Sometimes it happens in a courtroom.īut it’s more than just marriage. Sometimes health happens in the hospital room. (No such increase was found in neighboring states that did not pass bans.) individuals experienced a marked rise in mental health problems, including anxiety, alcohol use and mood disorders. Nationwide, legalization of same-sex marriage is linked to increases in the likelihood that gay men have health insurance and a regular doctor to see.īy contrast, in states that passed same-sex marriage bans in 20, L.G.B.T. Other states that followed suit saw a 7 percent reduction in suicide attempts among L.G.B.T. Hodges required all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriage.Īfter Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, mental health visits dropped significantly for gay men across the state. Since Vermont became the first state to formally recognize same-sex partnerships in 2000, many other states either legalized same-sex marriage, or conversely, passed constitutional amendments banning it - until the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. rights expansions across the country has allowed researchers to study the effects on health and well-being by comparing states that expanded rights to those that failed to introduce protections, or actively curtailed them. The halting, patchwork nature of L.G.B.T. And evidence increasingly suggests this shift has measurably improved health care access and health outcomes for L.G.B.T. individuals in recent years are among the more transformative social changes in modern American history. Discrimination in any form can have serious health consequences: Sexual minorities living in communities with high levels of prejudice die more than a decade earlier than those in less prejudiced communities.īut civil rights advances and growing public acceptance of L.G.B.T. But often they stem from an explicit denial of rights: same-sex marriage bans, employment discrimination, denial of federal benefits. Some of these disparities have interpersonal roots: social exclusion, harassment, internalized homophobia. youth are three times as likely to contemplate suicide, and nearly five times as likely to attempt suicide. Sexual minorities live, on average, shorter lives than heterosexuals, and L.G.B.T. They have a higher risk of mental health problems, substance use and smoking. They’re more likely to struggle with poverty and social isolation. He’d had enough.įor decades, we’ve known that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals experience a range of social, economic and health disparities - often the result of a culture and of laws and policies that treat them as lesser human beings. Now his father’s disavowal pushed him over the edge, capping a string of stigmatizing experiences at home, at school and at church. Deeply religious, he was gay but desperately wanted not to be.
Sociable but square, he didn’t drink until he was 21, even though he’d gone to a college with a reputation for partying. He once felt so bad for lying about having done his homework before playing video games, he told me, that he’d grounded himself. He’d been a happy kid who aimed to please. Today, he greeted me with a soft smile, his delirium starting to clear, his heart beating normally again.
Yesterday, my patient, a 20-something graduate student, swallowed a jumble of unmarked pills, hoping to die, after his father told him never to come home again. Sometimes he or she can’t stop talking, breathlessly describing what happened as if we’re gossiping at brunch after an hour of SoulCycle. Sometimes, the person in front of me barely speaks, staring right through me, lost in a deep catatonic depression. But I’ve learned to stop expecting anything. I’ve never been sure what to expect when meeting someone who’s just tried to take his own life.