Use of the Heterosexist Harassment, Rejection, and Discrimination Scale With Different Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Racial/Ethnic Groups: An Examination of Measurement Invariance

The Heterosexist Harassment, Rejection, and Discrimination Scale (HHRDS) is one of the most commonly used measures of sexual orientation-related discrimination, but little is known about its psychometric properties across different sexual orientations, gender, and racial/ethnic groups. A three-factor model was initially obtained, but most studies treat the HHRDS unidimensionally. Therefore, we tested whether the HHRDS exhibited measurement invariance across sexual orientation, gender, and racial/ethnic groups among 792 sexual minority young adults (aged 18-29) who participated in an online study. Across models, the three-factor solution fit better than the one-factor solution. All models achieved configural invariance and most achieved metric invariance; none of the considered models achieved scalar invariance (1-3 items were not equivalent across groups, depending on the comparison). Findings suggest that the HHRDS generally functions equivalently across sexual orientation, gender, and racial/ethnic groups, but some caution in interpreting scores is warranted.