Experiences of heterosexism & transphobia are common for LGBTQ+ people.
Has your sense of safety at work or school, your healthcare, your security been disrupted?
Was your relationship with a family member or friend complicated by heterosexism, biphobia, and/or transphobia?
Have you been a victim of discrimination or mistreatment related to being LGBTQ+?
At this time, many LGBTQ+ people are experiencing distress. If you are, you may be looking to develop ways to process what is happening and to develop a strategy for coping that will support you. On this page, we provide:
(1) a summary of research on the exercises we are studying that shows how helpful they are for people who are experiencing troubling transphobic, biphobic, and heterosexist experiences.
(2) Then we provide some example responses to the exercise.
(3) At the end, there is a study description that conveys what the study entails.
The link to the study, in which the exercises are embedded, is the button and ‘Learn more’ box to the left.
Research Summary
Since 2010, LGBTQ+-affirmative researchers at the University of Massachusetts Boston have been developing online expressive writing exercises to help sexual and gender minority people better process their experiences of heterosexism, biphobia, and transphobia. Repeated studies have found that these writing exercises have been helpful for many people in working through troubling transphobic and heterosexist experiences. Prior research studies on these empirically based exercises has indicated that 90-99% 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. By answering research questions as you engage in the writing exercises, you can contribute to LGBTQ+ mental health research that could help other people deal with a troubling experience of stigma as well.
These empirically-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.
Responses to Exercises
· Participating in this study helped me feel less alone and unseen. It helped me process painful experiences and helped me feel more secure and safe letting myself be and show who I am. -Queer genderqueer/nonbinary/trans person
· It has made me to really stand my ground, make me to be bold enough to confront any jab that's been thrown at me. -Gay cisgender man
· I have grown a strong relationship with myself. I give myself grace more than before. -Bisexual cisgender woman
· Participating in this study was a great experience. I was skeptical at first because I felt so stuck in this pain of being mistreated but was pleasantly surprised by how cathartic this process was and how much progress I have since made toward processing difficulties related to being queer and trans in a cisheterosexist society. Thanks so much for doing this work! -Queer nonbinary transfemme person
· I appreciate the opportunity to think about something that bothered me, and working through it. I've let go of it more and feel more at peace with the person who made the remarks. It feels less upsetting now to think about it. -Lesbian cisgender woman
· I felt good, more of a therapy session. -Gay cisgender man
· The exercises helped motivate me to write through my issues and better reflect on them. The study helped me realize there are a lot of feelings I'd like to work through and writing would be an effective way to do that. -Graysexual nonbinary/trans/agender person
· I think it is important to devote time to negative experiences in our life. Exploring them more fully will help us heal from them and grow to be more empathetic to those who are different from us. -Queer cisgender woman
· Now that I have completed the study and these final questions, I realize just how much this process has deepened my understanding of myself and the experience I wrote about. One thing that stands out is how much I still carry the need for safety in spaces that feel unpredictable. I did not fully recognize how much that one incident shaped my instinct to scan rooms, adjust my body language, or emotionally prepare myself before entering certain environments. That vigilance has become so habitual that I rarely paused to ask where it came from or whether it still serves me. This study helped me name it, trace its roots, and begin the work of releasing some of it. -Pansexual woman/nonbinary/genderqueer person
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 call 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). You will be given a unique one-time passcode after being approved in the screening to enter the study.
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.
Note: This website offers and develops resources and exercises for LGBTQ+ people who have experienced heterosexism and transphobia that is troubling, but who are not in crisis. If you are in a potentially life-threatening situation or another person may be in danger, don’t use this site but go to your local hospital emergency room, call 911, or use the Crisis & Hotline Resources on our Resource Page to seek help.