WHY ASK ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY?
There is a growing body of evidence showing that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) youth suffer from potentially traumatic events (PTEs) at significantly higher rates than their straight and cisgender peers. Among the most prevalent PTEs affecting LGBTQ+ youth are parental rejection, bullying, physical and sexual harassment, and hate crimes. Consequently, LGBTQ+ youth experience a wide array of health disparities, such as increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and attempts, drug and alcohol misuse, sexually transmitted diseases/infections, homelessness, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The alarming rate at which LGBTQ+ youth are victimized in the United States urges us to identify LGBTQ+ youth in order to assess for safety and risk of self-harm or suicidality, prevent exposure to trauma via psychoeducation, and refer to evidence-based trauma-focused treatment when they have been exposed to trauma. Nevertheless, discussing and acknowledging sexual orientation and gender identity—with or without the aforementioned PTEs—has not been common practice in child-serving systems and organizations.
Often LGBTQ+ youth’s increased risk for trauma is partly due to societal stigma and prejudice. As a trauma treatment provider, you have an obligation to provide safe and affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ youth to express themselves honestly—without fear of judgment, ridicule, or having their identities outed. Additionally, you must ask about essential and basic information such as gender identity, sexual orientation, and PTEs. Without asking these important questions, you cannot provide trauma-informed services that truly meet the unique needs of LGBTQ+ youth and their families. It is essential that as a provider, you actively acknowledge and validate youth who hold marginalized identities and seek to understand the ways in which these identities and PTEs may intersect.
Share This Post!
Why Don’t Child Sex Abuse Victims Tell?
By David M. Allen, M.D. One of the things that child abuse deniers like the False Memory Syndrome Foundation focus on, besides child abuse apologist Elizabeth Loftus's irrelevant arguments about the unreliability of [...]
Post-Traumatic Childhood
By Bessel A. van der Kolk Brookline, Mass. - As a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam War combat veterans and confronted the astonishing lack of resources to help these men and women [...]
About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study
By the Center for Disease Control The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect and later-life health and well-being. The original ACE [...]
How Childhood Abuse Changes the Brain
By Leonard Holmes Studies have demonstrated over and over that childhood abuse and neglect results in permanent changes to the developing human brain. These changes in brain structure appear to be significant [...]
Traumatic Experiences Widespread Among U.S. Youth
By the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Princeton, N.J.—New national data show that at least 38 percent of children in every state have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience or ACE, such [...]
Childhood Trauma May Shorten Life By 20 Years
By Joseph Brownstein While it may not come as a surprise that survivors of childhood traumas have more difficult lives, a new study says that those children can also expect their [...]