frustration and can shape the youth to walk away from resources and
services (Connery, 2014; Cull et al., 2006; Oakley & Bletsas, 2018). To cope
with these barriers and stressors, LGBTQ youth build street families that
can provide the youth with a sense of belonging, social support, and
acceptance for their gender and sexuality, and that can help the youth learn
about affirming resources and referrals (Connery, 2014; Kruks, 1991).
This study builds on this work by showing how minority stress within
youth-serving institutions is a main process of shaping how youth under-
stand why they are experiencing homelessness. This study also shows how
minority stress shapes experiences of homelessness and service usage and
how youth cope with these stressors. A main objective of this study is to
foreground minority stress in order to shift the focus of tackling homeless-
ness to structural and institutional dynamics of discrimination and stress
and away from the family rejection paradigm.

Intersectional minority stress

The concept of social stress captures that stressors are not entirely individ-
ual but shaped by people’s relations to others and their social environments
(Meyer, 2003). Minority stress is a specific social stressor, in that, it relates
to experiencing discrimination because of one’s marginalized position and
experiencing mental health challenges from this discrimination (Meyer,
2003). Furthermore, to understand these processes, Meyer (2003) presents a
distal–proximal approach, whereby distal stressors come from external,
objective stressful events such as experiencing discrimination and violence
and proximal stressors come from more subjective processes such as the
internalization of negative societal attitudes.
4 B. A. ROBINSON

However, many people, including most LGBTQ youth experiencing

homelessness, occupy intersecting marginalized positions in how their gen-
der and sexuality intersect with race and class. An intersectional minority
stress model shows how multiply marginalized individuals subjectively
interpret stigmatizing experiences and stressors (Schmitz et al., 2020b).
This model highlights how multiply marginalized individuals interpret
stigma, discrimination, and stressors and how intersecting minority stres-
sors impact their mental health (Schmitz et al., 2020b).
This study takes up an intersectional minority stress model to contribute
to the work on minority stress and homelessness by focusing on how inter-
secting minority stressors shape the LGBTQ youth’s homelessness path-
ways, experiences, and coping strategies. A second objective of this study is
to beyond just focusing on anti-LGBTQ discrimination and its relation to
LGBTQ youth homelessness and move to how this anti-LGBTQ discrimin-
ation intersects with other forms of prejudice and discrimination to shape
the youth’s stressors and pathways into and experiences of homelessness.

Methods
This research project was an 18-month, multi-site ethnography on LGBTQ
youth homelessness. As the majority of research on LGBTQ youth experi-
encing homelessness and their health is quantitative, this qualitative study
sought to get at the meanings and contexts that youth associated with their
mental health challenges and homelessness. From January 2015 to June
2016, with Institutional Review Board approval, I conducted research pri-
marily at two organizations that provide services to youth experiencing
homelessness in central Texas. To gain access, I met with the directors of
both organizations, discussed with them my project, and offered to volun-
teer. In Austin, Texas, I volunteered twice a week, mainly in the clothing
closet, at a drop-in center for youth experiencing homelessness. In San
Antonio, Texas, I volunteered at a shelter specifically for LGBTQ youth
experiencing homelessness. I did weekly overnight shifts at the shelter from
10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Importantly, while more LGBTQ people live in the South
than in any other region of the United States and while LGBTQ southern-
ers also disproportionately experience poverty, research on LGBTQ people
still often does not examine LGBTQ people in this region (Stone, 2018).
This study empirically helps to fill this geographic void in the literature.

Data collection
I conducted over 700 hours of fieldwork. Fieldwork involved getting to
know people in their social settings, their daily routines, developing
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 5

