Sexual and gender minority youth in Canada: An investigation of disparities in positive mental health

TL;DR

This study finds that sexual and gender minority youth in Canada report lower positive mental health compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers.

Contribution

The study provides new evidence on positive mental health disparities among 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Canada.

Findings

Sexual minority youth reported lower life satisfaction and mental health compared to heterosexual youth.

Youth attracted to both genders showed more consistent disparities than those attracted to the same gender.

Gender minority youth also reported lower well-being than cisgender youth.

Abstract

While studies indicate that 2SLGBTQ + youth are more likely to experience negative psychological outcomes compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, less is known about the positive mental health (PMH) of 2SLGBTQ + youth in Canada. To fill this gap, we investigated disparities in PMH by self-reported sexual attraction among 15‒17-year-olds and gender modality among 12‒17-year-olds.

We analyzed data from youth respondents in the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth. We obtained estimates of average life satisfaction and high self-rated mental health, happiness, autonomy, competence, and relatedness for youth with an exclusively heterosexual attraction and youth with a minority sexual attraction (those exclusively attracted to the same gender, and those attracted to both females and males), and for cisgender and gender minority youth. Regression analyses were conducted to test for disparities on each PMH outcome.

Compared with exclusively heterosexual youth, sexual minority youth reported lower life satisfaction and were less likely to report high self-rated mental health, happiness, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Significant disparities were more consistently found for youth attracted to both females and males than youth exclusively attracted to the same gender. Gender minority (versus cisgender) youth also reported lower average life satisfaction and were less likely to report high self-rated mental health, happiness, autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Although this study provides evidence for the presence of disparities in PMH, its strength-based focus on PMH also documents the presence of well-being among many sexual and gender minority youth in Canada.