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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microaggression | 4/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:13:14.791929+00:00 | kb-cron |
Microaggressions about sexual orientation can be rooted in heterosexist language and heteronormativity; stereotyping, deriding, undersexualizing or exoticizing the LGBTQ experience; or denying that heterosexism exists. Documented sources of systemic microaggressions include the media, religious groups, governments and educational organizations. Systemic microaggressions can involve negative, discriminatory portrayals and policies that target people who aren't straight, or queer people more broadly. In some studies, researchers found that microaggressions affected queer targets' self-acceptance and self-esteem, increasing the potential for anxiety, stress, and PTSD symptoms. Microaggressions towards LGBTQ people are likely to cause less distress when the target has high levels of self-acceptance. K. L. Nadal and M. J. Corpus documented some microaggressions against LGBTQ people in a pair of 2013 studies. Example microassaults (explicit insults) include using heterosexist language, like saying "that's so gay" as a put-down. Microinsults (subtly rude messaging) include comments rooted in stereotypes. As an example, a joke that a gay man couldn't like sports implies that all gay men are feminine, or a comment that a woman is too pretty to be lesbian implies that all lesbians are masculine. An example microinvalidation (denial of someone's reality) might happen after a queer person speaks up about a time they felt discriminated against, if someone then replies that the perception is unfounded or ridiculous and thus downplays transphobia or heterosexism. Commonly experienced microaggressions differ for people of particular sexualities and gender presentations. Lesbians often face microaggressions rooted in misoygny, centering around expectations of their appearances, roles, and relationships. Lesbian and bisexual women experience disproportionate sexualization by heterosexual men. Lesbians have also reported experiences of undersexualization by friends and family, where they are treated as if their identity is a phase until "proven." Gay men commonly experience microaggressions involving derisive heterosexist language, and policing or denials of their masculinity. Microaggressions towards gay men are also often rooted in stereotypes which may be unrealistic and tokenizing, characterizing them as hypersexual, or demonizing and treating them as predatory. In focus groups, individuals identifying as bisexual report such microaggressions as others denying or dismissing their self-narratives or identity claims, being unable to understand or accept bisexuality as a possibility, pressuring them to change their bisexual identity, expecting them to be sexually promiscuous, and questioning their ability to maintain monogamous relationships. Bisexual people, and especially bisexual men, have not received much individualized attention by researchers, and this can be understood as a systemic microaggression. In a 2013 study, most microaggressions bisexual people report are similar to those reported by gay and lesbian respondents, although bisexual people tended to face less sexuality-based stereotyping over what skills they were good at. On the other hand, bisexual people more frequently experienced microaggressions which treated them as if they were mostly straight or had never come out, and this added to people's negative internal beliefs and confusion over their identity. Some LGBTQ individuals report receiving expressions of microaggression from people even within the LGBTQ community. They say that being excluded, or not being made welcome or understood within the gay and lesbian community is a microaggression. Roffee and Waling suggest that the issue arises, as occurs among many groups of people, because a person often makes assumptions based on individual experience, and when they communicate such assumptions, the recipient may feel that it lacks taking the second individual into account and is a form of microaggression. Queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people face an increased likelihood of experiencing microaggressions. Microaggressions faced by queer or trans folks can result in the scrutinization, exoticization, sexualization, fetishization, and further discrimination of this population. These microaggressions maintain “cis-sexism” and the perception that queer and trans folks are inferior or less authentic than cisgendered people. This may be a result of active, conventional, and harmful ways of thinking about gender and sexuality on a binary scale rather than as a spectrum.
=== Intersectionality ===
People who are members of overlapping marginal groups (e.g., a gay Asian American man or a gender-nonconforming trans woman) experience microaggressions based in correspondingly varied forms of marginalization. Research on intersectionality highlights that overlapping identities such as race, gender, and ability can shape distinct microaggression experiences that are not reducible to any single category. For example, in one study Asian American women reported feeling they were classified as sexually exotic by majority-culture men or were viewed by them as potential trophy wives simply because of their group membership. African American women report microaggressions related to characteristics of their hair, which may include invasion of personal space as an individual tries to touch it, or comments that a style that is different from that of a European American woman looks "unprofessional".
=== People with mental illnesses ===