ORIGINAL PAPER
If they knew I was gay... would I be accepted? Anxiety and depression in gay men who have or have not come out in the context of acceptance
1
Institute of Psychology, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland
Submission date: 2023-10-08
Final revision date: 2024-03-23
Acceptance date: 2025-02-05
Online publication date: 2025-06-30
Publication date: 2026-01-28
Corresponding author
Health Psychology Report 2026;14(1):1-8
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
In Poland, exclusionary societal attitudes towards gay men continue to persist. The stress associated with a lack of ac-ceptance is considered a significant component of minority stress, which, in turn, leads to anxiety and depression. The aim of the present research was to investigate whether coming out differentiates gay men in terms of the severity of anxiety and depression and to explore the factors that explain these differences.
Participants and procedure:
A total of 304 participants who identified themselves as gay men (age 18-44, M = 27, SD = 6) completed four question-naires: the State-Trait Personality Inventory to measure anxiety and depression traits; the Attitudes Towards Homosexuality Scale (with modifications to assess the participant’s beliefs about how heterosexual society perceives non-heteronormative sexual minorities); the Perceived Acceptance Scale to evaluate the perceived acceptance from mothers, fathers, family, and friends; and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to measure global self-esteem. They were also asked if they had come out. Participants were recruited using two social networking platforms: Facebook and Fellow. Hierarchical regression analysis was used.
Results:
In the case of non-disclosure of sexual identity, anxiety and depression were primarily explained by the lack of acceptance from friends, the perception that others fear homosexual individuals, and low self-esteem. In men who had come out, anxie-ty and depression were negatively associated with acceptance from friends and both parents, positively with perceiving oth-ers as discriminatory and critical. The percentage of variance explained by each variable was significant, ranging from 32% to 42%.
Conclusions:
Perceiving others’ attitudes as anxious may hinder the coming-out process, but also disclosing one’s orientation is associat-ed with experiencing discrimination and criticism. In both cases it relates to the intensification of anxiety and depression. The most protective factors seem to be experiencing acceptance, especially from friends.
In Poland, exclusionary societal attitudes towards gay men continue to persist. The stress associated with a lack of ac-ceptance is considered a significant component of minority stress, which, in turn, leads to anxiety and depression. The aim of the present research was to investigate whether coming out differentiates gay men in terms of the severity of anxiety and depression and to explore the factors that explain these differences.
Participants and procedure:
A total of 304 participants who identified themselves as gay men (age 18-44, M = 27, SD = 6) completed four question-naires: the State-Trait Personality Inventory to measure anxiety and depression traits; the Attitudes Towards Homosexuality Scale (with modifications to assess the participant’s beliefs about how heterosexual society perceives non-heteronormative sexual minorities); the Perceived Acceptance Scale to evaluate the perceived acceptance from mothers, fathers, family, and friends; and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to measure global self-esteem. They were also asked if they had come out. Participants were recruited using two social networking platforms: Facebook and Fellow. Hierarchical regression analysis was used.
Results:
In the case of non-disclosure of sexual identity, anxiety and depression were primarily explained by the lack of acceptance from friends, the perception that others fear homosexual individuals, and low self-esteem. In men who had come out, anxie-ty and depression were negatively associated with acceptance from friends and both parents, positively with perceiving oth-ers as discriminatory and critical. The percentage of variance explained by each variable was significant, ranging from 32% to 42%.
Conclusions:
Perceiving others’ attitudes as anxious may hinder the coming-out process, but also disclosing one’s orientation is associat-ed with experiencing discrimination and criticism. In both cases it relates to the intensification of anxiety and depression. The most protective factors seem to be experiencing acceptance, especially from friends.
REFERENCES (32)
1.
Brock, D. M., Sarason, I. G., Sanghvi, H., & Gurung, R. A. R. (1998). The Perceived Acceptance Scale: Develop-ment and validation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15, 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/026540....
2.
Budge, S., Rossman, H. K., & Howard, K. (2014). Coping and psychological distress among genderqueer individu-als: The moderating effect of social support. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 8, 95–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/155386....
3.
Cass, V. C. (1984). Homosexual identity formation: Testing a theoretical model. The Journal of Sex Research, 20, 143–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/002244....
4.
CBOS (2021a). Poprawa stosunku Polaków do osób homoseksualnych [Improvement in the attitude of Poles to-wards homosexual people]. Retrieved from https://www.cbos.pl/PL/publika....
5.
CBOS (2021b). Stosunek Polaków do osób homoseksualnych [The attitude of Poles towards homosexual people]. Fundacja Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej.
6.
Cisek, A., & Rogowska, A. M. (2023). The relationship between minority stress and depressive symptoms in the LGBTQA population from Poland. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 13, 1000–1014. https://www.mdpi.com/2254-9625....
7.
Coleman, E. (2022). Developmental stages of the coming out process. In J. Gonsiorek (Ed.), A guide to psychother-apy with gay & lesbian clients (pp. 31–43). Routledge.
8.
Godzisz, P., & Knut, P. (2018). LGBTI rights in Poland. Measures to combat discrimination and violence on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. Lambda Warsaw Association.
9.
Huang, Y. T., Luo, H., Ko, N. Y., & Yen, C. F. (2020). Perceived attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) issues and mental health among Taiwanese LGB adults: The mediating role of self-acceptance. Archives of Sex-ual Behavior, 49, 1671–1682. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508....
