Showing posts with label gay youth. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Stress, Trauma and LGBTQ Youth

And A Thousand Moms

A presentation for Brain Awareness Week 2022

Stress, Trauma and LGBTQ Youth

More and more, the facts are settled regarding sexual development and readily available. The tragedy is they are being ignored, sometimes willfully. As Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, M.D., has said, "the problem is urgent, particularly for transgender people of color who suffer horrifically high rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, and murder.” Speaking on a PBS special series, Dr. Eric Kandel also said, “Brain science can be a liberating influence in our lives. As we understand the biology of our own gender identity and sexual orientation better and become more comfortable with ourselves, we've become more empathic to somebody else's identity and orientation.”

Join us via Zoom

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Are Gay Men Smarter than Straight Men?

"I love gay people," said activist and playwright Larry Kramer in a 2004 speech in New York City. "I think we're smarter and more talented and more aware."

A new study in the American Sociological Review (Feb. 20) poses a provocative theory that gay men are markedly for inclined to excel academically than their straight male peers.

Help gay youth get a healthy start in life.

A new study in the American Sociological Review (Feb. 20) poses a provocative theory that gay men are markedly for inclined to excel academically than their straight male peers.

In the paper, sociologist Joel Mittleman found that on an array of academic measures, gay males outperform all other groups on average, across all major racial groups. Conversely, he concluded that lesbians perform more poorly in school overall and that Black gay women have a much lower college graduation rate than their white counterparts.

“This article is focusing a lens on what we do to all kids,” Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, said of the societal pressures that appear to impede lesbians in school even as these stressors possibly unnerve gay males into compensating for homophobia through academic striving. “And the most vulnerable kids are going to show it first.”

In recent years, academics, lawmakers and journalists alike have sounded an increasingly urgent alarm that on balance, American males are stuck in a scholastic funk. As the economic gap between those with and without a college degree has widened, women’s college graduation rate has risen in tandem, but men’s rate has remained largely stagnant for decades. Today, women comprise 59.2 percent of college students, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.

Mittleman’s research indicates that this characterization of the educational gender gap is critically lacking in specificity. It is, in fact, straight males who tend to be mired in a scholastic morass. And the considerable academic progress that young women have charted since the advent of second-wave feminism has been largely restricted to the heterosexuals among them.

Help gay youth get a healthy start in life.

Friday, November 19, 2021

LGBTQ+ Health Disparities Part 1

LGBTQ+ youth face crises of mental and physical health that can last a lifetime.

(First published on Cigna.com)

Health disparities are differences in health between different groups of people. LGBTQ+ people experience a number of health disparities. They're at higher risk of certain conditions, have less access to health care, and have worse health outcomes. These disparities are seen in the areas of behavioral health, physical health, and access to care.

Help gay youth get a healthy start in life.

Click here.

Behavioral health. Behavioral health includes mental health, substance abuse, and addiction. LGBTQ+ people are at greater risk of:

Suicide and suicidal thoughts
Mood disorders and anxiety
Eating disorders
Alcohol and substance abuse
Tobacco use

Physical health. LGBTQ+ people are at greater risk for certain conditions, diseases, and infections:

Gay and bisexual men are more likely to have HIV/AIDS.
Transgender Women, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino men have the highest risk for HIV infection.
Older LGBTQ+ adults are more likely to rate their health as poor and report more chronic conditions while having less social support.
Lesbian and bisexual women are more likely to be obese.
LGBTQ+ people are less likely to have a regular health care provider.
Lesbian and bisexual women have higher rates of breast cancer, and transgender men and women are at greater risk.
LGBTQ+ people have higher rates of HPV infection and related cervical or anal cancers.

Help gay youth get a healthy start in life.

Click here.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Celebrating the history and meaning of LGBTQ Pride Month

This June, the LGBTQ community holds its annual Pride celebration by commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. In 1969, a tenacious and determined group from the community, led by drag queens, said no to decades of harassment and imprisonment by the police by fighting back. Three nights of riots sent a powerful message to the world and resulted in the first large-scale march for gay rights the next year. Progress for equality has pushed forward since then, always threatened, however, by forces of hate and intolerance.

In this excerpt from our book, Healing the Brain: Stress, Trauma and LGBTQ Youth, we peel away the confusion and show the reality of minority stress and the gay community. How words and acts of hate literally diminish the physical and mental health of this targeted group.

Order your copy here.

