Homophobia And Discrimination In The LGBT Community

In the article, How Homophobia Hurts Everyone by Warren J. Blumenfeld, Blumenfeld describes his experience growing up as a homosexual, and how homophobia affected him, as well as his family and peers. To begin, homophobia can be separated into two different catergories, personal homophobia and interpersonal homophobia. Personal homophobia can be described as a personal belief system, or prejudice that homosexuals, bisexual and transgender people are entitled to, should be disliked or remain powerless, due to their desires. They are also sometimes seen as psychologically disturbed, genetically modified or defective and overall, unfortunate human beings. While on the other hand, interpersonal homophobia refers to the personal prejudice or bias that affects relationships within individuals. An example of interpersonal homophobia could be making a joke, name calling, or insulting certain individuals or groups. This can be either verbal, physical or intimidation related.

In our society, we have many different issues that we are opposed to. Our different opinions on these issues, separates us into two different sides. Homophobia has been one of the most occurring issues that has been happening over these recent years.

Health disparities in the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender community that lack fair treatment. This population deals with many adversities due to their sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBT’s community consists of a diverse population of people who come from all walks of life ((Howard, 2016). Many LBGT’s will delay or not seek health care due to stigma and lack of fair treatment. In other words, they believe that they are discriminated against.

Other factors contributing to LGBT health disparity is the lack of access to care. Different states have different laws regarding to LGBT population, and some of the laws make it difficult for LGBT to get insurance through their partners. Without health insurance many of these people only gets medical treatments on emergency basis. Per Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality “ 19 % of LGBT had been refused treatment by a doctor or other provider because of their transgender or gender nonconforming status,”(AHRQ, 2011). Taking into consideration the level of sexually transmitted disease, drug use, suicidal rate, obesity, and their prevalence among LGBT population, healthcare organizations needs to incorporate better strategies, and open the door to better policies that facilitates access to

This decision has affected people’s behavior as individuals and public institutions such as family, young, elderly, disabled, LGTB and those with pre-existing conditions. For example, Kates & Ranji (2014) report that health care access and coverage for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGTB) community in the U.S. face opportunities and challenges when getting access to care. The authors report that LGBT individuals experience some discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, due to ongoing discrimination, access to health care have been limited to these people (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2014). LGBT individuals not only face discrimination when trying to receive care, but also face difficulties that limit them such as “barriers in obtaining insurance coverage, gaps in coverage, cost-related hurdles, and poor treatment by health care providers” (Kates & Ranji, 2014).

People in America who choose to identify as members of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A community have been chastised and mistreated for years, specifically Black Americans. Thousands of people who identify as members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual community have been suppressed of the ability to love freely without being ridiculed. Every human around the world deserves to be loved, regardless of their sexual orientation. Identifying as a member of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A community does not make you abnormal. There is nothing troubling with liking the same sex, it does not classify you as anything less than a man or woman. Furthermore, society has created this negative notion about identifying as an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A member, we are all humans, with emotions. Homosexuality amongst the African American community is prevalent; it has its detriments and burdens on individuals. The effects of how Blacks are ostracized amongst the Black community is disheartening and is displayed through homophobia, violence, and acceptance.

An increase in knowledge regarding gender-related issues has led to necessary changes needed within healthcare systems. Providers are now expected to understand and deliver care that meets the specific needs of these patients, regardless of age or gender identification. This new change in culture can be extended to community care settings as well as hospitals. If a healthcare provider does not respect the values and beliefs of patients from different cultures, claims of discrimination can be made. This has the potential to result in legal action taken against the provider (Andrews & Boyle,

There are a lot of things that are wrong in our world today. From crime running wild on the streets to there being homelessness wherever we turn. There are things that we can fix, but there are others that just cannot be. We are humans after all; we all have our flaws, we all have our secrets, we have our weaknesses. There are just some things that can never be fixed. Hatred and unrationalizable actions being a few of these things. Every once in a while there is a major crime that sweeps the nation. The reasons for this can vary from mass shootings, police shootouts, the pure shock or the crime or many other reasons. One of these crimes that swept the nation was the horrible act committed against Matthew Shepard.

