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LGBTQIA+ and Co-occurring Disorders
Published in Tricia L. Chandler, Fredrick Dombrowski, Tara G. Matthews, Co-occurring Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders, 2022
Despite changes in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5th edition (APA, 2013), institutional stigma in mental health treatment has been established as the previous versions of the DSM stated that homosexuality, non-heterosexism, and a gender identity outside an individual’s assigned sex at birth were diagnosable mental health disorders (APA, 1952). As a result of previous assumptions about LGBTQIA individuals, many treatment providers attempted to engage in treatment preventing the individual from having a sexual attraction outside the realm of heterosexuality or having a gender identity outside cisgender norms and expectations. Many treatment strategies, including conversion therapy, were used to help treat sexualities and gender identities that were outside heterosexual and cisgender norms. These treatment attempts caused individuals to feel more alienated, increased depression, increased substance use, internalized homophobia and transphobia, and often contributed to an increase in suicide attempts and suicide completions (Goodrich et al., 2017). In the third version of the DSM (APA, 1980) homosexuality was removed as a diagnosable disorder. Changes in the DSM regarding homosexuality were muddied as many clinicians struggled to conceptualize sexuality from a non-binary perspective.
LGBT Psychosocial Theory and Practice in the UK: A Review of Key Contributions and Current Developments
Published in Elizabeth Peel, Victoria Clarke, Jack Drescher, British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies, 2020
Victoria Clarke, Elizabeth Peel
Political differences are clearly evident in the domain of conversion therapy. Whereas a number of organisations in the US (both religious and scientific/psychological) promote conversion therapy, there is only one in the UK of which we are aware–the True Freedom Trust (www.truefreedomtrust.co.uk)–a member of the US-based Exodus International. A recent study conducted with 30 UK psychologists and psychiatrists (most of whom had worked in the NHS) suggests that those professionals who did provide conversion “treatment” for lesbians and gay men from the 1950s to the 1970s now tend to view same-sex sexuality as mentally healthy (King, Smith and Bartlett, 2004). This suggests that conversion therapy is more of a historical than a contemporary phenomenon in the UK. Moreover, the treatment of homosexuality has always been more common in the US than in the UK (see Hart, 1981; see also Ellis’s, 1997, commentary on homophobia and psychoanalysis).
LGBTQ+ Grassroots Activism: An Opportunity for Resilience
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2023
Travis R. Scheadler, Katherine R. Haus, Tanner A. Mobley, Kristen P. Mark
Activism may provide opportunities for LGBTQ+ people to develop the traits and skills and connections to the necessary resources to strengthen resilience as outlined by Erickson-Schroth and Glaeser’s (2017) model. A stronger understanding of the relationship between activism and resilience will strengthen the ability of grassroots and community leaders, social workers, psychologists, and others to encourage activism and promote positive well-being among activists. Indeed, prior research on activism within LGBTQ+ populations have provided promising results, suggesting activism might promote resilience (e.g., Frost et al., 2019). Yet, previous research on LGBTQ+ activism has been mostly limited to issues such as HIV/AIDS (Rabkin et al., 2018) and forced migration (Alessi, 2016). To date, research has not yet examined LGBTQ+ grassroots activism to ban conversion therapy, which includes a myriad of techniques (e.g., aversion therapy, prayer) purported to change the identities of LGBTQ+ individuals, and make them become straight and cisgender (Haldeman, 1994). Conversion therapy has been deemed to be an ineffective, harmful, and unethical practice (see Cramer, Golom, LoPresto, & Kirkley, 2008; Serovich et al., 2008), but continues to be legal in several U.S. states. Therefore, the current study relied upon the resilience model outlined by Erickson-Schroth and Glaser (2017) to examine resilience of LGBTQ+ activists in one grassroots organization aiming to ban conversion therapy statewide.
Conversion Therapy in the Southern United States: Prevalence and Experiences of the Survivors
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2022
Madison Higbee, Eric R. Wright, Ryan M. Roemerman
Conversion therapy (also referred to as reparative therapy, sexual reorientation therapy [SRT], sexual orientation change efforts [SOCE], ex-gay therapy, or gender identity change efforts [GICE] when directed toward gender minority individuals) occurs when a formal group of people, usually religious or mental health professionals, attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation to “heterosexual” or their gender identity to “cisgender” (American Medical Association, 2019). Homosexuality has not been considered a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders since 1973, and in 2013 gender nonconformity underwent a similar transition from “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria,” indicating that being transgender or non-binary does not constitute a mental disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Anton, 2010). Yet, conversion therapy continues to be utilized by religious leaders and mental health practitioners as a form of social control (Anton, 2010).
Challenges in Providing Care for Parents of Transgender Youth during the Coronavirus Pandemic
Published in Smith College Studies in Social Work, 2021
Nathalie Szilagyi, Christy L. Olezeski
Just as family response to the gender identity and gender expression of TGE youth can play an enormous role in mental and physical health outcomes, so can the responses of those outside of the family milieu, including medical and mental health providers. Providers involved in the care of TGE youth therefore have an important role and responsibility to provide care consistent with the current recognition that variations in sexual orientation and gender expression represent normal and expectable dimensions of human development (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee, 2018). Unfortunately, many TGE individuals have reported rejecting, stigmatizing and even abusive experiences in health care settings (Gridley et al., 2016; James et al., 2016; Torres et al., 2015). Efforts to change a youth’s gender identity or sexual orientation – so called “Conversion Therapy” – represent aggressively rejecting behaviors, and evidence has shown that such practices do not produce changes in sexual orientation or gender identity, but do significantly increase the risk for negative, and even catastrophic, mental health outcomes in individuals who undergo such practices (Green, Price-Feeney, & Dorison, 2019).