Mental Health of Gay Community in Australia: Stigma and Treatment

This essay examines the mental health challenges faced by the gay community in Australia, highlighting the impact of discrimination, stigma, and social isolation. It discusses how societal pressures, internalized homophobia, and body image expectations contribute to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety among gay men. The essay also touches upon the political and legal aspects, noting the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia and its potential impact on the well-being of gay individuals. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of openness about sexual orientation, supportive social networks, and mental health counseling in mitigating these challenges and promoting better mental health outcomes for the gay community. The essay concludes that despite legal advancements, ongoing efforts are needed to combat social exclusion and provide comprehensive support to address the mental health needs of gay and bisexual men in Australia. Desklib provides similar solved assignments for students.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
Mental Health
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Author Note

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While homosexual people like gay are as versatile as rest of the population, their
shared experience of discrimination generates common mental health issues. Australian
society generally highlights heterosexuality as the most common and acceptable sexual
orientation and this make the homosexual community like gay or lesbian marginalised and
discriminated against (Grulich et al., 2014). The following essay aims to highlight the mental
health issues associated with the gay or homosexual group of population residing in
Australian, their stigmatization and possible treatment issue that must be undertaken in order
to help them recover from the mental health complications.
Meyer (2013), is of the opinion that the mental health issues of gay men at times go
beyond the discrimination and stigma. In order to fully understand their sexual orientation
and the subsequent impact on the mental health, one needs to thoroughly examine the
existential crises, associated family problems, society stereotypes and the effects on the
LGBT community and much more issues. All of these issues make the homosexual men or
gay men more likely to develop mental illness and at times the depression becomes so severe
that they are forced to commit suicide. According to Feinstein, Goldfried and Davila (2012),
when gay men spend years expose d to homophobic stereotypes and myths, a sudden group
of homosexual population internalize this negativity wither consciously and subconsciously
and believe this stereotypes to be true and this leads to the generation of internalised
homophobia. Internalised homophobia exacerbates general stress and they fail to interact
freely with family members and friends leading to isolation. Strother et al (2012) highlighted,
apart from looking down upon the homosexual community or gay population, there are other
issues as well. Among the gay male community there are unreasonable body image
expectation and other overvaluing stereotypically heterosexual qualities like a constant effort
of being masculine. Because of this body image issues, homosexual group of population
suffers from an increase risk of developing eating disorders. According to Meyer (2013), for

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gay men, peer pressure along with body dissatisfaction are among few of the principal factors
that increases the risk of developing mental health complication. Lanzieri and Cook (2013)
highlight other opinion like masculine ideals and rejection of femininity exacerbate the body
image issues and leading to the generation of frustration and subsequently development of
severe depression. According to Lanzieri and Cook (2013), society has a stereotypic structure
for both male and female body type. The so called “healthy” group of population, the
heterosexual male community suffers from a peer pressure to expressing masculine body
features and mannerism. Now this pressure exceeds 10 folds when it comes to the
homosexual group of male population of gay community. These pressure, comes from family
members, media who perpetuates effeminate gay stereotypes and other gay men to display
stereotypic masculine qualities all these pressure cumulates into massive expectation and
failing to live up to this expectation leads force the homosexual gay community to pass into
severe depression (Brennan et al., 2013). According to Meyer (2013), the response that the
gay men receive while introducing them to the society as gay for the first time is the major
predictor of mental health issues while they need to deal with for the rest of their life.
Rejection of their sexuality generally increases the risk of anxiety and depression. Meyer
(2013), believed that while passing through the depression limits interaction with people,
further increasing depression. The mental health complication among the homosexual gay
community also has political perspectives. When the politicians or other religious figures in
the society defend legislation or rights of gay people, it reinforces a belief among the gay
men that they are not in parity with the heterosexual group of population and this
discrimination exacerbates the mental health issues among them (Bosia, 2014).
In order to provide the homosexual population in the society equal rights, Australian
Parliament voted overwhelmingly to legalize the concept of same-sex marriage (The New
York Times, 2017). Though a handful of lawmakers tried to add new amendments that they

MENTAL HEALTH
highlighted were meant in order to protect religious freedoms for the opponents of same-sex
marriage, but their unfair efforts failed to gain significance (The New York Times, 2017).
According to The New York Times (2017) passing of legal rights of same sex marriage is
huge affirmation of dignity of gay people and this will help o reverberate the lives of people
across Australia. Centre of Disease Control, [CDC] (2017) is of the opinion that passing the
legal rights will not suffice to protect the gay community from passing into depression.
Keeping the sexual orientation hidden from others or the sudden fear of having disclosing the
sexual orientation can increase the stress of the gay community. Research carried by the CDC
(2017) showed that the gay or bisexual men who are free or open about their sexual
orientation with other members of the community have better health outcomes in comparison
to other gay or bisexual men who have sudden inhibition in disclosing their sexual
orientation. According to Rutherford et al. (2012), it is the duty of the mental health
concealing nurse to help the gay or bisexual men to be open about that sexual orientation and
will in turn help to cut short the stigma of feeling isolated or cursed. Having supportive group
of family members and friends is often a key success in order to reduce the stress and
maintain good mental health (Rutherford et al., 2012). Rutherford et al. (2012) further opined
that. mental health counselling along with other support groups or social are personnel who
are sensitive to mental and physical needs of the gay or bisexual men can be especially useful
for the gay or bisexual individual in coming in terms with their sexual orientation and this act
of self realization or the ability accept the sexual change will help them to recover from the
mental health problems, anxiety and depression.
Thus from the above discussion it can be stated that though the Australian
government has legalised same sex marriage, the gay or the bisexual men residing in
Australia still suffers from social exclusion, discrimination and stigmatization. This social
isolation leads to the generation of mental health complications like depression and severe

MENTAL HEALTH
anxiety. From help and support from close friends and family members along with
counselling will help this group of population to accept their changed sexual orientation in a
spontaneous manner and thereby providing them courage to fight against the social tabos.

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References
Bosia, M. J. (2014). Strange fruit: Homophobia, the state, and the politics of LGBT rights and
capabilities. Journal of Human Rights, 13(3), 256-273.
Brennan, D. J., Asakura, K., George, C., Newman, P. A., Giwa, S., Hart, T. A., ... &
Betancourt, G. (2013). “Never reflected anywhere”: Body image among
ethnoracialized gay and bisexual men. Body image, 10(3), 389-398.
Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (2017). Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health. Accessed
on: 28th March. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/msmhealth/mental-health.htm
Feinstein, B. A., Goldfried, M. R., & Davila, J. (2012). The relationship between experiences
of discrimination and mental health among lesbians and gay men: An examination of
internalized homonegativity and rejection sensitivity as potential
mechanisms. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 80(5), 917.
Grulich, A. E., de Visser, R. O., Badcock, P. B., Smith, A. M., Heywood, W., Richters, J., ...
& Simpson, J. M. (2014). Homosexual experience and recent homosexual encounters:
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450.
Lanzieri, N., & Cook, B. J. (2013). Examination of muscularity and body fat depictions in
magazines that target heterosexual and gay men. Body Image, 10(2), 251-254.
Meyer, I. H. (2013). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual
populations: conceptual issues and research evidence.

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Rutherford, K., McIntyre, J., Daley, A., & Ross, L. E. (2012). Development of expertise in
mental health service provision for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
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Strother, E., Lemberg, R., Stanford, S. C., & Turberville, D. (2012). Eating disorders in men:
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The New York times (2017). Australia Makes Same-Sex Marriage Legal. Accessed on: 28th
March. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/world/australia/gay-
marriage-same-sex.html