relations with them, and observing them (Emerson et al., 1995). I would
take what ethnographers call “jottings” on my phone to record key words
and phrases that would remind me of major events and impressions to
write up in my field notes after I left the field site (Emerson et al., 1995).
Afterwards, I would turn my jottings into a more systematic and detailed
written account of my observations and experiences at the field site for
that day.
I also conducted 40 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ
youth experiencing homelessness, as researchers should listen to the needs
of LGBTQ youth (Talburt, 2004), and in-depth interviewing is a strong
methodological approach to accomplish this goal. The interviews covered
four major topics: the youth’s perceived pathways into homelessness, the
present needs of the youth, their strengths, and their everyday experiences.
Examples of interview questions included: “Tell me about your family life
growing up”; “Describe for me what life has been like since living on the
streets”; “What is the hardest thing that you have encountered since being
homeless? How did you deal/respond?”
Recruitment for the interview portion of the study varied based on the
field site. In Austin, the staff and my concern involved not “outing” anyone
who wanted to participate. To address this concern, I conducted a survey
with all youth at the drop-in center who expressed interest in taking the
survey. Under the demographic section, if a youth marked transgender
man, transgender woman, or wrote in another gender identity that did not
include the specific category of cisgender man or woman, I told them
about the interview portion of the study. Likewise, if a youth marked gay,
lesbian, bisexual, queer, or wrote in another sexual identity that did not
include heterosexual, I told them about the interview portion of the study.
Everyone who filled out the survey got a bus pass from the drop-in center.
Every LGBTQ youth who did the interview got a $10 gift card to Walmart,
which the director of street outreach got Walmart to donate. In San
Antonio, everyone staying at the shelter identified as LGBTQ. All youth
knew me as a person conducting a study with LGBTQ youth experiencing
homelessness. I interviewed every youth who stayed at the shelter for lon-
ger than two weeks. The director gave youth gift cards for doing
the interview.
I digitally audio-recorded the interviews, which lasted around an hour
and took place in person. Everyone whom I interviewed voluntarily agreed.
I informed them about all processes of consent. Table 1 describes the gen-
eral demographics of the interview participants. In the results, I use the
exact language the youth used to describe themselves in discussing their
demographics.
6 B. A. ROBINSON

Table 1. Self-identified demographics of interview participants (N ¼ 40).

Age (mean years) 21
Gender (%)
Woman 55
Transgender Womana (17.5)
Man 40
Transgender man (5)
Gender fluid 5
Sexuality (%)
Lesbian 15
Gay 25
Bisexual 30
Heterosexual 20
Otherb 10
Race (%)
Non-Hispanic White 25
Black 27.5
Hispanic/Latino/a 47.5
All heterosexual participants are people who identified as transgender.
a
Percent of gender category who also identified as transgender.
b
Other sexuality includes: pansexual (2 participants), “kind of everything,” and
“attracted to transgender women.”.

Positionality
My gender embodiment shaped my interactions in the field as my expan-
sive expressions of gender seemed to help in building rapport with the
youth. Although I never told anyone my sexuality, during the interviews
some youth would mention that I must know what they mean because they
knew that I was gay too. This assumption about my queerness appeared to
help many youth want to participate in the study and talk with me about
LGBTQ-related experiences in their lives. Notably, the youth often did not
explicitly talk about race during the interview portion of the study. This
absence of race talk may relate to my being white. The youth may have
seen our commonality through being LGBTQ, and hence, focused more on
talking about LGBTQ-related experiences.

Data analysis
I transcribed each interview and uploaded all field notes and interview
transcriptions into MAXQDA, a qualitative data analysis software. I coded
the transcriptions and field notes following a grounded theory approach
(Charmaz, 2006). I coded the data by first attaching labels to segments of
the data, describing what each segment was about such as “perceived as
gay,” “experiencing discrimination,” “discussing mental health struggles,”
and “coping with hardships.” I also wrote memos to interpret themes
within the data. I then implemented focused coding to move the analysis
to a more conceptual level. Focused codes included the over-arching
themes: coping, depression, discrimination, emotions, gender, LGBTQ,
medical, medication, mental health, sexuality, stress, and violence. Finally, I
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 7

conducted axial coding to identify the relationship between the focused

codes such as how being LGBTQ related to experiences of discrimination
and mental health challenges. Although the minority stress model did not
shape the construction of the interview guide or the data analysis, through
this inductive approach of coding, I found that mental health challenges
related to experiencing anti-LGBTQ discrimination and violence, and that
these inter-related experiences shaped the youth’s perceived pathways into
and experiences of homelessness. The validity of the findings was con-
firmed through prolonged engagement in the field, whereby I could hear
the youth talk about these accounts with each other, and through member
checking, where I discussed the emerging findings with the youth at the
field sites to confirm their credibility (Creswell & Miller, 2000).

