Negative Family Treatment of Sexual Minority Women and Transmen in Viet Nam: Latent Classes and Their Predictors

Sexual/gender minority persons commonly face rejection from parents and other family members. To date, research on this topic has either measured family rejection as one binary or continuous variable, or characterized family rejection using several variables representing specific behaviors or dimensions of behaviors (a variable-oriented approach). No research has been done on family rejection/negative treatment of sexual/gender minority people from a person-oriented approach, looking at whether the treatment by the families of different individuals could be classified into a number of categories – i.e., whether there are different types of family treatment experience. This study used data from an anonymous internet sample of 2664 adult sexual minority women and transmen in Viet Nam, and conducted latent class analysis on 19 items representing negative actions by parents or other family members. Six distinct classes were extracted: peace (36.7% of the sample), pressure (34.0%), aggressive to respondent and girlfriend (10.3%), aggressive to respondent (8.1%),  severe (6.0%), and extreme (4.7%). We regressed class membership on individual, family and contextual variables, using three-step latent class regression with Vermunt correction for class uncertainty. Overall, younger age, transman identity, religion affiliation, and higher parent awareness of non-heterosexuality predicted being in more negative classes. This study shows that latent class methods can be used to expand knowledge about negative family treatment of sexual/gender minority persons by identifying a naturally occurring typology of family treatment classes and assessing predictors of negative classes. Future research should examine the effects of these family treatment classes on health and well-being.