Resilience among young men who have sex with men in New York City

This article describes a study of resilience among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Resilience is defined as positive adaptation in the context of hardship. Using targeted sampling to capture the diversity and range of this hidden population, we recruited 569 YMSM ages 17–28 years old and examined a subset of 134 YMSM who had experienced severe childhood adversity, as indicated by placement in foster care. Most of the YMSM in this subset were from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds and fewer than half identified as gay or homosexual (46.3 percent). More than half (58.3 percent) exhibited positive outcomes on four of seven indicators of adaptive functioning. YMSM who identified as either bisexual or heterosexual exhibited lower rates of resilience. Structural- as well as individual-level factors appear to be implicated in resilience among YMSM. Findings underscore the importance of fostering stable sexual identity as a means of building resilience.