ABSTRACT
The successful development of healthy group and self-identities among members of oppressed groups involves the ability to reconcile competing demands from the dominant society and the individual’s ethnic, racial, or the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. Research has demonstrated that positive LGBT self and group identities as well as a positive racial or ethnic identity are integrally connected to psychological well-being (Bradford, 2004, 2006; Crawford, Allison, Zamboni, & Soto, 2002; Helms, 1989; Phinney, 1990; Sue, 1992; Walters & Simoni, 1993). Despite the recognition that ethnic or LGBT identity is important in mental health functioning, little research has investigated the multiple oppressed statuses and the interactions of these statuses in psychosocial functioning
Social Work Practice with LGBT People
among LGBT persons of color (LGBTOC). For LGBTOCs, the integration of a consolidated racial and LGBT identity are even more complex, involving negotiations of conflicting allegiances to the LGBT communities and their ethnic community. Despite the importance of understanding the complex interactions among racism, sexism, and heterosexism that LGBTOCs must negotiate, the social work practice literature remains inadequate in providing any practice guidelines that incorporate these issues. This chapter explores how racial and LGBT identities moderate life stressors associated with a double or triple oppressed group status and the conflicts in allegiances that arise as a result of these life stressors. At the end of the chapter, implications for individual and community social work practice will be discussed from an ecological life-modeled perspective (Germain & Gitterman, 1996).
