A new study from researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Kentucky shed light on the importance of having friends with shared identities in the LGBTQ+ community.
By analyzing data collected from a two-year survey titled the “American Friendship Project,” the researchers found that those who had at least one friend of the same identity (like two bisexuals, or two lesbians) reported greater life satisfaction and less loneliness than those without a friend of the same identity.
The study also found that a person in that same community with at least one friend of a similar — but not identical — identity reported greater well-being than those without any LGBTQ+ peers in their friend group.
“Queer people are routinely advised to build a community with people of their same identity for social connection, support, and solidarity,” the authors wrote in the study. “This community often serves as a familial network and sometimes a proxy for traditional family connections.”
Their work was published in the journal LGBTQ+ Family, which is the first scientific journal to address the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals in the context of familial relationships.
“These descriptive results suggest that queer people with a queer friend generally report positive well-being despite a potential increase in loneliness, whether the friend is of the same sexual identity or just also queer,” they explained.
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2026 Pride Edition of the Good Newspaper.
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