Stressed and oppressed: Insider perspectives on stress induction research with LGBTQA+ People of Color

There is a substantial body of literature on researcher and participant vulnerability and subjectivity when using qualitative research methods to work with marginalized populations, yet few resources exist for researchers conducting stress induction experiments with these groups - including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQA+) people of Color. As a result, I was unprepared for the consequences of conducting the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) with LGBTQA+ young adults of Color and the vicarious stress that I would encounter as a queer researcher of Color. In this article, I describe the process of conducting the TSST with LGBTQA+ people of Color, reporting participant experiences and feedback and describing my own experiences of inducing stress among members of an oppressed population to which I belong. Using fieldnotes from this study and the extant literature on applications of critical theory and insider research in the qualitative field, I consider possible modifications to socially evaluative stress induction methods for social justice-oriented work with oppressed populations and discuss my perspectives on disrupting positivist assertions in quantitative, psychophysiological research with LGBTQA+ people of Color.