PONE-D-21-11276

A Harmful vs. Protective Public Context with Higher Minority Stress for LGBTQ* Couples Decreases Enjoying Public Displays of Affection

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hess,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Partly

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Comments to the authors:

The paper aims to investigate whether minority stress (e.g., perceived discrimination) and physical displays of affection (PDA) vary across contexts (i.e., campus, city center, and private home – Study 3). It reports three studies conducted in Ireland and Germany among both cis-heterosexual and LGBTIQ+ university students. Notably, the last study relies on both quantitative and qualitative data.

Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this paper. The manuscript is clear, generally well written, and addresses an interesting topic. I particularly appreciate the use of a mixed-method approach in Study 3, which is a great strength of this manuscript. The findings of the qualitative analyses show a very interesting opposing/conflictual effect of context on PDA. I believe this finding is of particular relevance to the literature. I also appreciate that the authors focus on the context, which is often overlooked in the literature.

Next, I list the issues I identified.

Major:

The manuscript focuses on the concept of ‘minority stress (Meyer, 2003)’. This concept is, however, underdeveloped in the introduction. I would like the authors to develop this section further (e.g., by also referring to Hatzenbuehler research). This is particularly important because the authors mainly focus on one dimension of the model (i.e., distal stressors) without considering other forms of stressors (i.e., proximal stressors).

The method used to group participants differs between Studies 1-2 (i.e., LGBTIQ+ vs. cis heterosexual) and Study 3 (same-sex vs. other sex partners). I do understand the author's reasoning, but I see it as problematic for different reasons. First, the authors mention in Study 3 “An important change compared to Study 1 and 2 was that each participant was asked to explicitly state if their (hypothetical) partner was of the same or the different sex” (p.22); however, on page 11 (Study 1) it is mentioned that “Participants indicated which gender male or female, their (hypothetical) partner has (would have).” Please clarify whether this question was also asked in Studies 1 and 2. If so, please indicate whether the results of Studies 1-2 replicate using the Study 3 classification method. I would like to know whether part of (as not all items were asked to all participants) the results of Study 3 replicate using Studies 1-2 classification method.

Second, I think that the method used in Study 3 is quite problematic for bisexual/pansexual people. In general, considering the high levels of identity denial that bisexual/pansexual people have to face (see also Maimon et al., 2019), asking them to clearly state the gender of their imagined partner (if this was the case) is a bit problematic. While this concern cannot be addressed at this stage of the research, I would like the author to not refer to LGBTIQ+ vs. heteronormative (or cis-heterosexual) relationships in the results of Study 3 (as some bisexual people were classified in the heterosexual group). As stated by the author, “this way of assigning does not conform with the actual terminology of LGBTQ* which includes bisexuals with no regard to their partner’s gender” (p, 19). Please instead refer to different vs. same-sex partners. Please also indicate how you classified the 25 participants who did not identify as male or female.

Minor:

Please indicate the year of data collection and (if possible) the cities in which Studies 1&2 data were collected. Given that this article focuses on the ‘context,’ I think this information is of particular importance.

I would prefer to see the descriptive tables after the measure section. Please also add the p-values (for the correlations) in the tables.

The term ‘sexual identity’ is used to refer to the difference between the two groups (LGBTQ+ vs. cis heterosexual). However, heterosexual trans people in Studies 1 and 2 were included in the LGBTQ+ sample, right? This is, thus, not consistent with the terminology (since their sexual identity is ‘heterosexual’). Please address this concern (e.g., by referring to sexual and gender identity).

Study 3 is presented as a higher-powered study. Please revise this claim as the LBGTQ+ sample is not larger than in Study 2. Further, the design is quite unbalanced, which might impact some of the interactions.

On page 19, it is stated that “the survey was completed by N = 268 university students at more than 30 different German universities with NLGBTQ* = 80 and NHetero/Cis = 129”. The numbers don’t add up. Please clarify why (I might have missed something).

The result section of Study 3 (quantitative part in particular) is quite long; maybe there is an option to condense part of it (e.g., by referring more to the figure/Table).

In the qualitative part of Study 3, it is mentioned that “some participants answered the initial question on why their PDA was more frequent and enjoyable in one context by explaining why their PDA was less frequent and enjoyable in the other context.”(p.29). This also indicates a possible order effect. I would be curious to see whether the quantitative results were impacted by the question order (e.g., whether one context was asked before another).

On page 30, it is stated that “Moreover, while a context with increased minority stress does not seem to reduce the frequency in which LGBTQ*couples show affection (Study 3), it does impair their emotional affect during these affection displays…”. I might be mistaken, but is it not Study 2?

I sometimes felt like the discussion could be more integrated with the current literature (and what future research can learn from your findings).

Reference:

Maimon, M. R., Sanchez, D. T., Albuja, A. F., & Howansky, K. (2019). Bisexual identity denial and health: Exploring the role of societal meta-perceptions and belonging threats among bisexual adults. Self and Identity, 1-13.

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-21-11276R1A public context with higher minority stress for LGBTQ* couples decreases the enjoyment of public displays of affectionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wessler,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

A little more effort to address some minor Reviewer's comments and then the decision will be made by the Academic Editor without following through with a third review.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 19 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Stefano Federici, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

A little more effort to address some minor Reviewer's comments and then the decision will be made by the Academic Editor without following through with a third review..

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I appreciate that the authors addressed my comments thoroughly. I am, in general, very happy with the revisions. I, however, still have a few minor concerns:

1. The authors did a great job in developing the ‘minority stress model’ in the introduction. On a minor note, the authors might consider splitting the new paragraph on p.4 into two (e.g., splitting at lines 36-37).

2. The description of the method used to group participants is much clearer now. The authors mention that the question in Studies 1-2 read: “What gender does/would your partner have? [Female/Male/Other]”. However, in the text, it is mentioned that “Participants indicated which gender male or female, their (hypothetical) partner has.” Please revise the text to mention that participants could also indicate that they had a partner who did not fall into the gender binarity (i.e., the ‘other’ response category).

3. I was also happy to see the new analyses using a different method to group participants in the discussion section. If the authors are short on the word limit (or want to shorten their discussion section), they might consider moving these findings to the supplementary material and mentioning them in the main text (or in a footnote).

4. Finally, I thank the authors for mentioning the limitations of the study regarding bi- and pansexual participants. In general, I like this addition. However, I still find the sentence “because our research focused on distal stressors, which are more pronounced when people are perceived as LGBTQ* by other […]” problematic. Indeed, if people are genuinely perceived as LGBTQ*, then this should not be depending on the sex of their partner (i.e., bisexual people should be considered LGBTQ* regardless of the sex of their partner). I would therefore suggest revising this sentence to, for instance: “because our research focused on distal stressors, which are more pronounced when people are with a same-sex vs. different-sex partner […]”.

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Reviewer #1: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

A public context with higher minority stress for LGBTQ* couples decreases the enjoyment of public displays of affection

PONE-D-21-11276R2

Dear Dr. Wessler,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Stefano Federici, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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