What is it about?

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority (LGB+) immigrants navigate challenges tied to both their sexual orientation and their immigration background. This study used national survey data from 1,390 LGB+ adults in the U.S. to ask whether people's mental health and life satisfaction differ depending on when and how they immigrated — as a first-generation immigrant, as someone who arrived as a child (1.5 generation), as someone born in the U.S. to immigrant parents (second generation), or as a non-immigrant. We also examined whether everyday discrimination affects these groups differently. We found that first-generation immigrants reported somewhat better mental health than non-immigrants, but people who immigrated as children reported the highest levels of psychological distress of any group. Regardless of immigrant generation, experiencing everyday discrimination was consistently linked to lower life satisfaction and higher psychological distress — this harm did not fade the longer someone, or their family, had been in the U.S. Bisexual, non-binary, and LGB+ People of Color also reported worse mental health outcomes overall.

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Why is it important?

Much of the existing research on immigrant well-being assumes that mental health improves the longer a family has been in the U.S. — an idea sometimes called the "immigrant paradox." Our findings complicate that assumption: the group with the highest distress wasn't the newest arrivals, but those who immigrated as young children, a pattern easy to miss if research only compares "immigrants" to "non-immigrants" as two categories. We also show that discrimination is equally damaging across all immigrant generations, meaning that time and integration in the U.S. do not protect LGB+ people from its effects. At a moment of heightened immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant policy in the U.S., these findings point to a clear, practical need: mental health services and anti-discrimination efforts for LGB+ immigrant communities should be tailored to generational differences rather than treating all immigrants — or all LGB+ people — as a single group.

Perspectives

I came to the U.S. as an international student to pursue my PhD, and this project grew out of my own experience of straddling two cultural worlds. As I met and talked with other LGB+ immigrants and international students, I noticed how differently people described their sense of belonging and their mental health, depending on when and how they had come to the U.S. That observation is what led me to this research question: does immigrant generational status actually shape LGB+ people's well-being, and does it change how much discrimination affects them? What surprised me most was the finding on 1.5-generation immigrants — people who arrived as children. I expected that more time in the U.S. would generally mean better outcomes, similar to what's often assumed about acculturation. Instead, this group reported the highest psychological distress of anyone in the study. It reshaped how I think about "belonging" — that growing up between two cultures can carry a weight of its own, separate from simply how long someone has lived somewhere. As someone still early in this journey myself, I hope this work pushes both researchers and practitioners to see LGB+ immigrant communities as diverse in their needs, rather than assuming a single story fits everyone.

Feifan Ma
Ohio State University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Beyond borders, beneath the surface: Discrimination, life satisfaction, and mental health across lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority (LGB+) immigrant generations., Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, July 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/sgd0000949.
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