Discrimination-+effect+on+homosexual+population's+health

Student name: Wing Man Yim Student number : n8717575 Tutor name: Judith Meiklejohn =The artefact= media type="youtube" key="7EFNi3G3SqA" width="560" height="315" This video is adopted from : [] Many people discriminate against the homosexual population without thinking about their feeling. The artefact above is the music youtube video called “No homophobia, no hate- we are”, which is made by Italian homosexual artist, Alessandro Antonaci. This video gives us an insight of the ways that they have been discriminated and the effect of homosexual individual in terms of mental health.

=Public Health issue= Firstly, they face the problem of sexuality identification in the video. Since they are doing some intimate actions publicly, they will be bullied and the lyric also mention thatwhat about the world today and what about the place that called home. And we've never been so alone. This reveals the problem of homosexual population is being excluded from the rest of society. Additionally, in the video, the black man is seeking approval and acceptance from a group of people. However, he cannot draw any attention from these people. Eventually, he is hopeless and depressed. This reveals the problem of homosexual population feeling depressed and having tendency of developing mental illness duo to discrimination. Also, there is a man in video making up himself as a lady and hanged himself at the cross. This shows that if they expose their sexuality to others, they will be criticised by heterosexual population. Especially, they have been highly criticised by Christianity. Since they have excluded by the rest of the society, they may have tendency of committing suicide as the video shown.

=Literature Review=

** The overview of homosexual population being discriminated **
The majority of homosexual population has been discriminated in different ways and different situation before. According to Private Live Report (2006), over 80% of participants had experienced public insult, 70% verbal abuse, 20% explicit threats and 13% physical assault in Australia. Worse still, they have been discriminated in workplace, which affect their work performance or even their income. Discrimination in workplace may lead to harassment during work in the form of name calling, teasing, leaving offensive message and isolation (Dowling,2006). According to Burns (2011), 8 to 17% of gay workers report being passed over for a job or fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Also, discrimination in workplace decreases their satisfaction during work, 7 to 41 % of gay workers were verbally or physically abused or had their workplace vandalized. With the combination of these factors, their income is also being affected by those factors discussed above. This has been shown that they may earn less 5 to 10 % than same qualified heterosexual employee (Burns,2011).Whilst, the homosexual couples income are be lower than the heterosexual by 5 to 7% (Burns,2011). This may lead them to experience the unfairness of society.

Homosexual individuals are also being discriminated in school by classmates, misunderstood by teachers and their parents.According to Open Door Action Research Report (2006), 81% of respondents have been bullied in school because of their same-sex orientation.66% of them felt that school is not a safe place to go and 15% refuse to go back or even skip school for fear of being bullied and discriminated by others students and their parents. This has shown that discrimination towards students may let them refuse to go to school and affect their academic performance.

The phenomena of discrimination is not only in Australia, however, it is world- wide. Especially in the United State, over 50% of population do not accepted homosexuality and do not accept same sex marriage. This shows that homosexuality still cannot be fully accepted by many countries. Homosexuality is still illegal in many countries, such as Malaysia, Iraq and Sudan. The homosexual individual will face penalties ranging from imprisonment to death penalty. (Human Right Etc,2013)

Negative Health Outcome
Since homosexuality is not widely accepted by society, homosexual individuals still face the problem of discrimination in different aspects such as work, school and relationship of different people which affecting their lifestyle a lot and lead to many negative health outcomes such as depression and self-harm(APA,2002). The chance for homosexual people suffering from mental diseases such as depression is 1.5 to 3 times higher than heterosexual population(Kings,2008), which raise the concern of mental health of homosexual population. This has been supported by Private Live Report (2006),over 80% of participants reported some experience of depression in the past. The tendency of suffering for homosexual population to suffer from depressive disorders was high, with 87.9% of men and 92.5% of women reported as suffering depression. This shows that homosexual women have higher chance of suffering depression than men. Additionally, over 60% of individuals see depression as the major rise health problem in their life.