Results
Experiencing minority stress in youth-serving institutions prior to
homelessness
Youth discussed how minority stress was conditioned by and through
youth-serving institutions that were meant to protect and help them and
how these institutional experiences of minority stress influenced their per-
ceived pathways into homelessness. Justice, an 18-year-old Black heterosex-
ual transgender woman, related familial stress and strain to prejudice
against her race, gender identity, and sexuality:
My relationship with my mom – it was always kind of rocky. Up until I got to be
like 14, when she got a new boyfriend, and then, I guess her boyfriend didn’t really
like Black people – me being half-Black, half-white kind of bothered him, especially
because I was his girlfriend’s daughter. And he didn’t like the fact that I was trans.
He thought that faggots were going to hell – quote quote. So, he was just a very
ignorant, ignorant man. So, he caused a lot of friction between me and my mom’s
relationship – a lot of the depression and stuff I was going through.

The intersecting minority stressors from the racism, homophobia, and

transphobia that Justice said she experienced compounded with the social
stressors she faced growing up poor and the contexts of instability that is
often associated with poverty. At 15 years old, Justice went into Child
Protective Services (CPS). On aging out, she lived on the streets.
Youth also discussed experiencing minority stressors in CPS. As Trinity,
a 20-year-old white lesbian, stated:
I was like going on 16 years old, and the [CPS] staff said I could not talk to any of
the little girls like 13 and under. And the reason being is because I was gay. Because
they thought I would do something to them, which made no fucking sense ‘cause I
never showed any history of that kind of crap. But it made it seem like I was a
pedo[phile], and it made me feel very disgusted with the place.
8 B. A. ROBINSON

Negative stereotypes about LGBTQ people, such as lesbians being pedo-

philes, could influence staff to not allow LGBTQ youth to interact with
other youth. Furthermore, these minority stressors compound with the
social stressors of being in CPS that often already generate instability and
stress in youth’s lives as they move from multiple placements and navigate
the gender segregation of these placements (Robinson, 2018a). Trinity said
that this discriminatory treatment and feelings of disgust was why she ran
away from her CPS placement and began living on the streets at 16 years
of age.
Youth also connected drug use to minority stressors they experienced
within religious programs and schools and to partly why they were experi-
encing homelessness. For example, Andres, a 23-year-old gay Hispanic
youth, was in a “pray the gay away” program. After the program, Andres
rejected religion and began using drugs:
I felt like marijuana at the time seemed to just ease my mind in so many ways
regarding the stress. Like usually, I never needed that ‘cause I always had music. But
music was connected to the church. And anything that was connected to the church
was definitely something that I didn’t want to feel at that moment, so I went to pot.

Substance use is higher among LGBTQ youth compared to heterosexual

youth often because drugs help LGBTQ youth to cope with feeling margi-
nalized, to seek relief for feeling depressed and isolated, and to alleviate
experiences with chronic stress (Jordan, 2000). Andres turned to marijuana
to cope with the stress of his religious family not accepting his sexuality.
Two institutions – the family and religion – interconnected to shape
Andres’s experiences of minority stress. And as religion and churches that
serve communities of color often are a refuge from racism, religious homo-
phobic beliefs can create unique conflicting experiences for LGBTQ people
of color (Schmitz et al., 2020a, 2020b; Ward, 2005). Moreover, Andres con-
nected smoking pot partly to why he was experiencing homelessness, as
smoking pot was “making me not able to function.” For some youth who
grow up in backgrounds of instability, drug use – while a coping mechan-
ism for instability and minority stressors – can further experiences of
instability and shape youth’s pathways to the streets.
Zoe, a 19-year-old heterosexual Hispanic transgender woman, talked
about drug use in relation to school bullying. She stated, “Smoking weed
was a problem. Smoking weed for me is a medication, ‘cause it helps me
eat. And it also numbed the pain from going to school. Numb the pain of
people looking at me. People calling me a faggot.” Substance use is a way
in which transgender and gender-expansive youth cope with bullying and
experiencing gender minority social stress (Reisner et al., 2015). Zoe turned
to drugs to cope with bullying and eventually dropped out of school in the
seventh grade. She, then, began living on the streets.
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 9

Intersecting minority stressors shaped the youth’s experiences of familial

and institutional strain and their mental health challenges and shaped their
perceived pathways into homelessness. Notably, these minority stressors
often compounded with other social stressors, such as growing up poor,
within the contexts of family instability, and within the instability of CPS.

