5 Biggest Stresses LGBTQ Students Face in College Life
In a world where the voices of young people are being stiffened for the older eggs, and LGBTQ isn’t regarded as the norm, consider what life must look like for young LGBTQ college students. Being young is a struggle because you must learn how to cope with other people’s opinions of you and the world you live in while fighting to be heard. This makes it extremely hard to be a young person that’s gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, or bisexual, especially for those still in college and battling the demons college education throws at students.
This means that LGBTQ students suffer many things that affect their mental health. There’s also the issue of discrimination from the college communities and pressure from the community and family. These issues cause them to struggle with mental health issues, such as depression, drug abuse, anxiety, and in some cases, suicide.
The college community must provide a suitable environment for this demographic to succeed, rather than being repressed and discriminated against. This article considers five common stresses LGBTQ students face in college.
1. Coming out
Many college students have only been able to question their sexual identities while in college when they’re away from family pressure. This is when they can properly investigate, discover, embrace, and come out with their gender identity or sexual orientation. But they do it in college doesn’t make it any easier.
The first step to gaining insight and awareness into LGBTQ students’ health issues is to understand the formation of gender and sexual identities. It takes much courage for them to come out and identify as LGBTQ. They must expend much of their emotional energy anticipating the reactions from family and friends and coping with them when they eventually come. This is stressful and distracts them from their studies.
2. Harassment
Bullying and ridiculing are common features of the minority demographic in high school. So, LGBTQ students that experienced this in high school may also experience even worse in college. A study proved that about 75% of LGBTQ students had experienced sexual harassment at least once. The hatred, abuse, and anti-LGBTQ bigotry they experience affect their mental and physical health. This level of victimization can take away their confidence and sense of protection and safety.
3. Depression, anxiety, and stress
Some estimates from a study claim a high rate of depression and low self-esteem among LGBTQ students between 13 and 21 years old. Many skip school to avoid being harassed, which points to high anxiety levels.
Also, many think they’re different from others, leading to social anxiety, depression and loneliness. It’s also a fact that it’s harder to study when battling stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. So, this affects their academic performance negatively.
These issues may likely arise from:
- Experiencing discrimination
- Social stigma related to homosexuality
- Lack of family and social support
- The different lifestyles associated with LGBTQ people.
4. No community and financial resources
It’s common for LGBTQ youths not to grow up in a community that shares their identity. Consequently, they’re alienated from the family and often mistreated. This lack of support causes them to become lonely and depressed. The lack of acceptance from the family makes their time in college even more difficult.
Some of these students even have their families disown and condemn them after they come out with their sexual identity. While this problem further affects these students when they need to access financial aids that require their parent’s signature. Some of these students may fail to secure a part-time job that could have helped them, leaving them in a further financial mess.
5. Body image
This can be complicated for LGBTQ students. For instance, the experiences that bisexual and lesbian woman has with their body image is complicated because they’re socialized as females. So, they must live with contradictory beauty stereotypes that the queer and mainstream culture promote. Women within the queer community can reject the conventional ideas of feminine beauty and embrace alternative ideas.
Queer men may also find it difficult to reach the often-inflated idea of male sexuality, as queer women struggle with contradictory ideas about their femininity and body image.
Conclusion
If you’re a student just transitioning into college from high school, you should know that many challenges are ahead. But you’re even more vulnerable as an LGBTQ student. It’s important that you know how to protect your mental health during your time in college and beyond. You can form or be part of a supportive social network, learn coping strategies, or seek professional help if you need to. Your well-being is your responsibility, and you’ll be stressed in college.
Author Bio
Dennis Lodge is a freelance journalist, blogger and copywriter who writes unique and research-based content about education, careers, business, and technology for my assignment.help and best assignment writing service. He is an accomplished traveler and extreme sports enthusiast.
