Nearly a third of young gay people have attempted suicide, study finds

NBC News
by Dan Avery
April 20, 2021

Suicide rates among young people have been on the rise in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but gay and bisexual youths are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide as their straight peers.

And, despite advances in the fight for LGBTQ equality, a new report finds that young gay people today are even more likely to have attempted suicide than in previous generations.

Researchers at the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation and gender identity think tank at UCLA School of Law, found that 30 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents ages 18 to 25 reported at least one suicide attempt, compared to 24 percent of those 34-41 and 21 percent of those 52-59.

The study, published last month in the journal PLOS One, also revealed that these young adults are experiencing higher levels of victimization, psychological distress and internalized homophobia than older generations.

"We had really expected it would be better for the younger group," said lead author Ilan H. Meyer, a distinguished senior scholar of public policy at the institute. "But at the same time, we knew data from other studies has shown LGB youth do a lot worse than straight youth — and not much better now than in earlier times."

Meyer and his colleagues surveyed 1,518 respondents who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual (trans people were included in a separate study). Participants were divided into three cohorts: the "Pride" generation, those born from 1956 to 1963; the "Visibility" generation, born from 1974 to 1981; and the "Equality" generation, born from 1990 to 1997.

Using the Kessler Scale, a clinical measure of psychological distress, they found that members of the Equality generation reported almost twice as many symptoms of anxiety and depression as the Pride generation. Many factors influenced the data, Meyer said, including the fact that people are coming out younger than ever. 

"That can be a positive, of course," he said. "But it can also backfire and expose you to a lot of harassment and victimization. You might not be prepared for the consequences."

For the full article click here

Coronavirus pandemic strains LGBTQ health clinics

NBC News
by Sydney Bauer
May 5, 2020

Lyon-Martin Health Services in San Francisco has served the health needs of lesbians, transgender women and other underserved women in the Bay Area since 1979. Named after pioneering lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the clinic had until recently been seeing 3,000 patients a year for such needs as physical exams, gynecologic services and consultations for gender-affirming surgeries.

Now, however, it is fighting to keep its doors open amid the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to emergency funding from the city and private donors, it will be able to operate until July 1 without deep cuts to its services — which now include screening for COVID-19 — but its future is uncertain after that.

“The city needs to see how long COVID is going to play out,” J.M. Jaffe, the transgender health manager at Lyon-Martin, told NBC News. “They wanted to do a short-term contract so that we could re-evaluate what the situation will be in two months. I think they were just wary to make a commitment to continue to support us, but we did get kind of like a wink and a nod that they would like to support us to the end of the calendar year.”

Lyon-Martin Health Services is one of over 200 LGBTQ health clinics across the United States that provide affirming and competent care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer patients. And like Lyon-Martin, a number of these centers are struggling to adjust to — and in some cases survive — the new normal spawned by the global pandemic.

For the full article click here.

What Does It Now Mean to Be “Queer”?

Splice Today
by Chris Beck
February 11, 2020

When HBO announced that Jameela Jamil would host its new dance contest show, Legendary, which is based on the predominantly black and Latino subculture of drag balls in the LGBTQ community, some on social media threw a fit because she was neither connected to dance culture nor the LGBTQ community. Jamil promptly responded with a Twitter announcement that she was coming out as “queer,” but said she hadn’t been vocal about it because her “South Asian” community isn’t accepting of it. It was reminiscent of when Kevin Spacey came out as gay when he was accused of sexual assault.

Jamil has dated singer James Blake for five years, so is she saying she’s bisexual? Or perhaps she’s kissed a few girls here and there and liked it? We can only guess, because she’s gone quiet on social media. “LGBT” was pretty straightforward, but the “Q” got added without much explanation. I remember when queer was used only as a slur against homosexuals, as when William F. Buckley lost his temper and called Gore Vidal a queer on national television in 1968. Warren Hurst, a county functionary in Tennessee, also used the word this way in October of last year when he said, “We got a queer running for president, if that ain’t about as ugly as you can get.” People in the audience—presumably not Pete Buttigieg fans—laughed and clapped, but the county he works for denounced the language. Hurst responded, implausibly, that he’s “not prejudiced.”

For the full article click here.

'Queer' Moniker Finds Favor Among the Young and Nonbinary

Advocate
by Trudy Ring
January 28, 2020

Young adults, cisgender women, and genderqueer or nonbinary people have embraced the term “queer” as their identifier in greater proportions than the LGBTQ community as a whole, according to a new study.