Homosexual population also have higher tendency to harm themselves. According to Open Door Action Research Report (2011), over two thirds (68%) of Queensland homosexual high school participants reported that they had wanted to harm themselves within the last 12 months. Such vast rates of self-harm ideation amongst LGB young people is concerning. The high rate of self-harm action has been proved by Private Live Report(2006), 1285 gay and lesbian people have been examined, 43% had high rates of clinicalmental disorders and 361 of the respondents had attempted suicide.

Some of the homosexual people may escape from the reality as being isolated and discriminated; they have higher chance of indulging in drug, tobacco and alcohol abuse than heterosexual population (Halkitis,2002). This is also proved by National Drug Household survey (2010), the percentage of homosexuality intake illicit drug use is 35.7% when compared with heterosexuality, which is only 13.9% in 2010. The weekly intake of tobacco among the homosexual individual is higher than heterosexual individual which is 130 verses 107. Whilst, the percentage of homosexuality intake illicit drug use is 35.7% when compared with heterosexuality, which is only 13.9% in 2010. This shows that the intake of drug, alcohol and tobacco of homosexual population in Australia intake two times more than heterosexual people. Excess intake of alcohol, drug and tobacco will lead to different kinds of chronic diseases such as brain disease and heart disease, therefore, the health outcome of homosexual people are worse than heterosexual population ( Gateway Foundation Alcohol and Drug Treatment,2013). Combining the two factors the recent reports have been shown that the life span of homosexual couples is 24 years shorter than heterosexual couples, which raises the health concern for the homosexual population (Chavkin,2007).

The method used in this study is both online and a mail survey, and the format of survey is mainly multiple choice questions. The university conducting the study advertises for participates and delivers some of invitation to rural area in order to reach more people to join this survey (Australian Research Centre in Sex, health and society,2008). There are limitations for this method including that is depending on honesty of respondents, since this survey is designed for individual that age above 18. If some respondents are under 18 and finish the survey, this may lead to inaccurate result. Also, this survey is underestimated the result from homosexual people living in rural area as the chance of people living rural area to be informed is lower than people who living in city. (Australian Research Centre in Sex, health and society,2008) Besides, the survey is only conducted in English; some people who have English as second language may feel it difficult to cope with the survey. Also, the survey is using multiple choice questions. This may affect the depth and limit the information gathering for the research report.

=Cultural and social analysis=

Queer Theory
The queer theory of Judith Butler (1990), Eva Sedgwick (1990) and Mark Simpson(1994) pointed out that heterosexual masculinity build itself precisely, therefore, the simultaneous exploitation and denial of homosexuality was developed. As they think disavowing male homosexuality culminates in a heightened masculinity, which can maintain the feminine as the unthinkable and unnameable (Adam,1998).This can maintain the traditional two-sex relationship in society and ensure two-sex marriage will not be destroyed and maintain a stable system of control. Therefore, the concept of homophobia was generated at that time (Adam,1998).

The main reason of discrimination against homosexuality within Australia is homophobia, which is the unreasoning fear or hatred of homosexuals and to anti homosexual beliefs and prejudices. This may cause homosexual people in Australia to be discriminated against by the refusal of health treatment, lack of official recognition of same sex relationships; and various forms of vilification including violence(Australian Institute,2005). According to the Australian Institute (2005), almost 35% of Australian respondents think that homosexuality is immoral. Also, 37% of Australian respondents think that the gay or lesbian couple should not adopt a child. This shows that rest of population still do not accept homosexual relationship within Australian society. Additionally, blood services in Australia do not receive he blood donation from homosexual people because of reducing the chance of transmitting HIV viruses (Halkitis,2008). This may make homosexual people think that their identity not yet approved in Australian society.

