Hello lovely people,
If you’re new here, hi, I’m Jessica. I make entertaining and informational
videos about disability, chronic illness and LGBTQ+
issues, frequently touching on how often those things overlap
- like with me: a rainbow with connective tissue issues(!)
Often I find myself talking more about physical disabilities
but really… we NEED to talk about mental health in the LGBTQ+ community.
(Especially after the year we just had!)
My last video was about Conversion Therapy, click the card in the top left of the screen to watch,
and it made me think about the longer lasting effects on our community, the
trauma that can stretch down generations… even if we’re not actually related to one another.
Content warning: there will be mention of depression, mental illness, bullying,
anti-LGBTQ+ activities and consequences.
Nothing explicit. Mainly stats.
There’s a lot of stats in this video.
Did you know, members of the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to experience a range of mental health
problems such as depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and alcohol and substance misuse?
- don’t get it twisted homophobes, this isn’t an innate ‘gay issue’- it’s something you caused.
Oh whoops, I guess that was a spoiler for the whole video.
Should probably have encouraged you to keep watching until at
least the 10 minutes mark to help the algorithm…
Shucks(!) I suppose you’ll just have to make it up to me… by
making sure you’re subscribed! Because 40% of you who regularly watch my videos aren’t subscribed!
- in all fairness, I do that too. I find a new channel,
start watching videos and five days later realise I haven’t even subscribed!
Don’t do that. Don’t be me. Subscribe.
And I would like to take this moment to make a special shout
out to the members of the Kellgren-Fozard Club or as I like to call them: my clubbies.
Thank you so much for all of your love and support on the videos that I make in this channel.
My clubbies do an amazing job of helping me support making videos and in return get an
extra special private members only video every month and some other bonus perks
that you can find out all about when you click the join button down below.
(it’s right next to subscribe!).
Now where were we?
So you might think that since there have been such huge strides in recent
years towards LGBTQ+ equality that all of the barriers queer people face have
been erroded and thus we are living in a magical fairy land of unicorn acceptance for all.
Okay, you’re probably not thinking that.
According to the charity Stonewall, HALF of LGBTQ+ people experienced depression in the last year.
And in this video we are going to look back in the history, talk about why we are still
not where we want to be today and think how we can move forward in the future.
But again, for the people in the back: Being LGBTQ+ does not CAUSE these problems. The reason
why those of us with LGBTQ+ identities are more likely to get mental health problems are
very complicated and there are still barriers to accessing adequate physical and mental healthcare.
Side note:
- I’m using LGBTQ+ as an umbrella term but we’re all unique and don’t exist as a single group.
Also, many people deal with the same issues but don’t know for sure that they are on the rainbow
spectrum or where they fit, what their label is, if they even like the idea of having a label… hey,
they might ever WANT a label, and that’s totally fine. But they’ll likely be dealing with the same,
similar or at least highly relatable issues when it comes to being negatively impacted
by wider society, whether or not they fit into traditional categories of gender and sexuality.
HISTORICAL ISSUES
Early attitudes towards homosexuality in the Western world were rooted in Christian ideals,
which upheld sex as being intended purely for procreation and thus
homosexual acts were considered sinful since they could not result in reproduction.
- I don’t know who told them that though, because I got MY wife pregnant [innocent blink]
Religious attitudes carried over into secular law and by the 16th century
homosexuality had become a felony punishable by death in England.
An equally negative view of homosexuality existed in the medical community as well.
Since homosexuality was viewed as a vice, homosexuals were therefore choosing to sin
and medical professionals felt they needed to eradicate the
vice by finding and curing the cause of homosexual behavior.
Neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, suggested in the 1860s that homosexuality was entirely
inherited rather than acquired from the environment. He based his opinion on
his own observations that homosexuality did not respond to hypnotic treatment.
- because obviously hypnosis is the only true way to map the genome (!)
As I mentioned in last week’s video on Conversion Therapy,
which you can watch by clicking the link in the top right of the screen,
there were other researchers who did not agree with Charcot’s views.
Among them was Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a German psychiatrist who was one of the first scientists
to study sexual deviance. He believed that all sexual perversions, including homosexuality,
were the result of a combination of environmental and inherited factors.
