Celebrating Diversity: Reflecting on the LGBT Experience

Abstract

This lgbt reflection essay is examining how society has improved over the decades to help support the LGBT community. Society has advanced in school systems and how they treat students and staff, non-discrimination laws in jobs for the employees, and healthcare for the people. Thousands of people in the LGBT community benefit from these improvements and their everyday lives are made easier with all these laws put in place.

Growth of Support of the LGBT Community Overtime

Many of American adults identify as LGBTQ. Sadly, thousands of these people are rejected by their family and friends for trying to be themselves. These people are treated horribly, from getting kicked out of their own homes, losing their jobs, and even being killed. Throughout the decades, many activists and scientists have worked diligently to try and prevent this by improving the systems in the United States. They bring scientific and public awareness of these problems. Their efforts have increased the rate of acceptance of the LGBTQ Community drastically. This paper will be discussing how the development of school systems, work environments, and health care have advanced and now improve the lives of the millions of LGBTQ within the United States.

Schools Implementing LGBT Topics

Some school systems and districts within the United States, have begun to change on how they work with teachers and students about the topic of LGBTQ within their schools. California was the first state to have schools teach LGBTQ within their classes. After working hard to have a law that mandated the material of LGBTQ history within textbooks, the law was approved in November. This shows that schools are slowly putting in the effort to teach another part of history that students are missing out in, especially since in modern society, more people are coming out at younger ages and these people get to learn how their rights in the United States were fought for by thousands of people. Before now, some of these laws weren’t passed and they weren’t given these rights.

Learning within textbooks wasn’t the only thing they changed. Schools have started to research and take into consideration that LGBT youth were being harassed and assaulted within the school by the school’s staff and peers. This has been correlated to lower performance in school, emotional and psychological distress, which included depression, anxiety, and higher rates of suicide ideation and attempts. This finding has created a base on which the staff now knew that LGBT students were being mistreated on their campuses. Many of the people in these districts now stand together in trying to find a way to change the curriculum and staff training instead of standing to the side and letting these actions happen while turning a blind eye towards the problem.

Students have also started to notice the change in the society around them as well, all the way down to the language they use during school hours and even online. “Specifically, 98.1 percent of LGB students heard the word “gay” used in a derogatory manner, 85.2 percent reported verbal harassment, and 34.7 percent reported being physically harassed in the past year. In addition, a 2017 meta-analysis of 27 empirical studies on the effects of cyberbullying on LGBTQ youth revealed that compared with their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, these students are disproportionately harassed online and through other technology-based means”. The use of technology in modern society has advanced at phenomenal speeds but, this advancement means that these harmful words learned from people around school campus can be shared online at fast speeds as well. Students can be prevented from misusing words like this when the schools implement new ways of teaching students how these words originate and came to be throughout history. Students would start to fade the use of these words like “gay” as a derogatory term. Understanding how these words could change their perspective and with technology like today’s this knowledge would spread faster as well since people want to see and create change.

Job Improvement

Thousands of people of the LGBTQ community lose their jobs and aren’t welcome because there aren’t non-discrimination laws required within workplaces but, states and corporations have taken a step forward and have started to implement these non-discrimination laws. Many closeted LGBT people fear “coming out” within the workplace. They fear for their safety and wellbeing. Throughout the years there have been records of people being verbally and physically harassed and abused for coming out at work. In some cases, the person was killed by some other individual. These experiences have left the LGBT community frightened but, because of non-discrimination laws put in place at companies LGBT folks feel safer at work. In 2008 Degrees of Equality report only 50 percent of LGBT workers said that they were closeted at work. Now in 2018, the percentage has dropped to Forty-Six percent.

Companies have started to look for more diversity within workplaces. They believe that it creates a better environment for workers to be creative and bounce ideas off of each other. “Nearly all of the top 50 contractors and the top 50 Fortune 500 companies state in company-issued documents that diversity is good for business. Of the employers that have LGBT-related policies, 92 percent have linked diversity to corporate success (88 percent of top 50 contractors and 96 percent of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies), suggesting that these employers treat LGBT employees equally to serve diversity goals”. Proven by research, with more non-discrimination laws in place for LGBT there has been more diversity in these workplaces and with this diversity comes good business. This good business encourages companies to implement more of the non-discrimination laws in place to have more of this diversity and create growth within their company. This is great for the LGBT people that work there since this will create a safer place for them to work.

Majority of Americans that reside within the United States support the laws that protect LGBT people from being discriminated for public accommodations and jobs. This means that more people do agree that there should be these laws in place to create safety for everyone at work and in public. Not everyone supports this idea but, there are enough where a difference was made. “At least 52 percent of the top 50 federal contractors extend domestic partner benefits, including health insurance, to the same-sex domestic partners of employees”. Companies have taken down some of the barriers between heterosexual and homosexual couples. They’ve given benefits of what heterosexual couples have at work to homosexual couples. Everything isn’t completely fair yet but, people are going in the right direction.

Healthcare Improvement

LGBT folks have been dealing with the concern that is known as healthcare within the United States for years. With medical and healthcare throughout the decades, there have been restrictions on same-sex couples. They weren’t allowed to choose or name a representative to make medical decisions for them. They weren’t allowed that right. Now that things have advanced LGBT people are allowed to do just that. “CMS starts to support the rights of same-sex couples. They are not to be treated any less than any other couple. They can name a representative to make medical decisions for them”.

“30% of Medicare reimbursements to hospitals is determined by institutional performance on the HCAHPS Survey. Further, the Affordable Care Act has already provided some protection for transgender persons with respect to health insurance coverage and applies federal nondiscrimination policies at centers receiving federal health care funding”. Medical services have now expanded their coverage to transgender individuals and not just same-sex individuals. These individuals have been denied resources and information for years just because of their gender but, now these services have started to include more benefits to more of the LGBT+ community.

HHS created a center for older LGBTQ members to acquire information, resources, and help. The HHS hopes to be able to help for an estimate of 1.5 to 4 million people. This center has opened up a huge array of possibilities for people that don’t have any access to resources when they need it. The people would no longer be restricted from the information they need to take care of themselves and to live.

Conclusion

Lives of millions of LGBTQ folks have been improved by the developments that school systems, work environment, and health care systems have taken. The school system implementing the learning of LGBTQ history and sciences, the teachers and peers being briefed, and the school accommodation of LGBTQ, has created a safer environment for students to learn and teachers to teach. The workplaces implementing the non-discrimination laws have made a more inclusive and diverse workplace where LGBTQ folks can work without having the concern of losing a job because of their sexuality or gender. The health care system creating more ways that LGBTQ can benefit from the system. Maybe because of the huge improvements of the lives of the LGBTQ within the United States and the developing laws and efforts activists and scientists make other countries will follow suit and create better lives for their LGBTQ in their countries. These people wouldn’t have to suffer as much and the welfare of the country would also be enhanced.

References

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2012). Equal Rights for LGBT Americans. Better Health and Well-Being. 
• Redfern J., Sinclair B. (2014). Improving Health Care Encounters and Communication with Transgender Patients. 
• Sears B., Mallory C. (2015). Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace. 
• Kozuch E. (2018) HRC REPORT: Startling Data Reveals Half of LGBTQ Employees in the U.S. Remain Closeted at Work. 
• Abeau R., Hall J., Kenny M., McEachern A. (2018). Promoting LGBTQ Students’ Well-being in Schools. 
• Steinmetz K. (2017) California Is Adopting LGBT-Inclusive History Textbooks. It's the Latest Chapter in a Centuries-Long Fight.