Which comes first, puberty or identity? The longitudinal interrelations between pubertal timing and sexual minority self-identification among early adolescents.

Sexual minority adolescents experience puberty earlier than their heterosexual peers. Early puberty is an indicator of premature aging and can be partly driven by chronic stress linked to discrimination. Nonetheless, the neural, cognitive, and social development linked to puberty enables adolescents to explore and understand their sexual identities. For sexual minority youth, does the stress from identity-based discrimination make them more likely to experience advanced pubertal timing, or is early pubertal timing the impetus for their self-identification with a sexual minority identity? To answer this research question, the present study leveraged longitudinal and national data to test the temporal ordering between sexual minority self-identification and pubertal timing among one sample of 7,818 unrelated adolescents and another sample of 4,050 adolescent siblings nested across 1,989 households in the United States. Across both samples, results illustrated significant bidirectional relations between pubertal timing and sexual minority self-identification. Adolescents who self-identified as sexual minorities experienced more advanced pubertal timing 1 year later, and adolescents who experienced more advanced pubertal timing were more likely to identify as sexual minorities 1 year later. While the longitudinal link between pubertal timing and later sexual minority self-identification may be a normal developmental process, the longitudinal link between sexual minority self-identification and subsequent advanced pubertal timing may be attributable to heterosexist stigma. The present findings underscore the need to mitigate prejudice so that all adolescents have the freedom to explore their identities without risks to their development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).