This is bizarrely fascinating but… Krafft-Ebing viewed sexual behaviors
through the lens of 19th century Darwinian theory;
he and many other scientists felt that all non-procreative sexual behaviors should be
regarded as forms of psychopathology since they were not evolutionarily adaptive.
- I know! If you’re not having sex with a mate chosen to best carry your genes into
bettering the human race then why are you even bothering?! Clearly you’re not sane(!)
Laws criminalizing homosexual acts later appeared in the United States as well,
continuing to legitimize these views. Which are… wild!
In 1952 when the American Psychological Association
published the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM). It classified certain types of sexual behaviors as mental disorders and
thus became a fairly reliable map of the moral hierarchy of sexual activities at the time.
The first edition of the manual classified homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality
disturbance.” In the second edition, published in 1968, it reclassified homosexuality as a
sexual deviation, continuing to label these types of sexual behaviors as abnormal.
The classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder by the APA had a huge
impact on the LGBTQ+ community as well as on the general public’s view of homosexuality.
Since it was supposedly based on scientific findings,
it was difficult for people to dispute views which held them as deviant.
Anything you say, any argument you want to make, any injustice you wish to rail against, any polite
words you want to pass the day with… all can be dismissed immediately. Because you’re ‘unwell’.
The classification gave scientific-
- ‘scientific’: ha! Science doesn’t come into this sweetie, don’t pretend!
Well okay, the classification gave SUPPOSED scientific
weight to the opposition of homosexuality. It wasn’t about
God any more. You couldn’t just make some atheist arguments to get out of this homophobic drama.
Having professionals labeled homosexuals as abnormal,
pathological, and deviant… had a huge impact on the homosexual community,
which was just then beginning its fight for acceptance in mainstream society.
Thus the fight for the reversal of the
APA diagnosis became a focus of the gay rights movement.
When a thing you cannot change about yourself is labeled in such a way it is understandably going
to have a very negative impact on your mental health. When discrimination against you is
legalised is it also, clearly, obviously, going to have a negative impact on your mental health.
- I have a video about Section 28 in the pipeline but that’s… a whole thing.
Homosexuality was seen as ‘part of the problem’
and this was only changed legally within my own lifetime.
Which blows my mind when I think about it.
I was already born when in 1990 the World Health Organisation removed
homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses.
It only became legal for me to marry my wife in 2014, the year we met. (in England anyway)
LGBTQ+ people have been here all this time but we’ve only just started to get
rights... And we don’t all have them.
I’m going to really briefly touch on the situation for the transgender community,
but it’s a lot more complex so I would suggest you do some research and watch the following videos:
Kat Blaque has so many wonderful videos on her channel about her
experiences but in ’Why trans people will never be accepted’ she talks about
‘tolerance’ as being… well, come on now, we all know it’s not good enough!
Also go and watch ContraPoints ‘Gender Critical’ because it’s a really good video and you’ll learn
a lot and there’s history in it. I think for those who aren’t trans and maybe just have a
vague idea of what ‘terf’ means it does a good job of filling in the background.
And of course I had to recommend my lovely jammidodger Jamie’s channel.
His video ‘How I Legally Changed My Sex’ gives a good
overview of the legal process in the UK and how things work here.
Right, so, there are two guidelines that doctors use to diagnose mental
health conditions. One of these is called the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
The other is called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
Until recently, the ICD listed all gender identity disorders as
mental health disorders, much like homoosexuality had once been.
But in ICD-11 (meaning the 11th they published) the term
‘gender identity disorders’ was removed from the mental health category and a new section
on ‘gender incongruence’ was included in the ‘conditions related to sexual health’ chapter.
For the trans community this is seen as a
very positive step- your gender identity being different to the
sex you were assumed to be at birth is no longer seen as a mental health illness.
So that’s ‘being trans’ as a concept. A way of being. Place that in one space.
Then we have ‘gender dysphoria’, which is listed in the DSM. Gender Dysphoria refers
to the distress people feel when their sex does not match their gender identity.
When this causes a lot of distress, it can be defined as a disorder.
However, there is controversy over whether gender dysphoria should be
classified as a mental health disorder in the DSM.
It’s worth noting that separate to the issue of whether or not ‘gender dysphoria’ should be
considered a mental health disorder, trans people do on average have a higher rate
of mental health problems BUT, again, being LGBTQ+ does not make your mental health bad,
being LGBTQ+ and forced to try and fit into a heteronormative world DOES.
