WayAhead is celebrating International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT).
WayAhead believes IDAHOT is important to the entire New South Wales community because it helps bring attention to issues still being faced by our LGBTI community. It also helps foster a society where LGBTI Australians feel understood and accepted.
Research demonstrates that LGBTI Australians either delay or don’t access support services due to fear of discrimination and/or prejudice on the basis of their identity (Barret & Crameri 2015).
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) state that 20 percent of transgender people and 15 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual people report suffering from suicidal ideation, with same sex attracted people “14 times more likely to attempt suicide twice as likely to experience anxiety disorders and three times more likely to experience affective disorders compared with the broader population (Rosenstreich, 2013; ABS, 2007)” (RANZCP, 2016:2).
One of the main issues currently affecting the LGBTI community is Marriage Equality. Marriage is an important social construct and is the community’s way of recognising a loving relationship. WayAhead believes that all Australians should be free to have their relationship recognised in the same way, no matter the genders of the people in those relationships.
WayAhead is concerned that funding for a marriage equality plebiscite was allocated in the 2017-18 federal budget and renews its call for parliament to block the plebiscite and instead legislate by free parliamentary vote to allow same sex couples to marry, and to legally recognise same sex marriages performed overseas.
WayAhead is concerned that the already dangerously high mental health statistics reported in the LGBTI community will continue to grow to even higher levels should anti-marriage equality groups be given a national platform to spread their agenda through a new national marriage equality plebiscite campaign.
Another issue affecting the LGBTI community is religious exemption laws. These laws make it legal for religious organisations to openly discriminate against a person for whatever reason, based on religious ideology. WayAhead believes these laws do not help create a just and inclusive society free from discrimination and would like to see religious organisations come under the same discrimination laws as other organisations.
For LGBTI Australians religious exemption laws places a feeling they have to hide their true selves from these communities and further contributes to them feeling a general lack of social equality. It is hard to reconcile the Australian ethos of ‘a fair go’ when regressive laws like these continue in 2017.
WayAhead works every day to help New South Wales’ LGBTI community manage their mental health. WayAhead runs an anxiety support group specifically for the LGBTI community, which is run in partnership with ACON and the Aurora Group. Our LGBTI anxiety support group helps to decrease rates of anxiety in the LGBTI community by discussing issues affecting our participants in a safe peer-to-peer way.
To find out more about WayAhead’s LGBTI support group visit www.wayahead.org.au.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health issue please call the Mental Health Line on 1800 011 511.