Six percent of sexual minority adults in the U.S. chose “queer” to describe their identity in the study conducted by the Williams Institute, a think tank on LGBTQ issues and the law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. It was the first study to examine queer identity in a nationally representative sample.

Those who identify as queer, researchers found, are overwhelmingly cisgender women or genderqueer/nonbinary; they are also younger and more highly educated than other sexual minorities. Eighty-three percent of those identifying as queer were assigned female at birth. Seventy-six percent of queer people were age 18-25.

For the full article click here.

Don’t leave out the Q: study concludes the term queer is a ‘distinct’ sexuality

LGBTQ Nation
by Juwan J. Holmes
January 26, 2020

According to a study conducted by the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law, it’s time to regard the term queer as a “distinct sexual identity” within the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

“We explored the demographics and sexuality (e.g., sexual partnering and attraction) of people who identify as queer, compared to those who identify as lesbian/gay, bisexual, or other sexual minority identities, to better understand if, and how, queer-identified people are distinct from other sexual minority groups,” the study edited by M. Paz Galupo, PhD reads. Their data was collected from 1,518 surveyed respondents between the ages of 18 and 59, in 2016 and 2017.

Conducted by Shoshana K. Goldberg, Esther D. Rothblum, Stephen T. Russell, and Ilan H. Meyer, the study is named as “the first to estimate demographic characteristics and sexuality of queer-identified people using a U.S. nationally representative sample.”

For the full article click here.

Who's the 'Q' in LGBTQ? Study shines light on 'queer' identities. (Copy)

Daily News
by Muri Assunção
January 24, 2020

An estimated 6% of sexual minorities in the U.S. identify as queer, a new study has found.

The report, “Exploring the Q in LGBTQ: Demographic characteristic and sexuality of queer people in a U.S. representative sample of sexual minorities” was published by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law Wednesday.

It was the first study to examine queer identity in a U.S. nationally representative sample.

“The term ‘queer’ has a long history with different connotations for sexual minorities,” study author Ilan H. Meyer said in a statement, noting that the word has been used as a derogatory term in the past, but later “claimed by academics as a critical term and field of study.”

For the full article click here.

Report: Half of LGBTQ Americans Are Attracted to More Than One Gender

Logo NewNowNext
by Kate Sosin
January 23, 2020

Only half of LGBTQ Americans identify as lesbian or gay, while the rest of the spectrum shows interest in more than one gender, according to new research from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Some 41% of LGBTQ adults identify as bisexual, 6% describe themselves as queer, and 7% use another label such as “pansexual.”

The study examined “queer” identity across 1,518 respondents between the ages of 18 and 59 surveyed in 2016 and 2017. The report sheds new light on the term, which some still consider a slur. The Institute reports that this is the first national research done on queer Americans as an identity group.

For the full article click here.

Queers Have Something To Teach About Spirituality

The Rainbow Times
by Paul P. Jesep
February 6, 2020

Almost 6% of sexual minorities identify as queer, according to a new study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA  School of Law. This self-designation is no doubt an openness to broader consciousness and self-awareness.

According to a press release issued by the Institute, quoting Ilan H. Meyer, one of the study’s authors, “The term ‘queer’ has a long history with different connotations for sexual minorities.” She added, “Some older people learned it as a derogatory term, but later it was claimed by academics as a critical term and field of study, and some young people may perceive it as an identity that is more fluid than ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay.’ Queer identity seems to represent greater openness to partners of all gender identities.”

Those who live their truth as queer give me another valued and valuable perspective. It invites me to explore the limitations I put on others and myself. The perspective challenges me as to why I see the world in a certain way and whether I’ve limited my understanding of it. Hence, have I limited my ability to spiritually grow?

For the full article click here.

Who's the 'Q' in LGBTQ? Study shines light on 'queer' identities.

NBC News
by Tim Fitzsimons
January 23, 2020

For some, "queer" is a loaded word — a negative epithet from a less accepting time that was hurled at anyone perceived to be gay. But for others, particularly younger LGBTQ people, it is a reclaimed term and a less restrictive self-identifier.

While the word's use — and its 21st century reclamation — has been mostly anecdotal up to this point, a new report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has put scientific data behind the population of queer-identified people in the United States. According to its findings, nearly 6 percent of sexual minorities identify as queer, while 47 percent identify as lesbian or gay, just over 40 percent identify as bisexual and about 7 percent identify as "other."

"We find in this study that queer individuals make up a sizable proportion of sexual minorities, who are distinct in a number of important ways from other sexual minority people, both in terms of demographic characteristics and sexuality, and across gender identity," said lead author Shoshana K. Goldberg, a research consultant at the Williams Institute and an assistant professor focusing on LGBTQ health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

For the full article click here.

