People who are LGBTIQ+ are more likely to experience discrimination, violence and bullying in the home, workplace, and community than the rest of the population. These experiences affect people’s physical and mental health. For some, the impact is lifelong and devastating.

Recent research provides insights on the health and wellbeing of people who are LGBTIQ+ in our communities, including:

• Private Lives 3 – A national survey of the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ people in Australia (2020)
• Writing Themselves In 4 – the largest national study series on the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ young people in Australia
• Further research by Latrobe University’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS).

In Melbourne’s north, west and central suburbs, about 3% of the population are from LGBTIQ+ communities.

The effects of stigma and discrimination are often underestimated. The hard to hear facts from LGBTIQ+ Health Australia include knowing that young LGBTIQ+ people are 5 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. Transgender people aged 18 and over are nearly 11 times more likely to.

Many LGBTIQ+ people feel society has become more inclusive, but there are still areas of life where they feel unequal, isolated or unsafe as this data from Private Lives 3 (2020) shows:

• more than 30% of LGBTIQ+ people were verbally abused about their sexual orientation or gender identity in the previous 12 months
• 25% were harassed for the same reasons
• 10% were sexually assaulted.

These 2020 findings were largely unchanged from the same survey in 2011.

Many LGBTIQ+ people feel uncomfortable, as the findings in A Closer Look at Private Lives 2 show:

• 44% hid their sexuality or gender in public
• 33% hid sexuality or gender when accessing services
• 38% hid sexuality or gender at work.

LGBTIQ+ people are more likely to experience a mental health disorder than the general population, specifically:

• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are twice as likely to have mental health disorder symptoms.
• LGBT people are twice as likely to be diagnosed and treated for mental health disorders.

(Data from the 2020 Snapshot Of Mental Health And Suicide Prevention Statistics For LGBTI People.)

We also know that people who are LGBTIQ+ are more likely to attempt suicide:

• LGBTIQ+ people aged 16-27 are 5 times more likely to attempt suicide.
• Transgender people aged 18 and over are nearly 11 times more likely.
• People with an intersex variation aged 16 and over are nearly 6 times more likely.

(Data from LGBTIQ+ Health Australia.)