Table 1.

Sample interview items.

Protocol Section	Item
Introduction	We’ll talk about challenges and stressors that you may have experienced over your life.
Life story	Tell me about the time in your life that is really the highest point in your life story, a time when you were just so happy and felt at peace with the world. Tell me about the time in your life when you felt the lowest-a time when you felt a lot of negative emotions, like sadness, despair, fear, or anger. Now tell me about a turning point in your life. A turning point is a time in which something happened that changed you as a person. Think of a particular event in your life that had this kind of impact on you when before this event happened, you thought of yourself one way, then the event happened, and you thought of yourself in an entirely different way.
Challenges, stress, and coping	Looking back over your life, tell me what you think has been the single greatest challenge you have faced so far in life. Tell me how you have handled this challenge, and how you think having to deal with this challenge has impacted you as a person. How about any challenges you may have had in your life relates to being [LGB term]? Starting when you were an adolescent, were there times when you were treated differently because of your sexual identity and or gender expression? Were there other times in your life that you were treated differently because of your sexual identity and or gender expression? Has that changed over time? Looking back over your life, were there times that you had an easy or hard time accepting yourself as [LGB term]? Has that changed over time? In general, in your day-today experiences, do you feel that society is accepting of you and other LGB people? People sometimes need to or feel like that they need to hide their LGB identity from others such as teachers, etc. Looking back over your life, please tell me about being out vs. not being out about your [LGB identity term]. What types of things helped you deal with challenges and negative experiences you’ve had related to being [LGB term]?
Social and historical moments	Can you tell me about your memories during puberty and adolescence about what was happening in society with regard to LGBT issues?