But everything is all totally fine now, right(?) Because we’re a perfectly
fine modern world in which everything is accepted(?)
- I’m so sorry
MODERN DAY
Ok, ok, time for some good stuff!
It’s important to remember that embracing your LGBTIQ+
identity has a positive impact on your wellbeing.
Discovering who you are is never a bad thing- even if you don’t initially like what you find,
it’s the first step on the path to acceptance
AND decreases your inner turmoil, which leads to increased confidence and self worth.
Because you’re not fighting yourself internally you’ll probably also have
improved relationships with those around you, like your friends and hopefully your family.
Once you know who you are you’ll be able to find others who are similar to you and thus
gain a community and sense of belonging. And having gone through all of this turmoil to the
freedom of self-expression and self-acceptance means you’ll have increased resilience.
- Basically: LGBTQ+ people are marvellous. Fact.
And here’s where I may be losing those of you who don’t identify under that umbrella-
not because you don’t think LGBTQ+ people are marvellous, you’re watching my channel
so obviously you’d a delightful human yourself- but you might be thinking:
“You just told me about a lot of history, Jessica,
and I know things were bad in the past but they’re much better now!”
Well firstly, calm your boots, that’s pretty Eurocentric of you. It’s still illegal to be
LGBTQ+ in 70 countries and you could be given the death penalty in 12 of them.
Despite it being 30 years since ‘homosexuality’ was declassified as a disease, only 65% of those
living in UN countries around the world can now be, legally, in consensual same-sex relationships.
And it hits close to home too- a recent mental health study by Stonewall in the UK showed
that 67% of trans people had experienced depression in the previous year. And 46%
had thought of ending their life.
Looking around at the despicable way the tabloid media can behave- and yes, I’m just throwing
certain morning ‘entertainment’ programmes in with ‘tabloid’ as well- it’s not super surprising.
If someone tells you they don’t believe LGBTQ+ people still have it hard and thus don’t deserve
to have poor mental health or some such baloney then here are some facts to hit them with:
BULLYING
According to ReThink Mental Illness, more than half of younger LGBTQ+ identified
people experience homophobic, biphobic or transphobic bullying in Britain’s schools
and 50% of those have symptoms of depression.
- And that’s just the people who are willing or able to recognise
that as a factor in why they’re being bullied.
This is obviously heightened in young people who are LGBTQ+ but also black,
asian or minority ethnic, disabled, chronically ill, neurodiverse or from
a socio-economically deprived background and may be getting bullied for multiple ‘reasons’.
- there is never a good ‘reason’ to bully a person, there is only your own insecurity.
HATE CRIMES
Like bullying but grounding you clearly isn’t going to cut it.
A ‘hate crime’ is a crime committed against a person because of their race, sexuality,
religion, gender identity or disability. Unsurprisingly, members of the LGBTIQ+
community are at a greater risk of experiencing hate crime compared to heterosexual people.
- because ‘heterophobia’ isn’t really a thing.
In 2013, one in six LGBT+ adults had experienced a hate crime or incident in the last 3 years.
- British people, If you have experienced a hate crime, report it by calling 999 in an emergency
or 101 at other times to contact your local police force. Also check the @stonewalluk
account as they have some great advice. Other countries, please drop your info in the comments.
COMING OUT
You might have an easy ‘coming out story’, you might have a really difficult time,
you might be stuck in the process or scared to start it and you may even
find yourself having to come out every single day.
- Yes, that’s my wife. Yes, ‘wife’. Like ‘wives’: plural. No, it’s not a mormon thing...
It’s important to remember that whilst for some people coming out is a relief and it’s exciting,
for others… they may experience homophobia, biphobia, transphobia
or bigotry in general and thus feel they have to hide their true selves,
which causes stress and negatively impacts their mental wellbeing.
This can lead to negative feelings about your own sexuality or gender identity where you turn
other’s hateful comments inwards: This can be called ‘internalised homophobia or transphobia’.
AGING
Talking about getting older on the internet? goodness(!) radical(!)
- Not really, this platform isn’t just for Gen Z, you know!
It was still illegal to be gay when my parents were born. Many older members
of our community (who aren’t even that old!) experienced ill-treatment because
of their sexual orientation or gender identity in the past.
