Why does lgbtq matter
Safeguarding LGBTQ+ children and new people
Risks of harm
Evidence suggests that LGBTQ+ children and young people might be at increased risk of some forms of harm.
Child sexual exploitation
LGBTQ+ relationships are underrepresented in educational resources and the media (Barnardo’s and Fox, 2016). This means there are fewer examples of relevant, sound relationships available to Diverse young people. If Gay young people are not taught about healthy and unhealthy relationships, it might be easier for an abuser to groom them into believing an abusive relationship is normal.
If Diverse young people are unable to get information about sex and relationships from school or family, they might seek advice and support from people in adult spaces, such as gay clubs. This is particularly true of new people who live in rural areas or in communities where their gender identity or sexuality is not accepted. Adult spaces don’t have the matching safeguarding and child protection measures in place as spaces specifically for children. Children might be pressured or coerced into doing something they don’t long to do, particularly if they are already isolated and don’t have anywhere els
Why does LGBTQ+ History Month matter?
I’m writing this listening to the new album from Years & Years, which of course makes me think back to last year’s amazing Channel 4 drama It’s a Sin, in which Years & Years singer Olly Alexander played one of the lead characters, Ritchie. It’s a Sin, telling the story of a collective of gay friends in the 1980s during the onset of HIV/AIDS, brought back lots of memories for me. I was at university when the disease first appeared in 1981 – I’m exactly the same age as Ritchie – and I remember the fear of that first decade and the stigma around both HIV and being queer at that time. Although I have friends who are HIV+ and recognize friends of friends who died, I was incredibly lucky that nobody end to me ever got ill, or worse. Of course HIV/AIDS is still a major issue today, although thankfully for those of us in the west it’s not the death sentence it was.
The 1980s really were a decade of fear for the LGBTQ+ community – as well as HIV, the Government had it in for us too with the introduction of Section 28 which prohibited local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. That meant that schools were not allowed to ment
Why Accepting your LGBTQ Child Matters—And How to Start
Parents wish their children to be happy, strong, and safe. If your child comes out to you as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, genderqueer, or queer), that may or may not be something you imagined or feel prepared for—but your acceptance really matters to their health and security.
Why does family acceptance matter?
Dr. Caitlin Ryan, the director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco Articulate University, has conducted some of the first studies on how a family’s accepting and rejecting behaviors affect the well-being of LGBTQ children. Her investigate shows how families can learn to support these children—even if they consider that being homosexual or transgender is wrong.
One of Dr. Ryan’s studies showed that a family’s accepting or rejecting behaviors toward a young person’s LGBTQ status has significant implications for that child’s health and well-being. Young people with high levels of family rejection were:
- eight times more likely to inform having attempted suicide
- nearly six times more likely to announce high levels of depression
- more than three times more likely to use drugs or have unprotected sex.1
In ano
In too many places, LGBTI (lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people are among the most persecuted, marginalized, or at risk. In seventy-five countries, a relationship with someone of the matching sex is a crime. In every corner of the world, LGBT people continue to encounter threats of force and discrimination in their work and private lives. More than a third of the world’s countries criminalize consensual, loving same-sex relationships, entrenching prejudice and putting millions of people at peril of blackmail, arrest and imprisonment[1]. Many countries force gender non-conforming people to undergo medical treatment, sterilization or meet other onerous preconditions before they can obtain legal recognition of their gender persona. Intersex children are often subjected to unnecessary surgery, causing physical and psychological pain and suffering. In many cases, a lack of adequate legal protections combined with aggressive public attitudes leads to widespread discrimination against lesbian, male lover, bisexual, transgender and intersex people – including workers creature fired from jobs, students bullied and expelled from schools, and patients denied essential healthcare[2].
The equality
Rose Saxe,
she/her,
Deputy Director, LGBT & HIV Project,
ACLU
As a gay person, I grew up knowing I was different. Hearing other kids call anyone who deviated from traditional gender expectations a “fag.” Getting called a “lesbo” at age 11. I hadn’t come out to anyone and didn’t even really understand what it meant, but I knew it was an insult.
At an early age, we learn that it’s at best different to be LGBT. And many of us are taught that this difference is bad — shameful, deviant, disgusting. We might endeavor to hide it. We might wish it away. We learn that even if our family accepts us, there are some relatives who might not; we get asked to hide who we are so as not to make them uncomfortable.
This teaches shame.
We hear about LGBT people who have been physically attacked or even killed for being who they are.
This teaches fear.
While I know I grew up with privilege, and others have stories far worse than mine, I also believe that countless other LGBT people could tell stories like this — not the alike , but all rooted in a legacy that made us feel ashamed of who we are. And yet I, like many of us, also learned pride and hope and found a community tha