Lesbian Youth Most Likely to Experience Loneliness
A new study from the U.K. LGBTQ nonprofit Just Like Us has found that lesbian youth experience loneliness and feelings of isolation during the pandemic at a much higher rate than other young queer people.
Just Like Us surveyed 2,934 young people, ages 11-18, on their mental health, including 1,194 LGBTQ individuals. When comparing LGBTQ youth to their non-LGBTQ peers, the study found LGBTQ youth were more than twice as likely to experience daily worries about their mental health than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.
Among those LGBTQ individuals surveyed, lesbian youth reported feelings of loneliness and isolation more than any other group, with 87 percent of those surveyed feeling separated from their loved ones, and 60 percent of them feeling this isolation on a daily basis. Fifty-four percent of bisexual individuals, 52 percent of transgender youth, and 46 percent of young gay people reported feeling similarly isolated on a daily basis.
Of the statistics, the chief executive of Just Like Us, Dominic Arnall, says, “We hope that this research will begin to shed light on the experiences of young lesbians, who are sadly the most likely group within the LGBT+ community to report feeling lonely and separated from the people they are closest to on a daily basis since the pandemic began.”
The high rates of feelings of isolation and loneliness among LGBTQ youth could be linked to a lack of positive support from schools and communities. Thirty percent of young LGBTQ people surveyed reported only receiving positive messaging from school about LGBTQ identity once or twice a year, and 18 percent reported not having received any positive messaging from school in the past year.
The study also found that Black youth, transgender youth, and those eligible for free meals at school were more likely to experience mental health issues. A study published in January 2021 came to similar conclusions, finding that Black, LGBTQ individuals were especially prone to anxiety and depression.
The pandemic has only worsened mental health issues among LGBTQ youth, Just Like Us reported. Seventy-eight percent of lesbian youth said their mental health had declined since lockdown started, compared to 71 percent of young gay people and 74 and 70 percent of bisexual and transgender youth, respectively. 49 percent of non-LGBTQ young people reported that their mental health had declined.
In his statement to Just Like Us, Arnall stressed the importance of examining the differences between different LGBTQ identities when studying mental health. “The results show the importance of looking at the experiences of different identities within the LGBT+ umbrella separately, ensuring that we understand the different people within the acronym and how their identities might affect their experiences,” Arnall says.
