Staying Proud

This edition of ThriveMind is a reflection on Pride month and the increasingly difficult battle for LGBTQIA+ folks to live out loud or quietly, to sleep well at night, to take their kids to school without fear, to work, play, and be well. Recent events make LGBTQIA+ mental health a critical and timely topic.

My daughter and her partner attended Pride over the weekend, and my husband’s first reaction was to tell them to be careful. Watch for the hate and the hateful. The violent. I held my breath until they were home safely. This shouldn’t be the world we live in. She reported there were police everywhere and they remained vigilant. Fortunately, there were no attacks (that we are aware of.)

On the same day they were celebrating diversity of love and identity, a man in Minnesota was being pursued for shooting two politicians and their spouses in Minnesota. The man held deeply religious beliefs and conservative views. His actions do not speak for all those who are religious and conservative, but the sound of those bullets echo a message of fear to anyone who is a target for this kind of evil.

I want to remain optimistic. I want to have hope. I want to believe that this won’t last. But as I write this, my university where I’ve taught and conducted research and served tirelessly is also rapidly changing. Because of recent federal and state laws, those of us who study ways to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity are at risk. Funding is already scarce, and now there is no federal funding to create a more equitable country for sexual and gender minorities. In 2021, I received an internal (university) grant to study equitable deathcare for LGBTQIA+ communities. That work resulted in three separate research studies, a successful launch of Equal Deathcare – "Deathcare Equity for All Identities" and an academic book deal. My equal deathcare co-founder and I have made numerous successful collaborations across the U.S. and have been featured in news stories, online blogs, and podcasts. I am proud of how this work is connecting LGBTQIA+ folks with inclusive deathcare providers, yet, I worry each time a new story comes out now about our work that my job might be at risk.

Another project I’m working on, a randomized controlled trial for youth suicide prevention, has also become more complicated due to these changes. Suicide among LGBTQIA+ folks is 4-6x higher than for cis/hetero people, yet, my research team and I are deliberating how we incorporate this into our study of young people who live in states where we’re not allowed to ask about gender identity and sexual orientation. Our study is privately funded, but we also must be approved by the university’s institutional review board and now, with watchdogs, we may face challenges.

What is so infuriating is that the goal of an IRB is to protect humans from harmful research trials. Denying a research trial can also be harmful when the entire point of the trial is to save lives. Save all lives. Regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. We will be submitting the study to IRB soon. I’ll hold my breath again.

Studying LGBTQIA+ suicide prevention and mental health will now largely be funded by private entity (corporations, foundations) research dollars. This is the goal of the federal and state governments who want to erase anyone who is not cisgender and heteronormative—force them to search elsewhere for funding. These private dollars are scarce and competition is high. The conundrum is less about the funding, though. It’s about the university that must approve the study. A university that has bent the knee to its state and federal policies. An R1 university that, even before any changes were mandated, had posted new bathroom signs with biological sex-specific markers. So much progress down the tubes. Or, at the very least, stalled. Our LGBTQIA+ Center has closed (the “official” statement is that it’s being reorganized with a new name “Center for Community and Connections” but many of the programs have been dissolved).

Despite universities worries about funding cuts (hence, bending the knee), ours has just committed to a 134-million-dollar athletics complex to support our move to the Big 12 conference. People that think athletics brings in enough revenue to sustain itself are mistaken. And our LGBTQIA+ students have nowhere on campus to gather.

As a professor of social work, a research scholar, and a human being, my official position is to stay proud, to take a stand, and do what’s right despite these current changes. I will continue to fight for equitable deathcare, to study how to prevent suicide among youth, including LGBTQIA+ youth, and to work to end discrimination for our Pride communities. This is what makes the United States a free country for all. So why don’t I feel free?