Mental Health in the LGBTQ+ Community

Mental Health in the LGBTQ+ Community 

Negative Mental Health plays a prominent role in the LGBTQ+ community, making life harder for community members of all ages. Unfortunately, there are not enough resources available to even begin to remedy this.

       Research

  Statistics in the LGBTQ+ Community

                                  

                                                     

According to surveys taken in 2022 by organizations like The Trevor Project, there are an estimated 34,000 LGBTQ+ youth within the U.S. 45% being POC and 48% being Transgender or Nonbinary.

Due to lack of resources, support, and community, it has become increasingly common for queer youth to fall into deep depression. Their mental state deteriorates to such a magnitude and the feeling of isolation persists to such a degree that they feel that suicide is the only solution they have available to them. The percentage of youth who feel accepted or, at the very least, safe is minimal. At the very least, they should be heard by their school administrators/counsellors, but not even they are a reliable resource.

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"These services are funded through the state’s special education mental health services program, which provided schools $381 million in 2020‑21."      (Legislative Analyst's Office)

The total overall funding (federal, state, and local) for all TK–12 education programs is $128.6 billion, with a per-pupil spending rate of $22,893 in 2022–23. (California Department of Education)

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Mental health facilities within the education system are severely under-staffed, under-funded, and/or completely unavailable altogether. Administrators and district members alike promote their support of queer students but do nothing to actually support them.

 Personal

Before I'd officially settled into my queer identity, I'd barely acknowledged or heard much about the LGBTQ+ community, but I was well-acquainted with my deteriorating mental state. Little did I know that this was the case for many of the people around me, for many of my friends. 
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This acquaintanceship continued on through high school, though it'd settled beside my new, queer sense of self rather than make it's home within it and eat away at me from the inside out. 

This was not the case for many of my peers.

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My school experience consisted of horror stories tied to my faceless students I'd never known and near-death experiences tied to my close friends, with it all came a numbness- one that infected everyone and only amplified as we were rushed indoors in 2020.

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I feel that there needs to be more concern surrounding the state the LGBTQ+ youth are in- that there needs to be more of an effort from school districts, parents, and anyone capable of making a difference to keep these kids safe. Of course, it's not only the children. Members of the LGBTQ+ community consist of various ages, all with different symptoms and needs. One thing they all have in common, though, is that they are surrounded by death.

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Older generations have lived through a lifetime of discrimination and indifference towards their well-being, being cast aside as their friends, family, and lovers were taken by a horrible sickness, only to watch the younger generations take their own lives in the face of this same indifference decades later.

Action

What do you think mental health in the LGBTQ+ community is like? 

Healthy or not?

What kind of services do you think would change this?

Crow

"I think mental health plays a very important part in the LGBTQ+ community. Where queers are repressed and oppressed, knocked down to their knees by societal norms and bigoted traditions- queers have to learn how to love themselves and their community, to bring each other up, and by this process strengthen their connections with each other. I don’t think the mental health within the LGBTQ+ community itself is healthy, especially not if the people surrounding the community are harmful to it. I think more resources for education and access to mental health/healthcare and safe places would help majorly."

Mia Mirajillo

"I think that trying to generalize the LGBTQ+ community as "healthy or unhealthy" is reductive and a gross misunderstanding of mental health. I believe that the LGBTQ+ community is an oppressed group, alienated for their differences; I believe that that alienation can deeply affect an individuals mental health. The community as people are learning ways to cope and love but every person is an individual and no group should be reduced to such a restrictive and nonconstructive question. Therapy can be very useful for bettering mental health and I think normalizing the queer community through kinder and protective laws and inclusive practices, like not censoring queer culture in history, would do wonders to welcome the age of community and diversity."

Citations

-2022 national survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. The Trevor Project. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2023, from https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/#anxiety-by-sexual-orientation

-Budget act for 2022–23: Information. Budget Act for 2022–23: Information - Education Budget (CA Dept of Education). (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2023, from https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/eb/ba2022-23.asp#:~:text=The%20total%20overall%20funding%20(federal,of%20%2422%2C893%20in%202022%E2%80%9323 

-School Mental Health. The 2021-22 Budget: School Mental Health. (2021, February 12). Retrieved April 17, 2023, from https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4368#:~:text=(Responsibility%20for%20these%20services%20was,million%20in%202020%E2%80%9121.