Study says 6% of sexual minority adults in the US identify as queer

Windy City Times
by Rachel Dowd
January 22, 2020

The first study to examine queer identity in a U.S. nationally representative sample

An estimated 6% of sexual minority adults in the U.S. identify as queer, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Those who identify as queer are overwhelmingly cisgender women or genderqueer/nonbinary ( GQNB ); they are also younger and more highly educated than other sexual minorities.

Researchers examined a representative sample of sexual minorities in the United States from three age groups—young ( 18-25 ), middle ( 34-41 ), and older ( 52-59 )—to determine the demographics and sexuality of people who identify as queer, compared to those who identify as lesbian/gay, bisexual, or as other sexual minority identities.

For the full article click here.

Report: Only 13% of Queer People Have Gone to an LGBTQ Health Clinic Despite Overwhelming Need

Logo NewNowNext
by Kate Sosin
December 4, 2019

At a time when the Trump administration is rapidly rolling back LGBTQ health care protections in the U.S., a new report suggests that queer health centers are out of reach for most in the country.

On Wednesday, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law released a study that found just 13% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have used an LGBTQ health center, while 52% wish they could. The findings were based on data from 1,534 LGB people between the ages of 18-61 years old. Transgender people were not included in the report because they will be the focus of a separate study, the Institute told NewNowNext.

The study also found that nearly three out of four (72%) queer-identified people live within 60 miles of an LGBTQ clinic, but still struggled to make it to those centers.

“Even within a 60-mile radius, unreliable transportation and long commute times can be a serious barrier to utilization,” wrote the study’s authors.

For the full article click here.

13% of LGB people have utilized LGBT-specific clinics; 52% would like to in the future

Dallas Voice
by Tammye Nash
December 4, 2019

Only 13 percent of LGB people have utilized LGBT-specific clinics, although 52 percent expressed an interest in utilizing such clinics in the future, according to a new study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

The study included “a representative sample of LGB people in the United States from three age groups — young (18-25), middle (34-41) and older (52-59) — to understand the factors that influenced past utilization of LGBT-specific clinics and providers and interest in using them in the future,” researchers noted.

Lead author Alexander J. Martos, former research analyst at the Williams Institute, noted, “The discrepancy between past utilization and interest in future use of LGBT-specific providers suggests there is a disconnect between the type of healthcare many LGB people would like to have and what they have access to. Younger black LGB people and those with lower incomes reported the greatest interest in LGBT community-based healthcare.”

For the full article click here.

Research Spotlight: Narratives of Three Generations of Sexual Minorities

Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology
by David Tomaselli
Summer 2019

A cache of 191 interviews from the Generations study - the first long-term, five-year study to examine health and well-being across three generations of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals - has proven an invaluable resource for Logan Barsigian, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as the basis of their study exploring non-binary gender identity, The Meaning of Genderqueer: Narratives of Three Generations of Genderqueer Sexual Minorities.

Like the larger Generations study, Barsigian’s study focuses on identity and development across the life course and explores the role of cultural context. Barsigian explained that data from Generations, with cohorts culled from three different age groups (ages 18-25, 24-41, and 52-59), also served as an ideal platform for engaging simarlarities - and differences - in experience between generations of genderqueer people with respect to: how someone understands non-binary gender experience; how someone narrates the intersections of gender, sexuality, and other identities when faced with overly reductive societal identifies; and how someone finds community in terms of supportive fellowship and what that fellowship feels like. These points of interest lie at the heart of Barsigian’s study.

For the full news letter click here.

How Do You Measure the LGBT Population in the U.S.?

Gallup
by Ilan H. Meyer
June 27, 2019

Until recently, researchers have struggled to answer what should be a simple question: How many Americans are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)?

Alfred Kinsey's prominent study of sexuality in men from the 1950s led to the often-quoted estimate that 10% of the U.S. population is gay or lesbian. Other significant milestones in estimating the population of gay Americans include Edward Laumann and colleagues' The Social Organization of Sexuality, published in 1994; Gary Gates' The Gay & Lesbian Atlas, published in 2004; and The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law's 2011 estimate (also authored by Gates).

Since 2012, Gallup research has shown that the proportion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT has increased from 3.5% in 2012 to 4.5% in 2017. The overall uptick is related to an increase in young people who identify as LGBT. Gallup asks, "Do you personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender?" People who answer yes are classified as LGBT.

