Sexual and gender minority young adults' smoking characteristics: Assessing differences by sexual orientation and gender identity.

Abstract Introduction Sexual and gender minority (SGM) young adults have higher smoking prevalence than their non-SGM peers. Less is known about differences in smoking characteristics within the SGM community. Methods Participants were SGM young adult smokers age 18–25 ( N  = 165, M age = 21.8) enrolled in a clinical trial of the Put It Out Project, a Facebook smoking cessation intervention for SGM young adults. Analyses tested differences between 1) sexual orientation groups, and 2) gender identity groups, on the following smoking characteristics: cigarettes/day, daily smoker (yes/no), social smoker (yes/no), years of smoking, number of close friends who smoke (out of 5), age of initiation, age began smoking regularly, time to first cigarette (30 min or less/>30 min), lifetime quit attempts, past-year quit attempts, and stage of change for quitting smoking (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation). Results Participants were 55% bi/pansexual, 18% gay, 18% lesbian, 9% other (e.g., asexual, queer). The gender identity of the sample was 64% cisgender, 25% transgender, 11% gender non-binary. Lesbian women began smoking at an older age ( M  = 18.0, SD  = 2.0) than “other” sexual orientation participants ( M  = 15.9, SD  = 2.6), p M  = 11.3, SD  = 6.7), followed by cisgender ( M  = 8.1, SD  = 5.6), then non-binary ( M  = 5.7, SD  = 3.5) participants ( p p 's  Conclusions Smoking characteristics were mostly similar across subgroups of young adult SGM smokers; however, transgender individuals were heavier smokers.