With a community that is already marginalized in a plethora of cultures, most queer individuals had to face even more problems than they normally had to, amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic. The pandemic in itself has impacted all individuals negatively, but mental stress and burden were present in higher rates in queer individuals. This held particularly true for the intersectional members of the LGBTQ+ community who were majorly isolated.
Economic Concerns
Queer people were more likely to face economic strains as the risk and the rate of unemployment of queer individuals or those related to them was quite high, especially after the onset of the pandemic, which created additional stressors on them on top of the ever-present concern of the risk of Covid-19, as they struggled to pay for bills and groceries. Various surveys conducted amidst the pandemic noted that unemployment rates were higher in queer individuals and/or their houshold members, certifying these observations.
This specifically also led to housing instability and/or homelessness for quite a few queer individuals, which has historically proven to increase rates of suicides (in the Great Recession, quantified by studies such as Fowler et al. 2015).
Health Concerns
Like most people, the LGBTQ+ community was also seen to be stressed about the global pandemic from its first instance of spreading. But this worry was exacerbated within queer individuals because of, firstly, their normally prolonged exposure to illnesses and worse-off immune systems as a result of either physical seclusion which led most of them to seek employment in high-risk environments (such as essential jobs like food transportation and grocery stores) increasing simultaneously their interaction with potential carriers as well as the risk of Covid-19 to them.
Moreover, additional stressors such as economic concerns, and previous stress, trauma and illnesses aggravated this risk.
Additionally, quite a few queer individuals, particularly trans individuals, expressed there to be a lack of adequate care for them pertaining to the lack of trans individuals present in the vaccine clinical trials, which led to a belief that the vaccine may result in higher risks of side-effects due to pre-existing conditions such as HIV, or because of complications in sex-reassignment surgeries. Quite a few also had escalated to such a high level of medical mistrust because of past experiences that they believed the vaccines to being tested on them, with undeniable negative consequences.
Mental Health
A recent study on the effects of Covid-19 on queer individuals showed that 74% of the respondents reported that the worrying and stress of the pandemic impacted their mental health negatively; a number that was disproportionately high in comparison to the 50% of their non-queer counterparts who related the same.
This may be due to quite a few reasons: LGBTQ+ individuals were, as a result of the pandemic, isolated from potential positive social interactions that prevented a descent into depression or lead to confinement into potentially toxic ones, which is an especially prominent concern for the queer youth.
Moreover, further anxieties like facing potential bias in their respective healthcare systems, as well as the risk of getting non-affirming treatments, were also prominently observed. This often led to physical complications as queer individuals were unwilling to get proper medical care for the development of Covid-19 symptoms.
Queer individuals, undoubtedly, had the shorter end of the stick in terms of the Pandemic, particularly because of the exacerbation of the social exclusion and discrimination they already faced before the Pandemic which led them and continues to lead them to be in high-risk conditions.
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