As the old saying goes, "Haters be hatin'." Obviously, we'd like them to knock it off;
but science may have provided us with a health bonus for breaking the hate!
Hey all you sexual beings out there, I'm Trace and this is DNews, thanks for tuning in!
Homosexuality and homophobia is a topic of discussion around many a dinner table in the
United States and elsewhere *cough* Russia *cough* and though many feel they're in the
right on both sides, there's a definite scientific angle to be taken to simply let the homophobia
battle go. Science says, homophobia is killing you. Yeah. To a tune of about two and a half
years of your life.
A study done in the United States and published in the American Journal of Public Health wanted
to determine "whether individuals who harbor antigay prejudice experience elevated mortality
risk." Turns out, yep. They do. All things controlled for being equal in their study,
people who are prejudiced against the LGBTQ community will die two-and-a-half years earlier
than an equally healthy person of the same age -- likely of a cardiovascular-related
We've known for a long while prejudice can fester in the mind, but this adds to the growing
number of studies showing haters are also dying faster... Keeping all that anger is
stressing them out! Right out of their lives! And sadly the stress isn't only on the bigots,
it spreads to their targets too.
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health completed a separate study which found
bixsexual, gay, and lesbian individuals living in communities with a high level of anti-gay
prejudice had higher mortality as well! They found, when controlling for the normal variables
of a community, people in the sexual minority died 12-years sooner on average usually by
suicide, homicide, violence, or cardiovascular diseases.
LGB people living in high-prejudice communities were THREE TIMES more likely to be murdered
than in low-prejudice communities! That's astounding. A key point in their study, was
they assessed the community as a WHOLE rather than the experiences of individuals. It wasn't
THESE LGB people who FELT persecuted, the community was experiencing high-prejudice
as a whole.
I don't have a research study to cite, but it seems to me it's rarely only the bigot
and their target who are victims of the stress involved. The hate is probably felt by their
families, their neighbors and their friends as well. I wonder what THEIR health effects
are...
What do you think of this? Did you let go of hate and feel better? Share your experiences
with haters down below in the comments, make sure you subscribe for more, and we'll see
you next time on DNews.