Sunday, June 04, 2023
Saturday, June 03, 2023
The Toll Right Wing Hate Takes on LGBT Youth
For L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers, high school is a much more accepting place than even a decade ago. They change their pronouns, go to school dances with people of the same gender, and are more likely than any previous generation to openly identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or otherwise queer.
“Being queer and being happy about it is something that’s so normal,” said Reese Whisnant, who just graduated from Topeka High in Kansas.
Yet there is a darker side. Even as they are increasingly welcomed by peers, their mental health is significantly worse than that of heterosexual young people. Many young transgender and gay people have been affected by a wave of recent Republican-led legislation questioning their identity or putting restrictions on their lives. They’re being raised by generations whose approval of and comfort with L.G.B.T.Q. identities lag their own.
Their experiences highlight a “paradoxical finding,” as researchers have described it: Even as social inclusion for young L.G.B.T.Q. people has grown, large health disparities between them and their non-L.G.B.T.Q. peers have not shrunk.
“This is what young people teach us: Change can happen as quickly as a generation,” said Stephen T. Russell, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies adolescent development and L.G.B.T.Q. youth.
At the same time, he said, “the moment we’re in is so scary in terms of the mental health crisis.”
Researchers say many factors are probably contributing to L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers’ contradictory experiences. To better understand, we took a national poll and talked to two dozen high school students in five states. The students were from states like Florida, Kansas and Iowa, which have passed various restrictions affecting L.G.B.T.Q. minors, and Oregon, which has no such restrictions and has passed protections.
At Reese’s school, he was one of at least a dozen openly transgender students, and many more students identified as L.G.B.T.Q. It’s a different world from when his older sister, Brianna Henderson, attended just seven years ago, when there were very few openly gay students.
Yet Reese has at times struggled to get the support of adults in his life. He has heard slurs in school. His home state has passed laws related to restroom use and sports participation for young transgender people. It has all strained his mental health, he said: “It’s stuff that teenagers shouldn’t have to be worrying about on top of all the other stuff we already have to worry about.”
One in five adults in Gen Z (those roughly 18 to 26) identify as L.G.B.T.Q., according to Gallup polling, compared with 7 percent of adults in the United States overall. The majority of them identify as bisexual. About 2 percent of Gen Z adults are transgender, and about half of adults under 30 report knowing someone transgender.
In much of the country, what it’s like to be an L.G.B.T.Q. teenager changed around the mid-2010s. The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. “Will and Grace” had been on TV, and the show “I Am Jazz” started that year. In 2014, the basketball player Jason Collins became the first openly gay athlete in one of the four major North American pro sports leagues, and a year later, Caitlyn Jenner, the Olympian and Kardashian, came out as transgender. . . . For today’s teenagers, it has been all they have known — they were in elementary school at the time.
This reflects other data that has found that verbal harassment of L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers declined during the 2010s, while support for same-sex marriage became the norm among young people. “You’re at the point among young adults where almost all these measures of acceptance are in the high 80s, low 90s,” said Jeff Jones, a senior editor who oversees research at Gallup. “It’s basically getting toward a consensus.”
As acceptance has grown, though, the mental health of queer youth has continued to suffer. Reported rates of mental health problems among all young people have been rising for the last decade, but non-heterosexual students face far higher rates than straight students.
About 70 percent of high school students who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual reported persistent sadness, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, twice the rate of their heterosexual peers. One in five attempted suicide in the past year, nearly four times the rate of straight young people.
Research shows that being in a minority group, especially if people in that group face stigma, causes stress that can affect their health — a phenomenon known as minority stress theory. Since adolescents feel a drive to conform with their peers, being a minority during this period may be particularly challenging. Studies have shown that L.G.B.T.Q. youth who experience more stress about their minority identity are more likely to have mental health challenges.
Young people are also affected by the culture at large, researchers say, as anti-trans legislation and what critics call “Don’t Say Gay” bills reverberate across the country. Among other bills, there has been a wave of legislation this year banning what doctors call gender-affirming care for trans minors, such as puberty blockers and hormones. . . . the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association have urged states not to ban or limit this care.
Many teenagers, particularly in Republican-leaning states, said protesting these bans had become a big part of their lives.
“There is good data on the fact that these public moments that promote stigma and discrimination work their way into the culture and climate in schools and peer relationships with kids,” Professor Russell said.
Parents and schools play big roles and can do specific things to support L.G.B.T.Q. youth, researchers say. Studies find that family acceptance is among the most important protective factors, something that teenagers also said in interviews. . . . the most important component of the mental health crisis that L.G.B.T.Q. youth are experiencing,” . . . . “It’s family rejection.”
Some sex education curriculums cover L.G.B.T.Q. health and identities; nine states require it. The presence of a gay-straight alliance improves the school climate as a whole, studies show, even for people who don’t participate.
At Topeka High, Reese Whisnant said, teachers now talk about L.G.B.T.Q. issues, especially in history class, and there’s a gender-sexuality alliance with nearly 100 members. “They’re really trying to help kids understand they need to be accepting and stuff,” he said. “It’s definitely a lot better than it was. There’s still stuff that needs to be worked on, but it’s a lot better.”
Let's be clear. Those who promote anti-LGBT hatred - be they evangelicals/Christofascists clinging to myth based religious beliefs and the bronze age beliefs of Palestinian goat herders in the Old Testament or Republican political whores - are hate merchants, plain and simple. They need be shunned by decent, moral people.
