How depression and anxiety are crushing 3 specific sexual minorities…a breaking study from Great Britain
Thursday, September 13, 2023.
Breaking research tells us that 3 specific sexual minorities, namely Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) humans in Great Britain, are at twice or thrice the risk of suicidal thoughts and self-injurious behaviors than straight humans.
The researchers offered a partial explanation by referencing the manifest heightened levels of depression and anxiety, as well as persistent discrimination against LGB people.
How the Study was Conducted:
What made this study so critical was it’s sheer size. 10,000 humans were interviewed in 2007 and then, one again in 2014.
Despite all the blather in the British press, about social acceptance, these inequities of LGB experience didn’t change over the time frame of this study.
Dr. Alexandra Pittman, study co-author, said:
“While national surveys of British attitudes towards same-sex relationships suggest that society has become more tolerant of people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual, there is clearly a long way to go, as the mental health outcomes we were studying did not improve across our study period.”
Bullying and discrimination
The study found that among lesbian and gay adult humans, a solid half had been bullied, while 20% experienced discrimination directly related to their sexual orientation within the past year.
Among bisexuals, same difference. Half had experienced bullying and 20% had been discriminated against in the past year.
Another study has found that bisexuals may be at three times the risk of attempting suicide (Chum et al., 2023).
Dr. Antony Chum, that study’s first author, offered a comment that clearly indicates this bias doesn’t track neatly between straight vs. gay humans:
“The higher risk for bisexual women could be attributed to greater discrimination that bisexual humans face within the LGBTQ+ community, as well as higher rates of violence, trauma, and caregiving burden that bisexual women may experience in opposite-sex relationships.”
Dr. Chum’s study also found that:
Only about 2% of straight humans attempted suicide across the 17 year time frame the covered by this research
However, it was 5% for gay/lesbian humans… and 8% for bisexuals…. it was noted that bisexual women were unusually vulnerable to suicidal thought. There suicide rate is triple, and was an area of keen concern by this research team.
Together, these 2 studies underline the ongoing, relentless challenges to mental health facing humans who love differently.
Dr. Pitman also said:
“People with sexual minority identities continue to face more discrimination and bullying than heterosexual people and are also more likely to experience common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
Our study suggests that these experiences of discrimination and bullying may have some role to play in increasing the risk of suicidality and this requires further research.”
Unfortunately, people with minority sexual orientations sometimes do not feel able to tell health service professionals about their orientation.
Mr Garrett Kidd, the British study’s first author, said:
“Our health services need to be improved to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ people, as some people may not feel comfortable disclosing their sexual orientation, which can hamper an understanding of their health and social needs.”
“LGBT individuals experience additional stress as a result of discrimination and stigma, stigma both at the societal level but also the way that living in a society that privileges heterosexuality that has homophobic laws and policies comes to sort of teach LGB people even to view themselves as inferior,” Kidd said.
Final thoughts
Public health is data-driven. And the data in Great Britain indicates that the LGB community hasn’t gained the degree of social acceptance that the broader British culture assumes.
There’s a great deal of anxiety and depression in the zeitgeist. It’s important to notice where social injustice persists. LGB humans should be able to self-identify safely, and the fact that they can’t ought to be an abiding concern for us all.
Be well, stay Kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Is the association between sexual minority status and suicide-related behaviors modified by rurality? A discrete-time survival analysis using longitudinal health administrative data
Author: Antony Chum, Andrew Nielsen, Karanpreet Kaur Azra, Chungah Kim,Gabriel &John Dusing.
Publication: Social Science & Medicine
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: May 2023
The other study was published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (Kidd et al., 2023).
