I believe most Australians are decent and fair minded. If we witnessed a vulnerable young person being abused and bullied on the bus or across the street, we would step in and protect that young person.
So why would we, as a society, allow that abuse and bullying to occur across our airwaves and in our newspapers on a larger scale?
Australians have heard a lot recently about the mental health costs of a marriage equality plebiscite. Various mental health organisations have opposed the move, including the Australian Psychological Society, and PricewaterhouseCoopers has valued the direct mental health cost at $20m.
According to PwC, “the attention that arguments opposing marriage equality receive in the media and in community forums during a referendum have an impact on mood disorders and mental health and wellbeing of people from the LGBTI community.”
But many Australians still don’t understand the link. Why would the negative words of people opposing marriage equality create so much mental anguish?
I might have wondered the same if I hadn’t counselled LGBTI people as a psychologist for over 25 years.
During this time I’ve seen again and again the human cost of public prejudice, and can all too easily predict the distress a plebiscite will cause. Gay, lesbian and gender diverse teenagers will be most vulnerable to being harmed by the negative public campaigns in the lead up to the plebiscite.
Let me give you just one example of how these messages can affect the most susceptible.
I counselled a 14-year-old boy who after spending time in online gay teen chat rooms was finally thinking that it is okay to be gay.
He saw the then prime minister on TV saying that marriage should only be with a man and woman, and it confirmed all of his negative beliefs that he was taught and felt that his future was hopeless.
His distraught mother found him just in time after he attempted suicide.
Messages about being different are deeply absorbed into the core of the unconscious of LGBTI people at a young age. They usually don’t have the ability to hold these beliefs up for challenge or scrutiny.
Young teens coming to terms with being LGBTI are likely to hide their distress in the darkened silence of depression and act out their anxiety and anger.
They often believe that once coming out, due to their sense of defectiveness and the belief that they will be rejected by their peers and everyone they love, they have a terrible future.
It wasn’t that long ago that being gay was illegal and a psychiatric disorder. Patients would often be subject to brutal therapies including being electrocuted when seeing a naked image of someone of the same sex.
Some conservative religious leaders continue to publicly state that homosexuality is one of the very worst sins that leads to an eternity in Hell.
Being called a fag is still one of the worst things to be called in the schoolyard and this label usually leads to social isolation and a belief within an LGBTI person that they are fundamentally flawed. Among many young people the word “gay” routinely refers to something that is ugly, stupid or defective.
Innocently holding the hand of your same sex life partner in public is a lightning rod for verbal and physical abuse.
All of this impacts significantly on mental health, and mental health bodies are well aware of this impact.
In the words of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists”
People who identify as LGBTI are at increased risk of exposure to institutionalised and interpersonal discrimination and marginalisation which in turn increases vulnerability to mental illness and psychological distress. Mental health outcomes for the LGBTI populations of Australia and New Zealand are amongst the poorest of any demographic. In Australia, LGBTI people have very high rates of suicidality, with 20% of trans people and 15.7% of lesbian, gay and bisexual people reporting current suicidal ideation.
The research also shows intersex individuals exhibit levels of psychological distress comparable to people who have experienced physical or sexual abuse.
The problem with the public debate leading up to the plebiscite is that it brings out a plethora of negative messages, usually spearheaded by people in positions of trust and leadership.
An example is the highly resourced campaigns – mostly led by religious groups – that often state kids are harmed in same sex relationships and that the only legitimate families are an opposite sex couple.
A number of years ago I counselled a family with two doting mums and three kids. After years of stability and a healthy home life, their lives deteriorated as the negative rhetoric about marriage equality ramped up.
The children became increasingly distressed through hearing negative messages about their family at school and in the media. The parents said that their usual carefree spirits evaporated and were taken over by doubt and sadness as they saw their parents and themselves as somehow wrong.
The parents also struggled to endure increasing negativity from those around them in the school community and, most painfully, their families whom they desperately wanted to turn to for support.
The fact that the Australian Psychological Society has done a meta analysis and stated that the evidence demonstrates that kids do just as well in same sex couple families is comforting, but does not take the pain away.
The Australian LGBTI National Health Alliance has stated that in the six months since a plebiscite was mooted there has been a 60% increase in clients accessing their counselling services.
They state that “the growth highlights the concerns of our communities when there is public debate about their lives.”
The CEO of Victoria’s Drummond Street Services, which works with many young LGBTI people, said that there was a 100% increase in demand as the Australian Christian Lobby ramped up its public attacks on the Safe Schools Initiative.
Although things have improved over the decades, it is always shocking to see just how alive and well homophobia still is in our society. The promise of a plebiscite has brought it to the fore again, and is taking us back to a painful place. Australia is so much better than that.