This may have impacted them physically but certainly hurt them mentally and
emotionally. This could have been at work, from authority figures or their own family.
There is also the issue of care: many older LGBTQ+ people worry that their sexual orientation will
negatively impact how people in care roles see them and the help that they are given.
HEALTHCARE
According to a recent government survey,
around one in eight LGBTQ+ people have experienced unequal treatment from healthcare
staff because they are LGBTQ+. One in seven have avoided treatment for fear of descrimination.
Pre-pandemic, of LGBTQ+ people who had accessed healthcare services:
17% of gay and bisexual men experienced
inappropriate curiosity by healthcare professionals,
30% of lesbians and 23%
of bisexual women experienced inappropriate curiosity from healthcare staff,
27% of trans people were ‘outed’ by healthcare staff without their consent, and
23% of people surveyed had heard negative or discriminatory remarks
about LGBTQ+ people by healthcare staff.
- nope! Not okay!
WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
Since we’re on a roll with me just throwing figures at you…
19% of LGB employees have experienced verbal bullying from colleagues,
customers or service users because of their sexual orientation in the last five years.
25% of trans people are made to use an inappropriate toilet in the workplace,
or none at all, during the early stages of transition.
Over 10% of trans people experienced being verbally abused and 6% were physically assaulted.
At WORK.
You know, that place where we’re all meant to be behaving like adults?
Professional adults?
CULTURAL PRESSURES
LGBTQ+ people who are also non-white or culturally from a country or society that
is less embracing of sexuality and gender identity may face additional discrimination.
This can come from their families and culture, the LGBTQ+ community or both.
Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic LGBTQ+ people
- by the way, that’s the term we use in Britain (BAME) rather than ‘Person of Colour’. I keep
forgetting to mention that in videos and then deeply confusing people!
The BAME LGBTQ+ community are 62% more likely to experience depression but also…
Over half have experienced descrimination from others
in their local LGBTQ+ community because of their ethnicity which is just…
what?!
How can you expect people to be open and accepting but not model that behaviour?!
- Be the good you want to see in the world, people!
In a figure from 2019, half of LGBTQ+ adults were said to have suffered from depression
in the last year. I don’t have statistics for 2020 but I’d put money on them not being better!
So if you’re feeling this way too, please know that you are not alone.
It’s hard to believe that some people think we in the LGBTQ+ community no longer face difficulties
in our daily lives due to our sexuality or gender identity but for many… it is the everyday reality.
It’s important that we open up conversations and talk about it more,
that we come together to give support and fight prejudice.
It is also important that mental health charities and providers develop an LGBTQ+ inclusive approach
to improving services alongside community members and organisations.
- (you can’t just assume people’s needs: You have to actually ask them.)
We need to support every individual: in and out of the community.
When Linda McFarlane’s ‘Diagnosis Homophobic’, a report on the experiences of gay men,
lesbians and bisexuals in mental health services, was released in 1995
its harrowing tales of their traumas within NHS services rocked the profession.
But sadly, when Stonewall’s ‘Unhealthy Attitudes’ report was published a full twenty years later,
it was still able to highlight that although much progress had been made,
many LGBTQ+ NHS staff and patients still experienced discrimination.
If you’re struggling with your mental health it’s important that you reach out to get help,
even if you feel like there is no one to reach out to, even if you feel that you’ve
tried before and didn’t get the help you needed… let someone know if you’re
struggling. Sometimes even just sharing with a stranger on the internet can help!
It’s worth noting that studies have shown coming out to just one supportive person,
even an acquaintance or coworker, may lessen feelings of depression and increase
your overall sense of well being compared to someone who does not come out at all.
People often ask me how to help their friends and loved ones who are ill.
I think the same advice applies here:
Don’t tell them to ‘keep fighting’, don’t tell them that ‘it gets better’ is the only
acceptable narrative but instead… to take a moment and really listen.
We’re all on our own winding paths and the journey to being comfortable
and happy with who you are moves at different paces for all of us.
You will get there but in the meantime… it’s
perfectly valid to feel your feelings. It’s perfectly okay to not be okay.
Just because people in the past ‘had it worse’ doesn’t mean that you can’t be in pain now.
I’m going to leave links in the description to some LGBTQ+ charities who can help you
if you’ve been affected by anything we talked about today. In the meantime:
stay safe, take care, spread kindness and I’ll see you in my next video.