The President of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, made waves on Wednesday night when he claimed that smoking was a better health choice than homosexuality. Wallace said:
“I think we’re going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community’s own statistics for its health – which it presents when it wants more money for health – are that it has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years.”
Wallace’s comments have rightfully caused condemnation from around the country, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard pulling out a planned keynote address at the ACL Conference later in the year. Beyond the initial outrage however, Wallace’s comments also shine a light on a major issue we face but often don’t talk about; the role of queerphobia in the health of the LGBTIQ community.
Let’s be blunt to start off with. Despite the fact that Wallace’s claims that homosexuality was worse for you than smoking have been called out to be false, he was right about one thing: members of the LGBTIQ community overall have worse health outcomes in some important areas compared to our straight counterparts. Statistics show that GLBTIQ community members generally have higher depression and suicide rates, have larger drug and alcohol abuse problems and gay men continue to be highly represented in HIV/AIDs infections, with these numbers rising as more gay men are having unsafe sex.
Where Wallace goes off the rails though is the causes of these problems. These health problems have nothing to do with the ‘innate nature’ of LGBTIQ people, but are in fact largely caused by the hate-filled world that Wallace promotes. They are a direct consequence of the queerphobia that Wallace, and people like him, spout every day.
Let’s have a look at the raw issues Wallace brings out; starting with depression and suicide. A research scoping paper commissioned by the national depression initiative, Beyond Blue, in December 2008 found that same-sex attracted people, in particular women, are the most susceptible group to depression and suicide in our community. According to the study, in any twelve month period, approximately 42% of queer people suffer from some form of mental illness (this includes affective disorders, anxiety and substance abuse), compared to fewer than 20% of heterosexual-identifying people.
When we have a look at the evidence, we can see that these rates have nothing to do with ‘our lifestyle’ though but rather to do with the homophobic world we are stuck living in. As Andrew Cook in Crikey reported yesterday:
In fact, it is likely that dubious media interventions like Wallace’s may in fact perpetuate many of the health problems he is himself referring to. A recent study from the University of Queensland, The Psychology of Same-S-x Marriage Opposition, showed that individuals exposed to media articles bagging same-s-x marriage were more likely to report feeling negative and depressed and more likely to feel distressed, upset, guilty, scared, afraid, ashamed and nervous. They were more likely to report loneliness, more likely to report they felt weak and powerless — and less likely to report feeling happy or positive.
A recent Psychologists for Marriage Equality submission to the Senate inquiry into the gay marriage bill cited a 2007 study showing the phenomenon of “minority stress” means “social prejudice, discrimination, and violence against lesbians, gay men, and bis-xuals play a significant role in the mental health outcomes” of these groups.
Research around Aboriginal Australians find similar problems. After the Aboriginal Memes scandal earlier in the year, Tim Senior reported in Crikey that racism has direct negative impacts on people’s health. In quoting research from Dr Angela Duery, Senior noted that of those who experience racist verbal abuse 50% are more likely to report their health being fair or poor. Those who believe their employers were racist were 40% more likely to report their health being fair or poor. In other words, racism, or perceptions of racism, have a direct impact on people’s health. Direct links can easily be seen between this racism research and the homophobia many in the LGBTIQ community face.
When we look at alcohol and drug use we can see similar patterns. Research shows a number of reasons for the elevated use of drug and alcohol abuse in the LGBTIQ community, most of which are related to the stress of living in a homophobic world. For example, Eliason and Hughes (cited by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities) found these reasons that LGBTIQ people take drugs:
- Stress associated with belonging to an often despised minority
- Stress associated with managing a minority identity, such as needing to hide identity to keep job or experiencing harassment/discrimination
- The stress associated with coming out to family, friends and work colleagues
- Confusion around sexual orientation or gender identity
- The role of gay bars as a major (and sometime only) social outlet, leading to finding friends and partners in bar settings, thus increasing the likelihood of adopting a “heavy drinking”/using peer group
- Greater likelihood of loss of family and community support
- Non-acceptance of self or internalised homophobia: leading to low self esteem, depression, anxiety and feelings of guilt and paranoia.
To put it simply, being LGBTIQ is stressful, particularly when you’re young. And this stress leads to a range of outlets, with drug and alcohol abuse being one of the major ones. When you add in increasing levels of depression, which is closing linked with alcohol and drug abuse, you create a toxic combination.
Finally, if you look at STIs we can see that prevalence of unsafe sex practices in the gay community leading to high levels of STI infections has a lot to do with homophobia. Research conducted in 2009 found a direct link between ‘internalised homophobia’ and unsafe sex practices. As reported in AidsMap:
“Firstly, they (the researchers) found that men who were not “out” as gay or bisexual had lower levels of HIV disclosure to their secondary sexual partners, which in turn was associated with unprotected anal sex with men of unknown HIV status.
Secondly, a relationship was also demonstrated between lack of sexual comfort – comfort with one’s sexuality and body image – and poor condom efficacy, which in turn led to an increased risk of unprotected anal sex with men of a different or unknown HIV status.”
This research goes on to state that internalised homophobia could also be important to “understanding gay men’s higher rates of body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, eating-disordered behaviors, and insecure body image compared to their straight male counterparts.”
In another study, Halkitis and Parsons found a direct correlation between men who participate in ‘barebacking’ (intentionally having sex without a condom) and ideals of masculinity and sexual prowess. This connects with research done by Sanchez et. al. that showed that many gay men feel pressured to be ‘masculine’ as a reaction to the abuse that ‘gender atypical boys’ receive. As they said:
“In other words, some gay men may feel pressured to behave “super-masculine” or to “butch it up” in order to be accepted.”
(note that the research also showed that if these men don’t feel like they are meeting this masculine ideal that they often report high-levels of distress and depression).
When you look at all of these statistics, you can really see the real impact of Wallace’s words. In defending his comments, Wallace stated:
“Instead of more free speech-suppressing vitriol and demonisation from the gay activists, there needs to be an open and honest debate before Parliament changes the definition of marriage.”
What’s clear however is that whilst Wallace is raging about ‘free speech-suppressing vitriol and demonisation from the gay activists’ it is this open debate that he wants that is causing the death of so many LGBTIQ people. Queerphobia and abuse, the exact kind Wallace engages in, is directly linked with depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and unsafe sexual practices. This hate-speech has consequences, and for many those consequences are deadly.
That doesn’t mean that we have to stop Wallace from being able to say what he wants. But if we want to stop the sorts of death this queerphobia is causing we need to take away his microphone. Julia Gillard cancelling her speech at the ACL is a good start (although she never should have accepted it in the first place). But we also need to keep standing up to hate speech, whether it is gay slurs in our workplace or people like Wallace in our media. We need to stop treating hate-speech as if it something that people are allowed to spew without any consequences.
Free speech doesn’t mean the right to be heard. It also doesn’t mean the right to not be challenged when you do say things.
Queerphobia is killing people. Therefore, it is our responsibility to take away the microphones, and then directly challenge those who continue to spout it. The right of the GLBTIQ community to live healthy lives in a homophobic-free world depends on it.