Further experiencing minority stress while experiencing homelessness

Once on the streets, experiencing homelessness along with racism and anti-
LGBTQ perceived discrimination and violence can intersect to further
impact the youth’s mental health challenges. For some youth, rules at shel-
ters were a social stressor. Arthur, a 25-year-old Black gay man, stated, “It’s
kind of stressful because I can’t chill with my man the way I want to. I
can’t cuddle up with him or anything.” In regulating intimate contact and
often placing the behaviors of Black and Brown youth under more surveil-
lance, shelter rules can generate minority stress through having one’s sexu-
ality, and perhaps, race and sexual identity monitored.
Moreover, minority stress shaped experiences of navigating homelessness
and bathrooms, especially for transgender and gender-expansive youth. Zoe
explained, “I’d have to shower in the men’s [shower at a shelter], and I was
afraid I was going to get raped. And they would tell me that I don’t belong
in there ‘cause I’m a girl. And I’m like, I have to be clean. I can’t let these
fucking men run me out of this fuckin’ shower.”
Camila, a 22-year-old heterosexual Hispanic transgender woman, also
talked about perceived discrimination in shelters. She said, “If you’re gay –
most of the staff, they make comments. And they’ll be talking with the resi-
dents there, and so I didn’t get along with a lot of the staff. [ … ] They
really mistreat you if you’re gay. It’s not outright, so you can’t just point it
out.” In navigating these sexual and gender minority stressors, Camila pre-
ferred living on the streets than dealing with discrimination at
these shelters.
Dante, a 22-year-old bisexual Black youth, discussed shelter violence and
its relation to minority stress. He detailed, “First day I was in [a shelter], I
got picked on for hanging out with Justice [a Black transgender youth]. I
beat somebody up. I beat them bad because they pissed on my shoes. They
peed on my shoes because I was hanging out with Justice.”
Friendships take on important meanings for LGBTQ Black people such
as Dante and Justice, in dealing not only with anti-LGBTQ discrimination
and violence but also racism and other forms of oppression. This violence
could be about targeting them for being Black and LGBTQ and trying to
prevent their social bond.
10 B. A. ROBINSON

The youth in this study, then, had to deal with anti-LGBTQ perceived
discrimination and violence along with the social stressors of experiencing
homelessness and living in shelters and often other intersecting experiences
of minority stress for being gender expansive and/or a person of color.

Coping strategies to deal with minority stress and homelessness

The youth engaged in coping strategies to ameliorate stress. Listening to
music was a prominent coping strategy, as youth often played music on
their phones or on computers. As Melissa, a 21-year-old gender-fluid pan-
sexual white woman, said, “Music helps like a lot.” Kelsey, a 22-year-old
Black woman who described her sexuality as “kind of everything,” also
stated, “Sometimes I get really stressed out. I have to walk away. I can’t
even talk anymore. I got to just take a walk, clear my head, listen to music,
whatever.” I also recorded in my field notes that one youth exclaimed that
they can take our homes from us but not our music. Music, then, can allow
the youth to find temporary solace and meet recreational needs to cope
with minority stress (McAdams-Mahmoud et al., 2014; Thompson
et al., 2016).
Many youth also prayed. A 22-year-old Black lesbian, Sade said to cope
she turned to “God, prayer, for sure.” Camila even stated, “Depression – I
realized it’s the reason I started doing drugs and the reason why I have a
hard time staying sober and clean is ‘cause sometimes it’s just unbearable
sadness. But I always – I always try to pray to myself when I have those –
those urges.”
As Camila mentioned, youth also used drugs and/or alcohol to cope.
Audrey, a 23-year-old Hispanic lesbian, said, “A lot of kids – if they aren’t
already out here because of drugs, they start doing drugs while they are out
here to cope. Or I know for me it was to cope.” Similarly, Jasper, a 23-
year-old mixed race homosexual, stated, “I tried to stop my drinking, but
it’s like the option besides drinking is to just sit outside and do nothing.
You try that. There’s no way to really cope.” Drugs and alcohol can help
with the boredom, restlessness, and stress of experiencing homelessness.
Other youth relied on a significant other. Arthur talked about his partner
Kareem: “He helps me get through the stress, and he helps me, just like, he
just be there for me and be there to be my comfortness. Talk to me. Be
like, ‘Look babe, we gonna do this. We gonna do that. We gonna get out
of here.’” Lucas, a 20-year-old white heterosexual transgender man, talked
about his girlfriend’s support: “And she helps me through every day –
cope. And she’s my motivation.” Social support can help youth get through
the stress of homelessness and motivate them to keep going.
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 11

