Lonels and social support among lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and tersex people aged 50 and over - Volume 36 Issue 9
Contents:
- HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
- GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
- DEPRSN IS KILLG GAY MEN
- LONELS AND SOCIAL SUPPORT AMONG LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR AND TERSEX PEOPLE AGED 50 AND OVER
HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
Eric Bach is an openly gay broadster for the Frericksburg Natnals. He has major league aspiratns, but his path has been much lonelier than he would prefer. * lonely and gay *
Part of realizg you're gay, or bi, or trans, or non-bary, or anythg other than cisgenr and heterosexual is acceptg you’re different—and somewhat separated—om the majory. At the time, there were no real gay role mols except for Graham Norton and Jack om Dawson's Creek—and I certaly didn't intify wh him bee I wasn't a football player.
I felt like I was pletely on my rried on until I was 16, when I started gog out to gay bars my hometown. For the first time I've been able to form a good group of gay iends and create my own support work. In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history.
GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
Gay men experience more prsn and suici, but help is available. * lonely and gay *
As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot. Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s.
Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv. In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three. Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women.
“Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men. In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm.
DEPRSN IS KILLG GAY MEN
Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg. * lonely and gay *
TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv. “But now you’ve got lns of gay men who have e out of the closet and they still feel the same isolatn. By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends.
When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn. ” As the gay rights movement gaed steam, though, homosexualy disappeared om the DSM and the explanatn shifted to trma.
LONELS AND SOCIAL SUPPORT AMONG LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR AND TERSEX PEOPLE AGED 50 AND OVER
“That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out.
The problem wasn’t jt suici, wasn’t jt afflictg teenagers and wasn’t jt happeng areas staed by homophobia. He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, allergi and asthma—you name , we got . In Canada, Salway eventually disvered, more gay men were dyg om suici than om AIDS, and had been for years.