In term of policy, many countries include Australia, same sex marriage is still not approved as the majority of people. In 2009, the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009, was the subject of inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee which reported in November 2009 (the Senate Committee inquiry). That Bill was defeated by 45 votes to 5 at the Second Reading stage (Australian parliament,2013).There are still having many opinions within the society and parliament. Homosexual people have experienced spiritual violence which is the validation of hatred and discriminatory practice against homosexuals because of religious-associated immorality until today.

According to Flood (2005), there are still 62% of Christians in Australia thinking that homosexuality is immoral. Hebrew and Christian scriptures have been used to characterize gay and lesbian persons as moral transgressors, as individuals who stand outside the cloak of protection of human rights, and to justify or rationalize hate crimes against them. According to the Bible, “Or do you know that wrongdoers will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not deceive: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers no men who have sex with men.” (1 Corinthian 6:9-10). Homosexual people are being treated as sinner and doing something wrong, this concept still inherit western society nowadays.

=Analysis of the artefact and your own reflection= In my opinion, the artefact can show the phenomenon of homosexual population being discriminated and ignored by the rest of the society completely. The video have shown that the society nowadays still have prejudice on homosexual population as they think homosexuality is immoral. There is a scene that the homosexual individual seeking for help and approval, however, no one is willing to give him response. This kind of prejudice may lead to an indifferent attitude of the heterosexual population towards the homosexual individual. To this end, the homosexual individual may be treated unfairly and differently. They may feel being isolated by the rest of society, therefore, they may seek a way to escape the reality such as substance abuse. Moreover, substance abuse will lead to many negative health outcomes, such as brain disease and mental disease. This will increase health expenditure. According to New York Times, the money spent on homosexual couples is much higher than heterosexual couples in term of the usage of health service.

From my perspective, the society should take the responsibility of negative outcome of homosexual population. As majority of people discriminate against homosexual population and lead to so many negative health outcome. Therefore, this is reasonable to help them financially. During researching this topic, this makes me to understand more about the situation of homosexual population by the rest of the society. Furthermore, this also let me realise the homosexuality is normal within others animal and they are human being which is worth to be treated equally. This makes me to consider joining organisation that fighting for homosexual population’s right, which is stronger than ever before.

=Reference List= Australian Research Centre in Sex, health and society, La Trobe University.(2006).Private Lives- A report on the health and wellbeing of GLBTI Australian. Retrieved from: []

Australian Institute of Health and welfare, Australian Government.(2011). 2010 National Drug Household survey. Retrieved from: []

Australian Institute.(2005). Mapping Homophobia in Australia. Retrieved from:[]

An initiative of (PELAG) Brisbane Inc. Project, Queensland government.(2008) Addressing Homophobia in the workplace. Retrieved from:[]

Adam,B (1998). Theorizing Homophobia. SAGE journals,4, 387-404. doi: 10.1177/136344098001004001

Burns, C and Krenely, J (2011). Gay and Transgender People Face High Rates of Workplace Discrimination and Harassment. Retrieved from:[]

Charkin, A (2007). GLBT news: Study comparing gay life span and smoking disputed. Retrieved from:http://www.thetaskforce.org/TF_in_news/07_0813/stories/21_Study_Comparing_Gay_Life_Span.pdf

DeAnGELTs,T (2002). New data on lesbian, gay and bisexual mental health. Retrieved from:http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.aspx

Halkitis, P and Parsons, J (2002).Recreational Drug Use and HIV-Risk Sexual Behavior among Men Frequenting Gay Social Venues. Retrieved from: []

Human Right Etc (2013). Statistics on Discrimination of homosexuals. Retrieved from: []

King, M and Semlyen, J.(2008).A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide and deliberate self-harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people. BMC Psychiatry 2008,8:70 doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-8-70

Open Doors Youth Service Inc.(2008). Open Doors Action Research Report 2008. There’s No place like home. An investigation into the health and housing of Queensland’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Young people. Retrieved from:[]

Parliament of Australia.(2013). Same sex marriage. Retrieved from:[]

=Peer reflection= [] []

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