LGBTQ+-affirmative researchers at the University of Massachusetts Boston are developing online expressive writing exercises to help sexual and gender minority people with their experiences of transphobia and heterosexism.  Repeated studies have found that these writing exercises have been helpful for many people in working through troubling transphobic and heterosexist experiences.  Prior research on these empirically based exercises has indicated that over 90% of LGBTQ+ participants have found these exercises to be beneficial (Levitt et al., 2021; Chickerella, 2021; White, 2022) and 85% of LGBQ+ people with autism (Maroney et al., 2023).  On average, participants experienced a reduction in depressive symptoms and event-related distress as well. This study will contribute to LGBTQ+ mental health research that could help other people and develop new insights to deal with a troubling experience of stigma.

These research-based exercises offer you resources to support your process of making meaning of troubling stigma-based experiences and of developing responses that feel right to you. These research studies support the LGBTQ+ community by helping us to learn about processes of recovering from these experiences.

To learn more about us and the research that these exercises are based upon, please see the bibliography on our About our Research webpage. A study description is below.

STUDY DESCRIPTION

The exercises each occur over five days:

• Day 1: Take the initial survey in which you identify the troubling event and in which we ask questions to learn about your context.

• Day 2-4: Complete writing exercises, guided by our prompts. The exercises do not recommend any type of resolution but offer questions and reflective exercises that guide you to move toward your own resolutions.

• Day 5: Two months later, you will be sent a follow up survey to reflect on what you have learned and what you thought about the process.

Who can participate in the exercises? You must be LGBTQ+ identified, legally an adult in the state in which you live in the United States, be fluent in English, and have had an experience of heterosexism or transphobia that is troubling to you and you can examine.  Participation is usually under 3 hours in total across five days, and can be done online at home. They are not intended for people in active crisis, in life threatening situations, or if another person is in danger (if this is you, see our Resource Page to find crisis hotlines that offer support or go to your local emergency room). A brief screening is conducted to see if you fit these criteria and to answer any questions you have about the study and decide if it is right for you (no pressure).

While the current study is running, we are able to offer a $25 Amazon Giftcard to participants who complete the study activities but you cannot have participated in this study previously and must enter the unique passcode given to you by the researcher after being approved in a brief screening phone call. You can click the “Learn More” button above to see the screening questions. We hope that the writing exercises support you to develop responses that help with forms of sexual and gender minority stigma impacting your life.