Social support among young, queer people with immigrant backgrounds

Implications for prevention: Educating health professionals in issues faced by queer immigrants is an important preventive measure against marginalisation and discrimination.

Background: Social support is an important health determinant among young people, as social networks and the ability to seek support improves the quality of life. This study shows that the way young, queer immigrants experience social support is influenced by intersectionality, a term that describes how their belonging to several minority groups makes them especially vulnerable to discrimination and marginalisation. The participants of this study have immigrant parents, meaning they grew up being multicultural, speaking a minority language at home and having to navigate the dominant social norms in Norway for themselves. Additionally, their families come from cultures where being transgender or queer is illegal, the result being that they sometimes face homophobia or transphobia at home and racism in queer settings. Understanding how social support plays a role in their health and how they seek it provides valuable information when developing much needed targeted health services for queer immigrants.

Objective: To examine how social support is understood and experienced by young, queer people with immigrant backgrounds in Norway.

Design: This is a qualitative study with five individual in-depth interviews. The participants are 18-31 years old, identify themselves as queer/transgender, and have at least one parent who was born outside of Western Europe and Northern America.

Results: The preliminary results show
- Social support plays a different role in each of the participant’s life, some highlighting access to health services when asked how they understood the term, while others pointed to the emotional support given by friends
- All but one of the participants sought health support due to mental health issues at some point in their lives. Three of them linked their need for health support to their experience of being queer, expressing a battle between their identity as queer and members of their parents’culture. Several of the participants received support from minority counsellors at school and emphasised the importance of confiding in someone who shared an immigrant background
- Stories of openness about their own sexuality or gender identity came to light when asked about social support and belonging, indicating that this played a vital role in what kind of support they received, and from whom. All of the participants were open about their queer identity with some family members, although four of them hid their sexuality when spending time with extended family due to their implicit expectations of a heteronormative life. One of the participants was excluded from his family after revealing his queer identity

Conclusion: There is a need for more accessible and targeted health care services that provide social support to queer immigrants.