Development and Pilot Testing of a Novel Art-Based Community Intervention for Reducing Bias Toward LGBTQ+ Latine People of Central Texas

Background and Purpose: This study pilot tested whether socially-engaged art exhibits in community settings could reduce bias toward LGBTQ+ Latine people and increase awareness of their social experiences in Central Texas. This population experiences compounding stress from societal stigmatization contributing to elevated health problems (Schmitz et al., 2020), potentially heightened by increasingly hostile state legislation (Movement Advancement Project, 2024). Visual culture shapes community climate toward LGBTQ+ people (Clary et al., 2023; Paceley et al., 2020) and can raise visibility of lived experience (Bentwich & Gilbey, 2017), but few interventions exist to address these issues in community settings.

Methods: We implemented six socially-engaged art exhibits in community spaces throughout Central Texas in 2024. Exhibits featured 15 photos taken by LGBTQ+ Latine Central Texans during a prior PhotoVoice project, each with didactic labels. We recruited 57 participants (46% Latine, 70% cisgender, 47% straight) who completed pre-test surveys measuring critical awareness of social issues faced by LGBTQ+ and racially minoritized people, traditional gender norm bias, and bias toward people of Latine heritage. After attending the exhibit, participants received identical post-test surveys 72 hours later. Paired samples t-tests examined pre-post changes.

Results: We observed statistically significant decreases in traditional gender role bias (pre: M=109.2, SD=21.5; post: M=93.2, SD=44.1; t(56)=-2.40, p=.02) and bias toward people of Latine heritage (pre: M=21.5, SD=9.1; post: M=16.1, SD=11.35; t(56)=-2.77, p=.01) from pre- to post-test. However, we also found unexpected statistically significant decreases in critical awareness of issues faced by transgender and gender diverse people (pre: M=81.24, SD=15.33; post: M=64.38, SD=35.2; t(56)=-3.31, p<.01), LGB+ people (pre: M=35.07, SD=4.55; post: M=27.45, SD=14.8; t(56)=-3.70, p<.01), and racially and ethnically minoritized people (pre: M=24.87, SD=6.16; post: M=19.05, SD=11.7; t(56)=-3.30, p<.01).

Conclusions and Implications: This pilot study yielded mixed results. The reduction in gender norm bias and anti-Latine bias suggests promising effects on certain attitudes. However, the unexpected decrease in critical awareness indicates that brief exposure may trigger complex responses, possibly including temporary self-reassessment of knowledge or defensive reactions. For practice, these findings suggest supplementing exhibits with educational components and guided discussion. Policy implications include supporting sustained community-led visual culture initiatives while recognizing brief interventions alone may be insufficient. Future research should explore temporal dynamics of attitude change, investigate mechanisms underlying decreased awareness, and test variations in exhibit design to optimize effectiveness.