The gay lifestyle magazine "Attitude" is running its main feature this week on bridging a massive mental health issue within the gay community, and one that I have never seen discussed in the media with such sense and reality.
The gay community has higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide than among straight men, and far higher rates of self-destructive behaviour, substance abuse and sex addiction, and high levels of issues around intimacy and forming relationships.
It's an extremely complex issue, and not really anything that can be pin pointed to one particular thing. However, it really highlights how essential the continuing progress as a society into accepting people of any sexual orientation is for the mental health of those we know.
I still find it unsettling to read sentences such as "The current word for bad in British schools is 'gay', and children internalise this stuff very easily, they think in terms of good and bad. So by the age of 10 kids have understood that bad people are gay – then they discover they are one of them. They enter a dreadful stage of secrecy which can last 20 minutes or 50 years."
I urge you to read this, no matter what your orientation, as it concerns our whole society as a whole.
Thank you.
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