Outside of intimate relationships, other forms of social support, espe-

cially through a shelter specifically for LGBTQ youth, helped. Adelpha, an
18-year-old heterosexual transgender woman, who described herself as
Black, Mexican, and white, explained, “A lot of LGBT people out there,
we’re so like disconnected, so we feel like we going through the struggle
alone. So, having a place like [the LGBTQ shelter] just I feel like it builds
confidence, reassurance, a lot of stuff just within yourself.” For Naomi, an
18-year-old bisexual transgender Latina, being around other transgender
women at the LGBTQ shelter helped her feel normal because of the shared
mental, physical, and emotional experiences. She detailed:
It normalizes me as far as feeling like a female. Because I feel like we’re just a bunch
of females in the dorm. At the same time, we can relate, ‘cause we’re going through
it. We understand the mental, physical, emotional struggle, and no other persons
going to understand that unless you’re going through it.

These social support strategies helped the youth tackle the mental health
challenges of experiencing homelessness.

Discussion
Intersecting experiences of minority stress are underlying dynamics that
may be shaping the disproportionate rates of LGBTQ youth among the
youth homelessness population. This qualitative study documents how
experiences of intersecting minority stressors – especially within youth-
serving institutions – shape perceived pathways into homelessness, how
anti-LGBTQ perceived discrimination and violence intersects with racism
and experiencing homelessness to influence mental health challenges, and
how LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness cope. Findings highlight the
importance for policies and programming to focus on addressing societal
prejudices in relation to intersecting experiences of minority stress in order
to prevent and address homelessness.
A main contribution of this study is foregrounding how intersecting
minority stressors within various youth-serving institutions could be push-
ing certain LGBTQ youth to the streets. Most prior research on LGBTQ
youth homelessness has focused on family rejection as a main pathway into
homelessness (Cochran et al., 2002; Durso & Gates, 2012). This family
rejection focus may eclipse how intersecting minority stressors, in addition
to the minority stressor of family rejection, can shape perceived pathways
into homelessness. For instance, racist, homophobic, and transphobic bully-
ing at schools is a social stressor that can cause low self-esteem, anxiety,
depression, and an increase in heart rate (Bond et al., 2001; Hamilton
et al., 2008). Heterosexism, cisgenderism, racism, and other biases against
children who are LGBTQ and in child welfare systems can impact youth to
12 B. A. ROBINSON

