Pride Month: Mental Health in the LGBTQ+ Community
- Hattie Blyth
- Jun 11, 2020
- 5 min read
You'd be hard pushed to find someone more devastated at the fact that Pride events this year have been cancelled. Aside from Halloween, Pride is my favourite time of year. One of my most treasured (and fuzzy) memories is watching Kelis perform in a car park at Manchester Pride. However, there are to be no car park renditions of Milkshake this year- at least none that I've been invited to- so I think that now is a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, reflect on its sociopolitical and cultural history, and take stock of the work we still have ahead of us to drive meaningful change. The party aspect of Pride Month is great, but the most important thing is that we put the work in to be better allies and strive to create change- not just the one year we're denied parties in a Manchester car park, but every year.
Part of that work is to educate ourselves about enduring disparities experienced by people who identify as LGBTQ+. We all have mental health- we do not have to be diagnosed as having a mental illness to experience poor mental health and it’s important to be aware that multiple factors can contribute to our experiences with our mental health, including:
· Age
· Ethnicity
· Religion
· Cultural background
· Socio-economic background
· Gender identity and gender expression
· Sexuality
· Physical ability.
All these factors and facets of our identities work together to inform how we experience mental health. Often, they also contribute to how we experience mental health treatment.
People who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely to experience problems such as:
· Low self-esteem
· Depression
· Anxiety, including social anxiety
· Eating problems
· Misusing drugs and alcohol
· Self-harm
· Suicidal feelings
· Other mental health problems.
This is likely to be the result of many factors working together to impact the mental health of someone in the LGBTQ+ community, such as homophobia, biphobia and transphobia; difficulty coming out; feelings of rejection or anticipation of rejection; and stigma and discrimination.
This Pride Month, I’d like to contribute to the conversation by discussing the disparities experienced by the LGBTQ+ community in the UK in terms of mental health and mental health treatment. I’d also like to point you towards some UK-based LGBTQ+ specific groups and charities working to improve mental health in the community.
Disparities in Mental Health Experiences
Experiences of mental health are felt differently within the LGBTQ+ community- before breaking this down into challenges faced by different groups within the community, let’s look at some general statistics from the UK:
· LGBTQ+ people are at more risk of suicidal behaviour and self-harm than non-LGBTQ+ people
· LGBTQ+ people are 1½ times more likely to experience depression and anxiety
· More than half of younger LGBTQ+ people experience homophobic, biphobic or transphobic bullying in school. Nearly half of pupils who experience bullying have symptoms of depression
· 1 in 8 LGBTQ+ people aged 18-24 (13%) said they’ve attempted to take their own life in the last year
· 19% of LGB* employees have experienced verbal bullying from colleagues, customers or service users because of their sexuality in the last five years
· 15% of LGB employees have experienced verbal homophobic bullying from their colleagues in the last five years
· 16% of LGBTQ+ people said they drank alcohol almost every day over the last year.
*LGB refers to lesbian, gay and bisexual people, while LGBTQ+ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning.
The general picture of LGBTQ+ mental health experiences is sobering. Breaking this information down further can provide us with an understanding of how experiences of mental health can impact gay men, lesbian women, bisexual men and women, transgender people and non-binary people in the UK differently.
Gay men:
· Are four times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual men
· Experience drug abuse problems three times higher than heterosexual men
· See high rates of self-harm, with 12% reporting that they had harmed themselves in the last year.
Lesbian women:
· Have higher rates of suicidal thoughts and self-harm compared to heterosexual women
· Are less likely to attend social events than heterosexual women and experience social isolation more frequently than heterosexual women.
Bisexual men and women:
· Most frequently suffer from depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal behaviour
· Experience drug abuse problems four times higher than heterosexual men and women.
Transgender men and women:
· See very high rates of depression and suicide. 88% of transgender people had experienced depression and 84% had thought of ending their life
· Are often alienated in the workplace, with 25% of trans people made to use an inappropriate toilet in their place of work
· Are more likely to be victims of violence, with 10% of trans people experiencing verbal abuse and 6% suffering physical assault.
Non-binary people:
· See high rates of self-harm, with 14% reporting that they harmed themselves in the last year.
Disparities in Mental Health Treatment
Differing experiences of mental healthcare for people who identify as LGBTQ+ could be attributed to a number of factors. General health discrimination for LGBTQ+ people endures in 2020 in terms of policy and practice, which we can see in policies around giving blood and remaining practices in conversion therapy. These are not things of the past- they are happening right now.
It was only in 1990 that the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses and in 2019 the WHO dropped being transgender from their list of mental disorders, so it’s possible that historic systemic discrimination could inform people’s willingness to seek help for problems they disproportionately face.
People who identify as LGBTQ+, especially trans people, can experience more social isolation than non-LGBTQ+ people. This could make it harder for LGBTQ+ people who have mental health problems to get support and treatment.
In a survey of gay and bisexual men:
· 34% have had a negative experience related to their sexuality
· 26% felt that healthcare workers had given them information relevant to their sexual orientation
· 9% found their GP surgery welcoming.
In a survey of lesbian and bisexual women:
· Half reported a negative experience of healthcare in the last year
· 2 in 5 found practitioners assumed they were heterosexual and were not given appropriate advice
· 1 in 5 felt they had no opportunity to discuss their sexual orientation.
If you are not happy with your treatment, you can:
· Talk to your doctor about your treatment and ask for a second opinion
· Get an advocate to help you speak to your doctor
· Contact Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and see whether they can help
· Make a complaint.
In considering the differences between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ rates of mental health problems, we would hope that mental healthcare may be more suitably deployed where needed. While improvements have been made in recent years and there is a lot of great work being done by LGBTQ+ health advocates to change policy and practice, it is worth drawing attention to the fantastic work being done by LGBTQ+ specific mental health groups and charities.
LGBTQ+ Specific Mental Health Groups and Charities
Albert Kennedy Trust
akt.org.uk
Supports LGBTQ people aged 16-25 who are homeless or living in a hostile environment.
Gender Identity Research & Education Society (GIRES)
gires.org.uk
Works to improve the lives of of trans and gender non-conforming people of all ages, including those who are non-binary and non-gender.
Imaan
info@imaan.org.uk
Supports LGBTQ Muslims and their friends and family.
LGBT Foundation
0345 3 30 30 30
lgbt.foundation
Advice, support and information for people identifying as LGBTQ+.
LGBT HERO
lgbthero.org.uk
Health equality and rights organisation for LGBTQ+ people.
MindOut
mindout.org.uk
Mental health service run by and for LGBTQ+ people.
Pink Therapy
pinktherapy.com
Online directory of qualified therapists who identify as or are understanding of minority sexual and gender identities.
Stonewall
08000 50 20 20
stonewall.org.uk
Information and advice for LGBT people on a range of issues.
Switchboard
0300 330 0630
switchboard.lgbt
Listening services, information and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many local organisations and groups you can search for in your area.
References
The statistics in this post have been gathered from multiple reports published between 2008 and 2019, including Stonewall’s ‘Prescription for Change’ report. References can be found below.
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