But the matter of how to best inquire about sexual orientation and gender identity is far from settled. In 2016, together with a group of researchers, I started working with Gallup on two National Institutes of Health-funded studies: Generations, studying sexual minorities, and TransPop, studying gender minorities. To recruit separate sexual and gender minority groups, we had to begin to unpack the LGBT category that Gallup had been collecting data on. Typically, sexual and gender minority statuses are assessed separately, and we wondered how Gallup's single LGBT question compared.

For the full article click here

Generational differences in LGBTQ identity and relationships

UC Office of the President
by Alex Morales
June 25, 2019

Are we living in a "post-gay" era? How has social media affected the LGBTQ experience? We talked with experts from across the UC system about generational differences in LGBTQ identity and relationships.

For the full live presentation click here.

Chasing the L.G.B.T.Q. Millennial American Dream

The New York Times
by Jeremy Allen
June 13, 2019

Even in the twilight of print media, news buffs pause to take notice when Time magazine centers its red cover crop on a subject — elevating it, if only for a week, to the subject.

On May 13, it was Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., a Democratic presidential contender, and his husband, Chasten. “First Family,” the headline proclaimed. Beneath it stood the couple, arm in arm in front of their stately porch — Mr. Buttigieg’s wedding ring on clear display.

It was only four years ago that same-sex marriage became the law of the land. As millennials, Mr. Buttigieg, 37, and Chasten, who turns 30 this month, belong to the first generation of L.G.B.T.Q. people free to marry nationwide at the same age as their straight counterparts: 29.8 years is the median age for men and 27.8 for women, according to the 2018 census.

The speed and complexity of these events are not lost on other L.G.B.T.Q. millennials, a generation born between 1981 and 1996. The arrival of marriage equality has allowed them to consider a future they could not have envisioned as children, but what this future looks like remains unclear.

For the full article click here.

Open Forum: On the legacy of AIDS — trauma and shame get in the way of HIV prevention

San Francisco Chronicle
by Phillip L. Hammack
March 28, 2019

“Every time you have sex without a condom, you are asking to die.” The man appeared to be in his 50s. He was angry, raising his voice as he chastised the panelists, men in their 20s who admitted they preferred to have sex without condoms.

A young man stood up in the front row. “We can’t keep being afraid of sex because you were. We can’t carry the burden of everyone who died before us.”

Men in their 30s and 40s — me included — sat in silence. We grew up with AIDS and associated condom-less sex with death.

Gay men may no longer be dying of AIDS — we know how to prevent and manage HIV infection — but the psychological scars of the epidemic are still with us. We need to start having honest conversations about them.

For the full article click here

Study: PrEP and HIV testing underused

The Bay Area Reporter
by Liz Highleyman
September 26, 2018

Only 4 percent of sexually active gay and bisexual men in the United States are using PrEP, according to a recently published study, showing that more must be done to reach everyone who could benefit from it.

Ilan Meyer from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and colleagues also reported that only a quarter of young gay and bi men had ever taken an HIV test, and across all ages a majority did not receive the recommended annual testing.

"Our findings suggest that health education efforts are not adequately reaching sizable groups of men at risk for HIV infection," Meyer said. "It is alarming that high-risk populations of men who are sexually active with same-sex partners are not being tested or taking advantage of treatment advances to prevent the spread of HIV."

For the full article click here

Only 4 percent of U.S. gay men on PrEP: study

Washington Blade
by Staff Reports
September 11, 2018

LOS ANGELES — Only 4 percent of sexually active gay and bisexual men in the United States use Truvada, a highly effective medication used to prevent the transmission of HIV, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind study, MedicalXPress reports.

Led by Psychology Professor Phillip Hammack, the study was published Sept. 7 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Truvada is a once-a-day prescription medication used to reduce the risk of HIV infection; it is the only FDA-approved form of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for those at high risk of HIV/AIDS.

For the full article click here

A Quarter of Young Gay and Bi Men Have Never Been Tested for HIV

Daily Beast
by Samantha Allen
September 14, 2018

In the United States, HIV could be all but ended within a generation or two if everyone who was at risk of infection took PrEP, a daily preventative medication that the CDC says can can lower the chances of contracting the virus “by more than 90 percent.”

But as encouraging as that figure might be, a depressing new statistic emerged this week in the first study to look at PrEP usage rates using a national probability sample.

Even though PrEP could stop the HIV epidemic in its tracks, only 4.1 percent of sexually active, HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in the United States are taking it.

Most, at least, were familiar with the little blue pill—but still not all: Only about 52 percent of the 18-to-25-year-old cohort, for example, said they knew what PrEP was.

For the full article click here