Browsing by Author "Gorman, Bridget"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Assimilation, Gender, and Health among Asian Americans in the United States
    (2024-06-25) Kim, Min Ju; Gorman, Bridget
    Scholarship on assimilation and health among Asian Americans in the United States has largely focused on the foreign-born population. As a result, relatively less is known about generational disparities in health among Asian Americans as well as the mechanisms that underlie them. In recognition of such gaps in existing literature, I use the 2016 National Asian American Survey (NAAS) (n=4,242) and first examine how Asian/American identity centrality moderates the relationship between generational status and self-rated health among Asian American adults. In the process, I consider gender as a key modifier in recognition of gendered contexts of migration. I find that Asian identity centrality operates as a health-protective resource among foreign-born first-generation immigrants, in contrast to their native-born counterparts among whom it functions as a risk factor. American identity centrality is also a risk to health, but specifically among second-generation women. Then I use the same data and analyze how discrimination shapes self-rated health across generations, also accounting for differences by gender. I find that second-generation men are most vulnerable to the adverse relationship between discrimination and health, illuminating the contexts of gendered racism as well as generational differences in internalized racism. Lastly, I draw on data from the 2011-2020 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and investigate the interrelationship between nativity, ethnicity, gender, and self-rated health among Asian American adults (n=16,754). I find that nativity disparities in health are differentially shaped by the intersection of ethnicity and gender, highlighting the need to consider varying modes of incorporation across Asian ethnic groups in tandem with gendered contexts of migration. Future research should continue to develop a comparative understanding of generational disparities in health among Asian Americans, with greater attention to gender specificity and intervening mechanisms.
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    Cogs in the Machine or Unionized Against Cisheteronormativity: Siblings in the Gender and Sexuality Factory
    (2024-07-17) Alexander, Katherine S.; Gorman, Bridget
    While the family has been described as a gender and sexuality factory, most research on gender socialization in families focuses on how parents contribute to or challenge cisheteronormativity in their childrearing and acceptance, rejection, or ambivalence toward their LGBTQ children. This leaves the potentially supportive role of nonparental relatives, such as siblings who act as important peer and family resources and influences, understudied. Drawing on 73 qualitative interviews from a mixed-methods longitudinal study with LGBTQ youth in South Texas and the Inland Empire of California, I analyze the meaning-making narratives that LGBTQ youth use to evaluate their siblings as supportive family members. I find that siblings engage in a range of practices that affirm or resist family cisheteronormativity, with consequences for LGBTQ youth’s wellbeing, sense of safety, and housing stability. This study advances research on gender as an accomplishment through family interactions by demonstrating how siblings hold LGBTQ youth accountable to cisheteronormativity as well as use accountability processes to challenge other family members to recognize gender and sexual diversity.
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    Different and Not Equal: How Poverty, Race, and State-Level Abortion Laws Shape Abortion Timing Among US Women
    (2015-12-03) Solazzo, Alexa; Gorman, Bridget; Denney, Justin; Cech, Erin
    The number of regulations surrounding abortion has increased drastically in recent years. How these laws relate to abortion timing is important to assess since the cost, safety, and accessibility of abortion varies by how many weeks pregnant a woman is when the procedure occurs. Research examining how state laws relate to abortion timing generally use rates or data from vital statistics, and while informative, such methods are not able to examine how these laws may be disproportionately associated with the abortion timing among select groups of women, including poor or non-white women. To fill this research gap, I analyze data from the nationally representative 2008 Abortion Patient Survey, with appended information on state laws regarding abortion in 2008. I find that the relationship between abortion timing and state-level abortion laws, such as requiring a waiting period and that doctors perform abortions, is different for black and Hispanic women compared to white women, and that poverty status moderates the association between state laws and abortion timing for black and Hispanic women, while for white women these relationships are the same regardless of poverty status. Overall, this research illustrates the relevance of state-level abortion laws for shaping abortion timing among women, and the importance of considering how these relationships differ across racial and socioeconomic groups.
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    Healthcare satisfaction at the intersections of sexual orientation and race/ethnicity
    (Taylor & Francis, 2023) Kim, Min Ju; Wilkins, Kiana; Gorman, Bridget
    Objectives: Existing scholarship has consistently demonstrated disparities in healthcare experience based on sexual identity. However, relatively little research has considered intersections with race/ethnicity, despite that intersection with other characteristics may complicate healthcare experiences and satisfaction among sexual minorities. This study aims to address such a gap by examining healthcare satisfaction across the intersections of sexual and racial/ethnic identity.Design: Utilizing data on U.S. adults included in the 2013–2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (n = 372,766), we investigate levels of satisfaction with care among a range of groups simultaneously embodying two identities.Results: Findings from ordered logistic regression models show that among adults who identify as heterosexual, the odds of reporting high satisfaction with care are lower among Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans. Among sexual minority adults, the likelihood of reporting high satisfaction with care is consistently lower among Native American gay and lesbian adults compared to gays and lesbians of other race/ethnicity or Native American and White heterosexuals, indicating heightened vulnerability to poorer healthcare experience among this multiple minority group.Conclusion: While levels of satisfaction with care tend to be generally high across groups, future research should endeavor to investigate the driving factors that lower the odds of high healthcare satisfaction among those with intersecting minority identities.
