Exploring Helplessness and Stress Coping Strategies Among Sexual Minority: A Cross-Sectional Study

Priyambada K. Verma^1* & Yogesh Deshpande^{2  
1}PhD Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, VNIT, Nagpur, India. *Corresponding author
²Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, VNIT, India.

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 4, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n4.04
Full-Text PDF Issue Access}
Abstract

The study was conducted on transgender and gay individuals to explore whether the two groups differ on Stress Coping Strategies and Helplessness. The study also assessed the correlation between their Stress Coping Strategies and Helplessness. The study was conducted on 159 participants, 72 gay, and 87 transgender individuals. The data was subjected to correlation and t-test, assuming unequal variance. The correlational analysis revealed that ‘outer wall strategy’ had a negative correlation with ‘inadequacy’ (-0.41), ‘coping difficulties’ (-0.39), and ‘failure to invariants and negative events’ (-0.26) and a positive correlation with ‘problem avoidance and low cognition’ (0.24); ‘diet control’ had a negative correlation with ‘inadequacy’ (-0.29), ‘coping difficulties’ (-0.24) and ‘failure to invariants and negative events’ (-0.23) and ‘avoidance’ had positive correlation with ‘syndrome of cognitive motivational disturbances’ (0.28) and negative correlation with ‘coping difficulties’ (-0.27) and ‘anxious over concern and fruitless tendency to worry’ (-0.20). Further, the findings revealed that transgender individuals (112.85) scored significantly higher on Stress Coping Strategies as compared to gay individuals (101.30).  However, there was no significant difference between gay (65.54) and transgender (64.93) with respect to helplessness.

Keywords: Transgender, Gay, Sexual minorities, Correlation, Helplessness, Stress coping strategies.