Priorities Beyond Marriage

Marriage equality is the top priority for most of the lobbying class within the LGBT community. It is the elephant that sucks the air out of the room and rightly so, it is the single action that has the biggest number of benefits attached. Don’t get me wrong I am a supporter of marriage equality and actively participate in the effort to achieve it. However, there are other issues the LGBT community needs to have addressed.

Our youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers.  In a recent survey over half the youth responding to our Rainbow Youth Pre/Post Assessment (RYPA) reported seriously thinking of suicide within the last week. This is a frightening number. The RYPA is one of the assessment tools we use in our youth program at New Mexico GLBTQ Centers.

Our seniors are often forced back into the closet when moving to retirement communities or long term care facilities. They lack the support structure of children and grandchildren that their straight peers take for granted.  LGBT seniors live with a huge sense of isolation, especially in rural areas.

Another area that needs to be addressed is adequate and affirming healthcare.  In many areas it is nearly impossible to find healthcare and mental healthcare providers who have the cultural competency to give LGBT individuals quality care in an affirming way. Transgender individuals have a particularly difficult challenge.

We as a community and a movement need to place greater emphasis on these issues and ways to address them.  The research data and demographic data on the LGBT community are inadequate.  We need to push the federal government to include sexual orientation with race, income and other factors in all federally sponsored projects and surveys.  We must demand a regulatory environment both state and federal that encourages providers to make affirmative efforts to improve care for LGBT folks.

In an effort to engage and keep engaged youth, especially LGBT youth, all extracurricular activities including art, music, theater, politics and GSAs should be incentivized similar to football and basketball. Our educational system puts too much emphasis on sports and winning while leaving creative pursuits that develop critical thinking skills and more by the wayside.

Where there is an unmet need and advocacy will take time we must create our own service delivery system. People’s quality of life is being affected every day we can’t wait until all the stars align perfectly, all the sub-population (no matter how small) are at the table or for there to be total agreement and no risk to act. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  We need to bring together the individuals with the expertise to make things happen, create an action plan and start building something. We can bring other people and resources into the project as we go.

Leadership knows when to stop discussing and start doing.  It’s time to start doing.