Anti-stigma poster campaign highlights need for stronger LGBT community ties

 

Re:searching for LGBTQ Health! is a team of researchers in Canada who “focus on understanding how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, Two-Spirit, and queer (LGBTQ) people experience physical and mental health, and how they access health services.”

They have found that research, in both Canada and the US, has shown that bisexuals have poorer mental health and use mental health services more often than heterosexuals, gays, or lesbians (1-7). “One possible reason for this may be experiences of stigma, prejudice and discrimination that create a hostile social environment. These experiences can trigger mental health problems or make existing problems worse.”

The organisation’s own research on bisexual people in Ontario reported that discrimination negatively affected bi people’s mental health on multiple levels, “a finding backed up by other research in the field (7-10). Bisexual people in the pilot study reported several types of stressful experiences”:

1. being discriminated against for being bisexual (biphobia).
2. being labelled as “really” straight or gay/lesbian and having their bisexuality regarded as illegitimate (monosexism).
3. feeling that they have to constantly explain and justify their sexual identity to others (monosexism, biphobia).
4. the media not portraying bisexuality as a legitimate and healthy sexual identity (marginalization, erasure and invisibility).

“While experiences of stress makes us sick, relationships with friends, family, partners, and the LGBTQ community help keep us healthy. Research has found that belonging to the LGBTQ community can reduce the effects of minority stress. However, due to biphobia and monosexism, bisexuals may lack access to this support (2, 9, 11).”