"We had to care about ourselves": Distress and coping among gay, bisexual, and queer (GBQ+) Latinx men after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

OBJECTIVE

The Pulse Nightclub shooting is the deadliest act of violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community in U.S.

HISTORY: After the shooting, communities came together to process the violence and grieve the victims. Conceptualizing the Pulse Nightclub shooting as a cultural trauma, this article examines the impact of the shooting on gay, bisexual, and queer (GBQ+) Latinx men and how these men coped following the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

METHOD: Semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with Latinx gay, bisexual, and queer men in the United States. Transcripts were analyzed with thematic analysis.

RESULTS

The interviews (n = 10) revealed five main themes related to distress, coping, and belonging.

CONCLUSIONS

Cultural trauma events impact community members who share identities with the direct victims. Our findings suggest that after experiences of cultural trauma, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Latinx individuals may seek collective-level coping strategies, even when they are not directly targeted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).