WORLD LEISURE No. 212004 O Copyright by the authors Coping with stress among gays and lesbians: Implications for human development over the lifespan YOSHI IWASAKI, JANICE RISTOCK University of Manitoba Abstract Gays and lesbians are at risk of being exposed to high levels of stress because of their marginalized social identities and social locations in dominant cultures. Given the prevalence and significance of stress in the lives of gays and lesbians regardless of their age, stress-coping is one of the key axes of their development over the lifespan. The purpose of the present study was to examine the ways in which gays and lesbians cope with stress in their lives, including the potential contribution of leisure to stress-coping. A series of focus groups were conducted with gays and lesbians (n = 30) in a western Canadian city to explore their lived experiences and meanings of coping. The findings suggest that the use of effective coping methods is a survival technique in their lives. The key themes identified are concerned with a wide range of coping techniques - per- sonal, social, behavioral, psychological, attitudinal, spiritual, and cultural. These findings empha- size the importance of using the strengths and resilience of gays and lesbians in coping with stress. Particularly, our data suggested that a leisure space is considered an oasis for gays and lesbians to re-charge themselves physically, emotionally, and psychologically, which facilitates a sense of empowerment to proactively cope with stress in a world where homophobia and heterosexism still exist. * * * The lives of gays and lesbians appear stressful (Garnets, 2002; Walker, 200 1 ). It has been shown that the key sources of stress experienced among gays and lesbians (that are either directly related or unrelated to their sexual orientations) represent a wide spec- trum of their lives (Flowers & Buston, 200 1 ; Lewis, Derlega, Berndt, Morris, & Rose, 2001). Not only have the domains of family, employment, and social relationships been identified as major stressors, but discrimina- tion and identity issues have also been found to be key stress factors (Miller, Forest, & Jurik, 2003; Walker, 2001 ). To deal with the stress- ful nature of their lives, effective coping strat- egies seem essential for gays and lesbians, as they survive and grow over the lifespan (Sanders & Krall, 2000). Thus, stress-coping is one of the key axes of their development over the lifespan. Researchers have only recently begun to give an increasing attention to coping strate- gies among gays and lesbians. In his discus- sion of aging and sexual orientation, Kimmel (2002) suggested that aging gays and lesbi- ans have the potential of developing "crisis competence" over the lifespan, showing "sur- vival of the fittest" rather than being consid- ered "a group of walking wounded individu- als" (p. 23-24). Similarly, Greene (2000) em- phasized, "lesbians and gay men as a group are not the harbingers of psychopathology"-