Unique to the LGBT form of minority stress—as opposed to minority stress engendered by societal prejudice based upon race, ethnicity, gender, or disability—is that one's sexual orientation usually is invisible to others. As a result, in addition to being the target of overt discrimination, LGBT individuals are constantly subject to subtle, inadvertent, or insensitive attacks on the core of their very nature, even by people who profess no disdain or disrespect for them.

For instance, if someone has a lesbian colleague but doesn't know the colleague's orientation, an innocent question—such as asking her if she has a boyfriend, rather than asking “Are you seeing someone special?”—implies a judgment regarding what is “normal.” When the “other” is invisible, faceless, or nameless, it is common for those in power to ignore the reality of the other's existence and the challenges the other faces. This interplay of power and prejudice, whether overt or covert, constitutes the phenomenon of heterosexism. Similarities to the racism and sexism so prevalent during the civil rights movements of past generations are obvious.

Internalizing Predjudice

This sexual-minority status, as explained by Riggle and Rostosky, is defined by a culture of devaluation, including overt and subtle prejudice and discrimination, [one that] creates and reinforces the chronic, everyday stress that interferes with optimal human development and well-being.

LGBT individuals, stigmatized by negative societal attitudes directed at the essence of their being, struggle on a daily basis to balance the dual dangers of publicly engaging their need for equality and validation and remaining closeted to find some calm through an escape from public scrutiny. Many gay persons internalize such discrimination and prejudice. Fractured social-support mechanisms and minority-stress–associated low self-esteem contribute to a high prevalence of self-destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse, suicide, and risky sexual behavior. Order Here!

Sunday, August 19, 2018

FREE Review Copy: Stress, Trauma and Gay Youth

New!

Healing the Brain: Stress, Trauma and LGBT/Q Youth

CONTACT: A Thousand Moms,

2367 Curry Road, Schenectady NY 12303

518 952-1257; athousandmoms@yahoo.com

Available on Amazon.com

And at www.HealingTheBrainBooks.com

(Includes video), 172 pp, illustrated, 8 1/2 x 11

From the author of the acclaimed Dana Sourcebook

of Brain Science, an easy-to-read layman’s guide to understanding the brain and health. Praise for Healing the Brain:

Click for e-book, PDF format

Purchase directly (paperback or Kindle) at Amazon.com or www.HealingTheBrainBooks.com

“Well researched, fleshed out with relevant case histories, this book packs a lot of solid information into its 152 pages. Written in an engaging style for the layman, it covers a wide range of topics. One learns a great deal about the biology of stress, particularly the vulnerability of the brain in the pre-adult years. This book also provides a glossary of key brain science terms and a listing of organizations serving the LGBT /Q community and resources on the brain. Brief summaries of Erik Erickson's Stages of Development and Abraham Maslow's 12 Characteristics of a Self-Actualized Person lead into a detailed examination of the brain's structure and functions. Although the basic wiring structure is present at birth, there are several critical stages of brain development. Nurture, experience and stimulation are essential to proper brain growth and to the fine tuning of its communications structure. Notably, PTSD is not just an issue for veterans, but can also develop in children and teens who are going through a traumatic situation such as child abuse.”--Gary Bordzuk, Librarian, Rockville, NY

“David Balog takes a subject fraught with difficulty and makes it simple and accessible to everyone. The book goes a long way in helping one understand how and why and in what ways stress affects how we live and cope. Invaluable.”--Jessica Watson-Crosby, former president, National Association of Former Foster Children

“...[A] book for educators (or anyone working with youth) that explains the complicated workings of the brain in an easy-to-understand manner. The author goes on to discuss various types of trauma and how the adolescent brain responds to trauma such as depression, stress, addiction, risk taking, PTSD, etc. LGBT/Q youth may experience….I highly recommend this book!--Carol Dopp, M.Ed.

"An invaluable resource for those working in the trenches with LGBTQ youth in foster/adoptive care but equally important serves as a primer for those in the community at large who are largely unaware of this subset in our population who are in such desperate need!"--Dr. Ray Werking, professor, GLSEN educator and host, WRPI Radio

“David Balog understands the strain of alienation, so he tackles this subject with compassion and concern. Mr. Balog draws on his knowledge of brain science to give readers insight into what happens to young people under tremendous stress….”--Gary L. Cottle, author

“Easy to read. Difficult to put down.”--Micheal J. Colucciello, Jr., NY State pharmaceutical researcher, retired.

Also available in the series: Addiction; Development; Domestic Violence and TBI; Memory; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders; Stress & Money.

Purchase directly (paperback or Kindle) at Amazon.com or www.HealingTheBrainBooks.com