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    License to Discriminate: Structural Stigma and Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Health
    (2018-04-17) Solazzo, Alexa L; Gorman, Bridget
    A growing body of research suggests that a lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons’ stigmatized status impacts their health relative to heterosexuals. However, less research has examined how differences in stigma towards LGB people across geographic locales influences these health differentials. This dissertation draws upon structural stigma theory to examine whether or not a LGB person living in a state with marriage equality, anti-discrimination protections, or with high acceptance of LGB people can influence how healthy they are, in addition to whether they have insurance and can go to the doctor. In the first empirical chapter, I test different operationalizations of structural stigma to predict health outcomes, including health insurance status, access to medical care, and self-rated health. I find that measures of cultural acceptance for lesbian and gay people is important in predicting self-rated health, while both legal and cultural measures are important predictors of health insurance and health care for gay/lesbians and bisexuals. Furthermore, results show that these operationalizations of structural stigma work similarly for both men and women sexual minorities. The second empirical chapter tests whether structural stigma is associated with health insurance and health care access over and above individual characteristics (including demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, and health behaviors). Overall, I find that group level differences in marital status and socioeconomic status explain state-level variations in health insurance and medical care access. The third empirical chapter tests whether structural stigma is associated with self-rated health over and above individual characteristics, and I find that in states with high levels of structural stigma (or low acceptance of LGB people), gay and lesbian adults experience worse health than heterosexuals, with no health disparities in states with low levels of structural stigma. Step-wise regressions show income mediated much of the relationship between structural stigma and self-rated health. These findings point to the importance of context in influencing health-related outcomes for gay and lesbian adults, as well as the role that income plays in creating health disparities.
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    Marginalized Within the Margins: Minority Status, Identity Centrality and Wellbeing
    (2020-08-05) Tuthill, Zelma L; Gorman, Bridget
    Mounting evidence highlights how stressors related to stigma associated with sexual minority identity contribute to poorer wellbeing and unhealthy coping behaviors among sexual minority adults (Meyer 2003). Work on identity also documents how aspects of identity related processes, including identity centrality, shape coping and wellbeing for people with marginalized or stigmatized identities (Umana-Taylor et al. 2015;Fuligi, Witkow and Garcia 2005; Chavous et al. 2003). Missing are examinations that consider how identity centrality shapes how people with more than one marginalized identity experience and cope with minority stressors. To fill this gap, this dissertation examines the role of identity centrality in the relationship between minority stressors and wellbeing. In the first empirical chapter, I use a mixed method approach and draw on 25 in depth interviews in addition to an analysis of secondary data from the Social Justice Sexuality Project (SJSP) to examine the relationship between identity centrality and exposure to minority stressors among Black and Latino/a sexual minority adults. My findings illuminate how minority stressors from gendered, heterosexist and racialized experiences shape perceptions of identity centrality across social position. In the second empirical chapter, I utilize the SJSP and apply an intercategorical intersectional approach (McCall 2005) to examine how both sexual and racial/ethnic identity centrality shape wellbeing. I found a significant association between identity centrality and both mental wellbeing and smoking status. However, I did not find evidence of a significant association between identity centrality and physical health status. In the third empirical chapter, I again use a mixed method approach to examine patterns of social support and community integration among Black and Latino/a sexual minority adults. My results emphasize the importance of both racial/ethnic and sexual identity centrality in shaping patterns of support and integration across social position. I found evidence that both sexual and racial/ethnic identity centrality were significantly associated with perceived family support and feelings of connectedness to the LGBT community. In terms of community involvement, I show that sexual identity centrality was significantly associated with involvement in the LGBT community while racial/ethnic identity centrality was significantly associated with involvement in the POC community. My interview findings also highlight that family is not the only supportive option for sexual minorities of color. Various respondents adapted to limited familial support by strategically seeking support from family through reframing of sexual identity stressors, relying on certain supportive family members or seeking support from other relationships in their networks including friendships, community ties and significant others. Overall, my findings suggest that identity centrality is an important component of the minority stress process that has significant implications for how sexual minorities of color experience and cope with minority stressors.
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    The Doctor is In – Who is Left Out? Disparities in Healthcare Access among Older Adults by Gender and Sexual Orientation
    (2022-03-29) Smith-Johnson, Madeline; Gorman, Bridget
    Access to healthcare is key to aging well. Prior research demonstrates disparities in access over the lifecourse, but few include sexual and gender diverse (SGD) groups. Problematizing the exclusion of gender minorities, this study examines data from a probability-based sample of adults 65 and older, living in 43 U.S. states from 2014-2020 and asks whether gender identity and sexual orientation shape healthcare access. I test four outcomes––having insurance, a doctor, a recent checkup, and care affordability––presenting predicted probabilities from logistic regression models. I progressively complicate how identity is measured, stratifying results by gender and sexual orientation, revealing variation depending on measurement. Comparing “trans” to “cisgender” obscures vulnerabilities. Gender nonconforming elders had worse healthcare access if they reported female sex. Transgender elders had the lowest rates of access if they were also bisexual. Findings demonstrate the utility of combining gender and sexual identity in describing patterns of disadvantage.