experience multiple placements, generating stress and instability in their

lives (Clements & Rosenwald, 2007; Robinson, 2018a, 2020; Wilson &
Kastanis, 2015). Religious rejection also generates stress for non-heterosex-
ual youth (Page et al., 2013), and as religious institutions can serve as a ref-
uge for racism, this religious rejection can generate unique stress for
LGBTQ people of color (Schmitz et al., 2020a, 2020b; Ward, 2005). As an
intersectional minority stress model shows, these experiences of intersecting
minority stressors within various youth-serving institutions can influence
certain LGBTQ youth to turn to the streets, potentially to alleviate the
minority stressors they face in these institutions.
Once on the streets, LGBTQ youth face more mental health challenges
for experiencing homelessness and encountering racism along with anti-
LGBTQ perceived discrimination and violence. Violence and minority
stress can stem from shelters and showers being gender segregated and
service providers not treating LGBTQ young people with respect (Hunter,
2008; Mottet & Ohle, 2006). Importantly, though, as an intersectional
minority stress model and this study demonstrate, these experiences of
anti-LGBTQ perceived discrimination and violence intersect as well with
racism, generating minority stressors in the lives of LGBTQ youth experi-
encing homelessness as they navigate the streets. This study contributes
then to expanding the minority stress model in relation to homelessness
to an intersectional model that documents how anti-LGBTQ discrimin-
ation intersects with other forms of prejudice and discrimination such as
racism to shape the LGBTQ youth’s stressors and experiences of
homelessness.
One can also see how certain coping strategies work to try to alleviate
minority stressors. Music is often a coping source for youth experiencing
homelessness (Thompson et al., 2016), though accessing music can be hard,
as youth often had to wait for libraries or drop-in centers to be open to lis-
ten to music on a computer. Likewise, LGBTQ youth also turn to prayer
and spirituality as coping mechanisms and sources of strength (Schmitz &
Woodell, 2018), even when some youth experienced rejection from reli-
gious family and community members. Some youth used drugs and alco-
hol, which can be a way to cope with bullying in schools, family rejection,
instability, perceived discrimination, violence, and experiencing homeless-
ness (Cochran et al., 2002). Youth also formed relationships that can buffer
against the impact of stressors and can ameliorate mental health challenges
associated with minority stress (Meyer, 2003). However, shelter rules and
the gender segregation of shelters could make it difficult for youth to stick
together and support each other. A “queer and trans support complex” that
nurtures LGBTQ young people is needed then, as this support complex can
help fix the isolation and loneliness that comes with growing up as an
 JOURNAL OF LGBT YOUTH 13

LGBTQ child and can foster gender and sexual diversity through support-
ing young people’s gender and sexual explorations (Robinson, 2020).

Future research & implications

As this study only focuses on LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness,
future comparison studies with cisgender, heterosexual youth experiencing
homelessness may be able to get at comparing processes for different popu-
lations. Likewise, while this study is qualitative and in central Texas, it can
inform population-based studies in thinking about how to capture and
measure intersecting minority stressors and coping in the lives of LGBTQ
youth experiencing homelessness. Also, as this study examines the youth
for a particular moment of their life, more longitudinal studies can examine
the long-term impact of these processes on the youth, especially as they
transition into adulthood.
Nonetheless, as this study shows, addressing intersecting experiences of
minority stressors and structural stigma – how societal and institutional
conditions and practices constrain the opportunities of marginalized popu-
lations (Hatzenbuehler & Link, 2014) – need to be part of how policies,
programs, and services tackle homelessness. LGBTQ-affirmative legislation
and policies need an intersectional focus that attends to the various needs
of LGBTQ youth (Page, 2017). In addition to policies, asking and letting
the youth decide how to improve systems, services, and housing could be a
best approach for respecting and affirming them. Cultural-specific pro-
gramming that centers an intersectional approach and practices by and for
transgender and gender-expansive youth, especially youth of color, are
needed. These can include creating inclusive forms and questionnaires,
making plans and goals that address the specific youth’s needs, training
staff on LGBTQ cultural competency and on how to intervene during
homophobic, transphobic, and racist situations, and fostering an open
environment where gender and sexuality are regularly discussed
(Abramovich, 2012, 2016, 2017; Shelton, 2015; Shelton et al., 2018;
Wayman, 2008). Programs can also learn from the coping strategies of the
youth and bolster these strategies. For example, funding novel ways to help
with social support, especially LGBTQ-specific support spaces, could help
ameliorate some challenges.

Conclusion
By foregrounding minority stress, this study continues the work of moving
away from family rejection in understanding LGBTQ youth homelessness.
Moreover, this study calls for shifting away from just anti-LGBTQ
14 B. A. ROBINSON

discrimination to understanding the intersecting complexities, including

racism, as shaping the perceived pathways into and experiences of home-
lessness for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. An intersectional
minority stress model helps us to better understand this issue and how we
should address it.

Notes on contributor
Brandon Andrew Robinson is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the
University of California, Riverside. They are the author of Coming Out to the Streets:
LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness and the co-author of Race & Sexuality.

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