LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale (Balsam et al., 2011)

• Populations: Sexual and Racial minority adolescents
• Age ranges: 13-17
• Languages: English
• Countries: United States

Items

Subscales

• LGBTQ+ Racism, 6 Items
• POC Heterosexism, 6 Items
• LGBTQ+ Relationship Racism, 6 Items

Items by Subscale

LGBTQ+ Racism

• Not being able to trust White LGBT people
• Feeling misunderstood by White LGBT people
• Having to educate White LGBT people about race issues
• Being the token LGBT person of color in groups or organizations
• Being told that “race isn’t important” by White LGBT people
• White LGBT people saying things that are racist 

POC Heterosexism

• Not being accepted by other people of your race-ethnicity because you are LGBT
• Feeling misunderstood by people in your ethnic/racial community
• Feeling invisible because you are LGBT
• Difficulty findings friends who are LGBT and from your racial-ethnic background
• Feeling unwelcome at groups or events in your racial-ethnic community
• Not having any LGBT people of color as positive role models 

LGBTQ+ Relationship Racism

• Being rejected by other LGBT people of your same race-ethnicity
• Being rejected by potential dating or sexual partners because of your race-ethnicity
• Being seen as a sex object by other LGBT people because of your race-ethnicity
• Reading personal ads that say “White people only”
• Feeling like White LGBT people are only interested in you for your appearance
• Being discriminated against by other LGBT people because of your race 

Note: LGBTQ+ Racism refers to the “Racism in LGBTQ+ communities” subscale; POC Heterosexism refers to the “Heterosexism in racial-ethnic minority communities” subscale; and LGBTQ+ Relationship Racism refers to the “Racism in dating and close relationships” subscale.

As presented by Caba et al., 2024

Scoring

“Following scoring instructions by Balsam et al. (2011) in the measurement validation paper, responses of 0 were recoded and combined with responses of 1, resulting in a range of 1–4 that referred to the level of distress experienced.”

Citations

• Balsam, K. F., Molina, Y., Beadnell, B., Simoni, J., & Walters, K. (2011). Measuring multiple minority stress: The LGBT people of color micro-aggressions scale. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(2), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023244
• Caba, A. E., Christophe, N. K., Renley, B. M., Simon, K. A., Feinstein, B. A., Eaton, L. A., & Watson, R. J. (2024). Measurement invariance of 
  the LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale among LGBTQ+ youth. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 34, 759–775. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12937

Team comments

This measure was originally validated by Balsam and colleagues (2011) in an adult sample.  As the Good Measure project is focused on adolescents, all measurement data and evaluations reported here are based on the work of Caba and colleagues (2024), who validated this measure in adolescents.