Better Mental Health for LGBTIQ+: Harnessing Awareness for Vulnerabilities in the Pandemic
More than a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the virus continues to ravage the Asia-Pacific with catastrophic human, social, economic, and developmental costs. Many lesbians, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, gender-diverse, and queer (LGBTIQ+) persons experienced increased vulnerability through the pandemic on top of human rights violations and social inequity they already shoulder in Asia.
16 May 2021
by Jennifer Ho and Edmund Settle
Confronted with these vulnerabilities, governments continue to minimize the health and wellness of gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people. Violence and stigma against LGBTIQ+ persons, often reinforced by the criminalization of same-sex relations, create barriers to essential health services, including HIV and other sexual and reproductive health services.[i],[ii] According to UNAIDS, gay men and other MSM and transgender people accounted for more than half of the total new HIV infections in the region in 2019, at 44 percent and 7 percent, respectively.[iii]
In many countries, LGBTIQ+ persons have fewer economic opportunities as they are often overly dependent on the informal economy to survive.[iv],[v]…
