Consequences of the Ambiguous Insult: A Review of Literature on Gender, Race, and LGBTQ-Based Microaggressions

For over thirty years, microaggressions have been studied for their weight on members of groups like ethnic and racial minorities, women and members of the LGBTQ community. Microaggressions are the routine, derogatory interactions like slights gestures, snubs or minor insults. Microaggressions yield physical and psychological distress to victims and communicate to marginalized groups the biases and prejudices against them harbored by majority group members. This taxonomy divides the experiences of microaggressions into the categories of gender, racial and LGBTQ-based sectors, as well as the subcategories that are relevant to the experiences of the members when faced with microaggressions