LGBTQ youth and public health

[Applause]

thank you everyone for coming

it’s quite a great opportunity to follow

up

president wyatt it’s kind of a big deal

right i’m an undergrad student here so

that was quite the

compliment so today i’m going to be

discussing

the lgbtq youth and public health

so just a little bit about myself i’m a

political science major here at

suu i’m also a bridge student

for the masters in public administration

so i do that for fun

right like i already don’t have a big

workload

i was born and raised in st george utah

and

um i am the youngest out of four girls

and that’s me right there i put an

arrow but yeah at one point i did have

long hair and it’s okay you can laugh

it’s a joke

so here’s a little bit of a timeline of

my coming out so in 2013 i was a

sophomore in high school and i came out

to my father

my stepmother my mom my three older

sisters and

my friends in high school and my high

school itself but i was still

closeted i didn’t tell my extended

family

so in 2016 i was a freshman at schu

and i came out on facebook to all my

family members and i was fully out to

both sides of my family

and now it’s 2020 i just recently got my

associate

of science at suu and i’m out to the

world here i am today

doing this ted talk so before i get

started i kind of just want to go over

some terms i think when people hear

lgbtq they’re like well what does all

that stand for well you have lesbian gay

bisexual transgender and queer

and just a side note for some of the

statistics and data i’ll be going over

it will be we’ll be referring to

transgender as folks who are someone

else whose gender identity

someone whose gender identity differs

from the one that they were assigned to

at birth

and cisgender just means a person whose

gender identity matches the gender they

were assigned at birth so for example

i’m cisgender i identify as a woman and

i was assigned female at birth

so i just want to discuss a little bit

about discrimination especially with

this particular community

it can happen on an individual basis it

can happen on a community basis it can

happen institutionally and it can happen

systematically

so on the right here i have the human

rights campaign there

are definition terms for some of the

trials that we face

and you have homophobia transphobia and

biphobia

also there’s disparities that this

community faces

discrimination mental health housing

instability

health care abuse and suicide

so this summer an amazing survey was

conducted by the trevor project

and it was conducted with about four

thousand youth

as respondents ages 13 to 24 and this

was conducted in the united states this

is the largest survey that’s ever been

conducted to talk about mental health

for lgbtq youth

so it’s very very relevant to my

conversation today

as well as my personal philosophy in

life is that data provides

insight so we’re going to go over some

of the

data that they found with the survey

starting with mental health 40

of lgbtq respondents seriously

considered attempting suicide

in the past 12 months 48 of lgbtq youth

reported engaging in self-harm in the

past 12 months

46 of lgbtq youth report that they

wanted

psychological or emotional counseling

from a mental health professional

that but they were unable to receive it

in the past 12 months now that’s an

important one i want you to remember

that one if you get anything out of this

68 of lgbtq youth report

symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder

so now i’m going to move over to abuse

and discrimination

10 of lgbtq youth reported undergoing

conversion therapy

with 78 reporting that it occurred to

them when they were under 18.

one in three lgbtq youth reported that

they have been physically threatened

or harmed in their lifetime due to their

lgbtq identity

29 of lgbtq youth have experienced

homelessness

they’ve been kicked out or they’ve run

away and 61

of transgender and non-binary youth

report being prevented or discouraged

from using the bathrooms

that correspond with their gender

identity

so that’s more of the national level

right and now i want to scale things

down i want to talk about utah

specifically and scale it down a little

bit here so here

i have the human rights campaign and

their state score index

and it kind of just ranks us with other

the other 50 states to where we stand

with lgbtq rights

with our policies and our statewide laws

so we

scored a building quality of 20 in 2019

which is pretty good

um as you can see from what i’ve listed

here the green is stuff that we do have

protections for in utah

and x is what we don’t so there’s still

a lot of work to be done

for this community

so this is a hard one right suicide um

utah um we’re the fifth highest suicide

rate in the nation from ages 10 to 17.

it’s from the salt lake tribune where i

got that and for

a lot of reasons we obviously don’t have

the demographics to what their

identities were

um death certificates do not display

that information

but i have to ask myself youth are dying

at alarming rates and how many of them

are lgbtq youth there’s a lot of reasons

to why suicide

may be coming to these youth and they it

feels like an option right maybe it’s

stemming from rejection from peers

from family from community and another

thing is a lack of resources and support

utah also has an issue with homelessness

with lgbtq youth

according to the outreach resource

center in salt lake city more than 50

percent of homeless youth they serve

are lgbtq youth so this is happening in

our own state

it’s not just something you see on the

news these are real

people utahns

so you’re probably wondering what’s an

ally what does that mean what does that

mean to someone like myself who is a

part of this community

and i would say that people who are not

lgbtq themselves

and typically an ally would be someone

who is not lgbt

lgbtq but they showed an enormous amount

to advance the cause

for lgbtq equality an ally can show

support

for their friends their co-workers their

classmates their neighbors

their religious folk in their community

and their family members

so how do you be an ally well i would

argue that it takes education

and it never really stops even for

myself i’m still educating myself every

day

when it comes to the transgender

community it takes actively listening

to those folks listening to their

stories listening to their experiences

listening to the disparity they might

experience in our society

third one is advocate this is really a

big one right be a political advocate

stand up for lgbtq rights even if

there’s not a single person

in the audience who is lgbtq stand up

for us even when we’re not in the same

room

and the fourth one is very special it’s

respect and you would think that would

be obvious but

respect is certainly something that

needs to occur between our peers

and everyone and i bring that up because

in this next slide

[Music]

it says that from this data that they

did

what um they say transgender and

non-binary youth

who report having their pronouns

respected there’s that word again

by all or most people in their lives

attempted suicide at half the rate of

those

who did not have their pronouns

respected so respect

equals so much to the lgbtq community

it’s literally livelihood at stake

so what can you do so this is my

personal philosophy of how i view

this really intersectional complex thing

but tolerance towards lgbtq loved ones

isn’t enough

celebration and unconditional love is

the answer if we want to help

bring down these suicide rates and start

being there for our lgbtq family

especially in utah we need to create

shifts in our family

and our communities from rural to urban

because lgbtq folks

they exist not just in the big cities

they also exist in small rural

cedar city as well and i believe that

empathy connects us all

so here’s what i am putting down my

platform of how i feel that we can

combat the disparities that are

happening to our

lgbtq youth i say we invest in social

equity programs affordable health care

and the accessibility that comes with

that mental health therapy services

reproductive health care donate and

volunteer to lgbtq non-profit

organizations

include comprehensive sex education

which is inclusive to those of different

sexualities so that we can prevent stds

and stis and hiv

with our youth promote healthy

relationships

and discuss contraceptives and consent

anti-bullying programs in public school

we need to protect our lgbtq

teachers we need to protect our gsa

clubs if you know what if you don’t know

what gsa means it means k street

alliance which is

pretty much a pride in equality club

essentially like what we have here at

suu

another one is to platform lgbtq voices

and stories so right now

i’m doing that so congrats to our

amazing

crew for having me and a lesbian woman

come speak and platform and tell my

story

being politically active this goes back

to

vote as if your lgbtq

loved ones life depends on it that’s a

huge thing

you gotta you gotta put your money where

your mouth is

and the last one is legal protections

from discrimination it’s time we add

gender identity and sexual orient

sexual orientation to the civil rights

act of 1964 because there’s loopholes

and lgbtq people are experiencing

discrimination because of that

legal loophole and it’s time we changed

that

thank you so much for coming to my ted

talk

and i hope you enjoyed the rest of unity

and in diversity

2020. thank you

you