Sexual Racism and Queer Asian American Men’s Depression and Hazardous Drinking

While research suggests that sexual racism is prevalent within the gay community, studies have neglected to examine how this specific manifestation of racism influences queer Asian American men's mental health. Queer Asian American men's health outcomes are often overlooked as racism-related studies tend to homogenize queer Asian American men with queer men of color broadly. Thus, the present study examined the association between sexual racism and queer Asian American men's depressive symptomatology and hazardous drinking, as well as the moderating role of collective racial self-esteem. The final sample consisted of 151 queer Asian American men who completed a 30-minute cross-sectional survey. Regression analyses indicated that sexual racism was positively associated with depressive symptomatology, whereas it was not associated with hazardous drinking. Additionally, collective racial self-esteem was not found to have a moderating effect. These findings underscore the necessity of racial justice-promoting interventions to minimize queer Asian American men's experience of sexual racism in gay communities. Results also highlight the importance of developing culturally congruent training for clinicians working with queer Asian American men to gain an understanding of how sexual racism impacts this population.