There are serious and difficult issues surrounding mental health in the LGBTQ+ community(sometimes called the queer community). This umbrella includes people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, non-binary, and queer — as well as plenty of other sexual minorities.
LGBTQ+ individuals are, on average, more likely to develop or experience mental health issues, including but not necessarily limited to: depression, anxiety(including social anxiety), eating disorders, drug and alcohol misuse, self-harm, and suicidal feelings. It is important to stress that these problems are not a result of being LGBTQ+ — but, rather, usually arise as a result of a society that deems such identities as unusual or abnormal, which is also known as heteronormativity.
Stonewall —the leading LGBT+ charity in the UK — commissioned a survey from You Gov of 5,000 LGBT people from across Britain . The results, published in 2018, make for stark reading. In the preceding twelve months, half of LGBT people said they’d experienced depression; almost half of trans people (46%) had thought about taking their own life; 41% of non-binary people harmed themselves; and one in six LGBT people said they drank alcohol almost every day.
