Colorism is a skin tone stratification system that privileges light-skinned people over their darker-skinned counterparts. It has been linked to a variety of negative mental health and social outcomes. This critical participatory action research study examined the impact and manifestation of colorism among Black adolescent girls. Ten Black adolescent girl researchers were recruited to assist in all aspects of the research (i.e., theory development, research design, data collection, analysis, dissemination). The research team conducted a mixed-method study involving a PhotoVoice Project, a survey (n = 59), and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) with Black girl youth. Results indicated that colorism is pervasive: 86 percent of participants believed that dark-skinned girls are more likely to be treated unfairly in schools, and 81% believed that dark-skinned girls are less likely to be believed when reporting abuse. Thematic analysis showed that colorism negatively impacts mental health through manifestation across a variety of settings and relationships (e.g., schools, family, friendships, dating) and through exclusion, segregation, mocking, devaluation, and assumptions of aggressiveness. Social support and resilience were identified as coping and resistance strategies. The results highlight the role of colorism as a social determinant of health among Black girls.

Colorism is a form of prejudice and discrimination which oppresses individuals with darker skin tones (Reece, 2019). Limited research critically examines the experiences of colorism across the diversity of Asian ethnic groups (Yoo et al., 2022). This qualitative study seeks to disaggregate the experiences of colorism among Asian American students at a Southwestern university (N=65). Researchers utilized reflexive thematic analysis to understand the experiences, feelings, impact, and community regard of colorism (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Preliminary findings reveal nuanced descriptions of colorism in relation to other forms of oppression based on the sociopolitical histories of their ethnic backgrounds. East and Southeast Asians often related their experiences of colorism to stereotypes of foreignness, whereas South Asians often related their experiences of colorism to social hierarchies. Southeast Asians mentioned experiences of cultural invalidations and perceived ethnic ambiguity due to skin tone. Women across all subgroups connected colorism to societal expectations of beauty, but differed in their approaches to achieving lighter skin tones (e.g., avoiding sun, sunscreen, skin lightening and bleaching). Future directions include further examination of colorism as it relates to acculturation and identity (e.g., centrality) in addition to objective measures of skin tone such as swatches.

Psychology has historically served as a facilitator of oppression by perpetuating racist and heterosexist ideologies, as evidenced by people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals often being misrepresented or excluded from psychological research. In successive decades, psychology, and particularly the counseling psychology specialty have sought to remedy this inequity by prioritizing a focus on social justice and multiculturalism. This paper sought to investigate the extent to which intersectional concerns, particularly those pertaining to queer people of color (QPOC) have been represented in psychological scholarship. Expanding an extant content analysis on intersectionality (Shin et al., 2017), we examined publications from the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) between 1954 and 2021. Deductive methods were employed to trace history in two ways: (1) reexamining the existing intersectionality content analysis (1954 2016) for QPOC literature, and (2) quantifying the presence of intersectional and QPOC studies in JCP (2017 2021). Results yielded two QPOC articles published in JCP between 1954 and 2016. Further, 36 articles on intersectionality were published in JCP between 2017 and 2021, nine of which were QPOC related. In total, out of 5,107 articles published in JCP over 67 years, 11 focused on QPOC. Implications and future directions for the discipline are discussed.

Background: LGBTQ+ BIPOC individuals may experience racial trauma (Bryant Davis & Ocampo, 2005; Carter, 2007), historical trauma (e.g., Menzies, 2019), collective trauma (e.g., Sangalang & Vang, 2017), and single event PTSD trauma. These forms of trauma can be passed down generationally and become intergenerational trauma (Isobel et al., 2019). This paper examined LGBTQ+ BIPOC individuals’ experiences of intergenerational trauma using constructivist grounded theory method (Charmaz, 2006; Charmaz, 2014; Charmaz, 2017). Methods: Ten LGBTQ+ BIPOC individuals (Mean Age = 27.9 years) were recruited via social media sampling. Semi structured interviews were conducted, lasting 60 to 90 minutes. Results: The core category of “making sense of intergenerational trauma as it relates to pain and healing” was generated. Focused codes under the core category included: a) connections to identities, b) pain of silence, c) familial and cultural socialization, d) multiple marginalization, e) generational differences in naming experiences, f) historical events, and g) communal healing. Conclusion: The findings show that addressing intergenerational trauma in clinical work may be important, especially given past researchers’ suggestions that addressing sociocultural oppression is important to provide culturally affirming therapy (Arora et al., 2022). The findings also suggest that PTSD conceptualizations of trauma may not encompass LGBTQ+ BIPOC individuals.