10.
Iniewicz, G. (2015). Stres mniejszościowy u osób biseksualnych i homoseksualnych: W poszukiwaniu czynników ryzy-ka i czynników chroniących [Minority stress in bisexual and homosexual people: In search of risk and protec-tive factors]. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
11.
Iniewicz, G., Sałapa, K., Wrona, M., & Marek, N. (2017). Minority stress among homosexual and bisexual individ-uals – from theoretical concepts to research tools: The Sexual Minority Stress Scale. Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 19, 69–80. https://doi.org/10.12740/APP/7....
12.
Juang, H. L., Chang, Y. Y. C., Tseng, B. L., Chang, C. C., Shiah, Y. J. (2018). Role of psychological acceptance be-tween personality and happiness. Current Psychology, 40, 1048–1055. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144....
13.
Korolczuk, E. (2020). The fight against ‘gender’ and ‘LGBT ideology’: New developments in Poland. European Journal of Politics and Gender, 3, 165–167. https://doi.org/10.1332/251510....
14.
Laghi, F., Pallini, S., Baumgartner, E., Guarino, A., & Baiocco, R. (2016). Parent and peer attachment relationships and time perspective in adolescence: Are they related to satisfaction with life? Time & Society, 25, 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/096146....
15.
Marchlewska, M., Cichocka, A., Łozowski, F., Górska, P., & Winiewski, M. (2019). In search of an imaginary ene-my: Catholic collective narcissism and the endorsement of gender conspiracy beliefs. Journal of Social Psychol-ogy, 159, 766–779. https://doi.org/10.1080/002245....
16.
Marchlewska, M., Górska, P., Malinowska, K., & Jarosław, K. (2022). Threatened masculinity: Gender-related col-lective narcissism predicts prejudice toward gay and lesbian people among heterosexual men in Poland. Jour-nal of Homosexuality, 69, 1222–1237. https://doi.org/10.1080/009183....
17.
Margasiński, A. (2016). Postawy wobec homoseksualizmu [Attitudes towards homosexuality]. Przegląd Psycholo-giczny, 59, 309–328.
18.
Margasiński, A. (2019). Skale postaw wobec homoseksualizmu [Attitudes towards the homosexuality scale]. Wydawnictwo Liberi Libri.
19.
Meyer, I. H. (2013). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Concep-tual issues and research evidence. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 1, 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1037/2329-0....
20.
Mizielińska, J., & Stasińska, A. (2020). Frame story approach in mixed and multimethod study on non-heterosexual families in Poland. Sociological Research Online, 26, 792–809. https://doi.org/10.1177/136078....
21.
Nadal, K. L., Issa, M. A., Leon, J., Meterko, V., Wideman, M., & Wong, Y. (2011). Sexual orientation microaggres-sions: “Death by a thousand cuts” for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. Journal of LGBT Youth, 8, 234–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/193616....
23.
Orne, J. (2011). ‘You will always have to “out” yourself’: Reconsidering coming out through strategic outness. Sexualities, 14, 681–703. https://doi.org/10.1177/136346....
24.
Petterson, L. J., VanderLaan, D. P., Persson, T. J., & Vasey, P. L. (2018). The relationship between indicators of de-pression and anxiety and sexual orientation in Canadian women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47, 1173–1182. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508....
25.
Poštuvan, V., Podlogar, T., Šedivy, N. Z., & De Leo, D. (2019). Suicidal behaviour among sexual-minority youth: a review of the role of acceptance and support. The Lancet. Child & Adolescent Health, 3, 190–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-....
26.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press.
27.
Selinger, M. (2008). Intolerance toward gays and lesbians in Poland. Human Rights Review, 9, 15–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142....
28.
Slimowicz, J., Siev, J., & Brochu, P. M. (2020). Impact of status-based rejection sensitivity on depression and anxie-ty symptoms in gay men. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17, 1546. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph....
29.
Spielberger, C. D., & Reheiser, E. C. (2009). Assessment of emotions: Anxiety, anger, depression, and curiosity. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 1, 271–302. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758....
30.
Świder, M., & Winiewski, M. (Eds.). (2021). Sytuacja społeczna osób LGBTA w Polsce. Raport za lata 2019-2020 [The social situation of LGBTA people in Poland. Report for 2019-2020]. Kampania Przeciw Homofobii.
31.
Tilles, D. (2021). Poles becoming more socially liberal, with growing support for LGBT rights and abortion: poll. Notes from Poland. Retrieved from https://notesfrompoland.com/20....
32.
Winiewski, M., & Bulska, D. (2020). Uprzedzenia i przemoc wobec osób LGBT – diagnoza zjawiska i jego konse-kwencje [Prejudice and violence against LGBT people – diagnosis of the phenomenon and its consequences]. In W. Dragan & G. Iniewicz (Eds.), Orientacja seksualna. Źródła i konteksty [Sexual orientation: Sources and contexts] (pp. 97–121). Scholar.
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
Share
RELATED ARTICLE
| eISSN: | 2353-5571 |
| ISSN: | 2353-4184 |
We process personal data collected when visiting the website. The function of obtaining information about users and their behavior is carried out by voluntarily entered information in forms and saving cookies in end devices. Data, including cookies, are used to provide services, improve the user experience and to analyze the traffic in accordance with the Privacy policy. Data are also collected and processed by Google Analytics tool (more).
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
