Month: February 2022

The legalization of gay marriage in the United States has left many concluding that LGBTQ+ people no longer face major discrimination, but this is entirely inaccurate. 

Due to the overwhelming presence of heteronormativity in society, LGBT youth are more likely to be bullied by peers and face backlash from their families. Bullying takes a severe toll on mental health and can lead to the development of low self-esteem, anxiety, and/or depression.

—Bullying has an incredibly negative impact on how a person views and treats themselves; LGBT youth are more likely to be on the receiving end. 

Meanwhile, some families choose to disown their children over a non-straight or trans identity: LGBT youths are more likely to become homeless or end up in foster care. 

Bullying and familial abandonment contribute to suicide attempts among the LGBTQ+ community. 

One major source of disparity is the way LGBT individuals are treated by the healthcare system. There have been several instances of doctors refusing patients treatment on the basis of religious or moral beliefs. When treatment is given, doctors are more likely to be harsh or abusive when dealing with non-straight, trans, or non-gender conforming patients (When Health Care Isn’t Caring, p. 10, para. 2). 

LGBT patients are also often blamed for their own health problems, especially if they’re an individual living with AIDS or HIV. 

Due to being a minority group, LGBTQ+ people are more subject to wealth inequality than their peers.

—LGBT people aren’t always protected by non discriminatory laws. The gov’t often doesn’t consider their circumstances and they are less likely to be employed. 

Over the past decades, lesbian bars have been closing their doors all across the United States. Many have speculated about the potential causes with some going as far as to blame transgender women for encroaching on women’s spaces. 

A much more likely explanation is that wages have stagnated while the wage gap has grown as the privileged and wealthy continue to attain more wealth. The ones running lesbian bars are gay/bisexual women: members of two minorities who are, therefore, going to face more financial challenges when running a business. 

The opposition didn’t end after gay marriage was legalized: there are many other ways for majority groups to continue enforcing their power over minorities. 

Land redistribution is a firm part of America’s past and it’s present. This country was, after all, founded on the mistreatment of Native Americans; in the mid-1900s, over 100 native tribes lost their recognition by the federal government and were made subject to state jurisdiction—they were encouraged to move to urban centers, which didn’t make life any easier.

They, and many other minorities, were and are subject to poverty and housing discrimination.

The Fair Housing Act defines what housing inequality by stating what acts of related discrimination it defends against.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Fair Housing Act prohibits the denial of renting/buying a home, getting assistance for housing, etc. because of disability, color, race, national origin, sex, gender, and/or religion.

You’d think that this being set in stone would stop people from discriminating for fear of being taken to court, but a law being in place has never and will never stop people from breaking it.

And when minorities are able to secure housing, they’re likely to be ignored when reporting issues with their homes. A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that residents with white names received a response from their landlords 60% of the time, where black or latino names garnered a 54%-57% response rate.

This, in turn, makes minority residents more likely to move out and less likely to move in. And whiter neighborhoods are more valued—more resources are put into keeping the neighborhood looking nice and keeping the residents satisfied.

Racism in cases like this is structural: something put in place to divide the haves from the have-nots and keep “less desirable” people squarely in the latter category. People often pin the problems associated with “slum” areas on the people living there, but the truth is much more systemic.