Courage is standing up for what you believe is right, even when you know others will hate you or worse. There are multiple activists for the LGBTQ+ community, yet there have still been more hate crimes against the community. The community has been involved in hate crimes since the 1960s, and even before that. 50-60 or more years may seem like a long time to teenagers and young adults, but it’s actually not. People in the community have died to others acts against a person being with someone of the same sex or changing their gender identity. There are multiple reasons why hate crimes on the LGBTQ+ community need to be lowered drastically.

Identity salience and changes in one’s salience hierarchy may be affected by one’s experiences of discrimination as they often function as a structural reinforcement of one’s primary identity (Moore 2011). Experiences of discrimination could be understood as recognition of difference and distinction between as well as the positioning of groups against one another (Higginbotham 1992)—a marker of difference and a reinforcement of a certain group membership imposed by others. Furthermore, strong centrality of and group identification with a particular identity could also affect the ways in which individuals perceive discrimination. Social psychologists Sellers and Shelton (2003) have found positive associations between racial centrality and the levels of perceived racial discrimination among black college students. Similarly, in the case of black LGBT individuals, I argue that their perceived experiences of racial or sexual identity-based discrimination would

The battle against Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Defiance Syndrome (AIDS) has been devastating, underestimated, and complex. In America, this difficulty surrounding HIV/AIDS is due to the inability of the state to properly educate and protect its citizens from being exposed to this illness. Since the first detection of HIV and AIDS the government aided in the miseducation, stereotypes, and deaths of its citizens by not taking the proper protocols to protect its people. Originally, United States’ government allowed its citizens to believe that HIV and AIDS were strictly related to homosexual relationships. As a result of this misguidance, homophobia increased nationally; thus, shunning the gay community and making it

Individuals who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experience obstacles within the healthcare system. LGBT individuals who encountered negative experiences in the past such as homophobia and stigmatization from others result decrease access to care and unwillingness to disclose their sexual or gender identity. Khalili, Leung, and Diamant (2015) stated in 2007, physicians’ survey results indicated that they were often and sometimes uncomfortable in providing services to LGBT patients. The presence of discrimination behavior means that there is a lack of LGBT-competency within the healthcare system. To decrease discrimination within the healthcare system, it is important for physicians to be competent in order to provide high quality care for LGBT individuals. LGBT-competency training will increase awareness, healthcare knowledge, and will improve communication skills. In addition, LGBT- competency training will also improve physician-patient interactions and will improve patients’ outcome and

Homophobia is an immense issue in todays society, but especially in America. The completely irrational prejudices against the community of this country is on the rise. This is due to a number of causes of which we as the American people have the ability to change. We must closely exam the causes and the effects of homophobia in America to completely understand why and where this is still occurring in modern day society and how it may be further prevented.

When I started the Psychiatric DNP program at Columbia School of Nursing, we were asking to introduce ourselves and tell a short story about why we chose Psychiatry. When it was my turn, I spoke about my experiences during my Community Rotation in the MDE program. For this rotation, I did home visits for older LGBT people. During this time, I met a transgender woman who informed me about a time she saw doctor and he kept referring to her as a him. This was very hurtful to her and she never returned to that doctor. She continued to say this did not deter her from seeing other doctors, but for many LGBT this is not the case. I was angry and upset for this woman and the many other people that have to endure such a thing. I spoke to a few other people during my rotation and many mentioned withholding their sexual orientation from their doctors, as well as other medical information. Once again, I was sad that people had to rely on withholding

There are many minorities in the United States of America making it one of the largest melting pots in the world. Unfortunately, due to the vast variety of people, there are many minorities that lack the proper access to healthcare resources that cater to their healthcare needs both mentally and physically. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community, also known as the LGBT community, face many hurdles when it comes to receiving the proper healthcare. They also encompass many different races, religions, ethnicities and social classes. According to a recent national and state-level population-based surveys, “8 million adults in the US are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, comprising 3.5% of the adult population” (Gates, 2011). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face many challenges and barriers accessing the proper health services. Many of the challenges the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community faces stems from