Disparities In The LGBT Community

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community, also known as the LGBT Community, have experienced huge inequalities for years now. Recently however, the LGBT Community experienced a big win in their fight for equality. After almost fifty years of fighting for equality, the Supreme Court ruled that states must license and recognize marriage among people of the same sex in June 2015. Although the LGBT Community has taken substantial steps towards equality, disparities still remain between the LGBT Community and non-marginalized groups in the United States. In regards to these disparities, there is still a huge gap between the health of heterosexual individuals and homosexual individuals. There are a number of different disparities
The two major health discrepancies among same-sex and heterosexual individuals however, is the large difference in the rate of depression and suicide attempts. According to Derrick and Lee (2014), individuals within the sexual minority consistently showed signs of having poorer mental health compared to those in the sexual majority (5). Within the same journal it was stated that, “both men and women were more likely to report experiencing five or more days of bad mental health in the past 30 days, and sexual minority men and women were more likely to have been diagnosed with any depressive disorder (5)”. With this type of data existing, it is important to have a certain understanding of the cause for the
A recent study published by the American Journal of Public Health suggests that, “there was a prevalence of depressive, anxiety, and substance dependence disorders; current psychological distress; ad self-rated mental health (Mays, V; Cochran, S, 1).” This journal also hints that discrimination may be the main reason as to why LGBT individuals face such a higher risk of developing these implications in their lifetime. The results of this study ended by saying LGBT members have the higher chance compared to their counterparts of experiencing daily discrimination, and associated it with harmful effects on the quality of life as well as indicators of psychiatric morbidity in the full sample (1). A similar study found that “ one third of participants met criteria for any mental disorder, 17% for conduct disorder, 15% for major depression and 9% for posttraumatic stress disorder, and regarding lifetime suicide attempts which were very frequent were about 31%