Friday, June 02, 2023
A Peek Behind the MAGA Curtain
Every now and then, it’s important to watch Fox News in prime time. No, not because the programs are particularly good or because the hosts tell their audience the truth. Fox is writing Dominion Voting Systems a $787.5 million check for very good reasons, and it still faces a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Smartmatic over the channel’s election reporting. But to watch Fox News is to begin to understand millions of your fellow Americans. And there was no better time to start understanding the 2024 Republican primary contest than Thursday night, during Donald Trump’s town hall in Iowa, hosted by Sean Hannity.
To watch the town hall was to start learning the answer to a key question: After everything, how can Republicans still be so loyal to Trump? But that word, “everything,” is loaded with different meanings in different American communities.
When I look back on the Trump years, I see a dark time of division, corruption and social decay. After all, when he left office, the murder rate was higher, drug overdose deaths had increased, and the abortion rate had gone up for the first time in decades. America was more bitterly divided, and deficits increased each year of his presidency. His early Covid lies helped fuel an immense amount of confusion and almost certainly cost American lives.
If you watched the town hall, however, you entered an entirely different world. According to Trump’s narrative, everything he did was good. His first term was a time of economic prosperity, energy independence, fiscal responsibility, a rejuvenated military, a locked-down border and fear and respect from foreign regimes. The only thing that marred his four years was a stolen election and his unjust persecution by the corrupt Democratic Party and its allies in the F.B.I.
In Trumpworld, the Trump past is golden, and the Trump future bright, but the present is a time of misery and darkness. It is President Biden, not Trump, who mishandles classified documents. It is Biden’s family, not Trump’s, that corruptly profits off foreign regimes.
False narratives are often sustained by a few kernels of truth, and so it is in MAGA America. The economy was strong before Covid, and there were fewer southern border crossings each year during Trump’s presidency than during Biden’s. The ISIS caliphate fell. And I don’t know a single Republican who isn’t pleased with Trump’s judicial nominees.
In short, there is enough truthful criticism of the Biden administration to make it vulnerable to an election loss. And there remains sufficient false Trump administration nostalgia to make Trump the G.O.P. nominee. Put both realities together, and the nation is facing RealClearPolitics polling averages that show Trump to be the overwhelming favorite for the G.O.P. nomination and a slight leader in a potential general election matchup against Biden.
Given these facts — and Thursday night’s peek at MAGA America — my colleague Frank Bruni’s warning to Democrats yesterday was timely and important: Democrats should not hope to face Trump in 2024. Rooting for him isn’t just dangerous; it’s based on misunderstandings. All too many Trump opponents — in both parties — have spent so long building their voluminous cases against him that they’ve forgotten how he looks to the other side. They can’t conceive of a coherent case for his candidacy.
The two most telling moments on Thursday came from Trump’s audience. First, they booed Mike Pence at the very mention of his name. Second, they shouted derisively at Hannity at the mere thought that Trump should perhaps tone down his rhetoric. Both moments emphasized the ferocity of their support for Trump. When you see that public response, you can begin to see his opponents’ dilemma. Given the size of Trump’s base, a winning Republican rival will have to peel away at least some members of audiences like Thursday’s — the very people who see him as a persecuted hero.
That challenge is compounded by every event like Thursday’s town hall, in which a relaxed Trump was “questioned” by a supine host in front of an adoring crowd. Hannity’s performance was quite a contrast to Kaitlan Collins’s pointed challenges to Trump during last month’s CNN town hall. Yet both events advanced Trump’s narrative. CNN’s tough questions reminded MAGA of his alleged persecution. Hannity’s coddling reminded MAGA of Trump’s alleged triumphs. Both ultimately helped Trump deepen his bond with the people who love him the most.
I am left thinking those Trump supporters I know do, in fact, suffer from a moral deficit. The truth is out there if one bothers to look and if one keeps drinking the Trump/Fox News falsehoods, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Thursday, June 01, 2023
Americans' Life Expectancy Continues to Drop
As noted in previous posts, the life expectancy of Americans is dropping in contrast to the life expectancies of residents of other advanced wealthy nations, peer nations, if you will. There are several factors at paly, not the least of which is Americans' lack of universal health care coverage such as what one sees in much of Europe and the United Kingdom. Throw in the unhealthy lifestyles of many Americans and the politicization of health care precautions and and vaccines by many on the political right and its a recipe for American exceptionalism but of the most negative kind. With Republicans' never ending quest for more tax cuts for the super wealthy and large corporations at the expense of spending on health care for the vast majority of the citizenry (who Republicans view as expendable), the likelihood of reversing this downward trend in American life expectancy - especially for the poor and racial minorities - is not promising. A column in the Washington Post by two medical experts looks at this national disgrace and the needless loss of lives that sets America apart from its peer nations in a very negative way. Here are column excerpts:
Last fall, when federal statistics showed life expectancy had fallen for Americans in 2021 for a second year in a row, it was clear that the devastating covid-19 pandemic was the immediate cause. The coronavirus took the lives of more than 1 million Americans. Life expectancy fell by more than two years — and by twice as much among Hispanic, Black and Native Americans — setting the country back by two decades and producing the most abrupt decline in life expectancy since World War II.
But plotting life expectancy in the United States against that of other wealthy countries reveals three dark insights: Our life spans lag behind those of our peers; our life expectancy was already more or less flat, not growing; and most other countries bounced back from covid-19 in the second year of the pandemic, while we went into further decline.
Ten years ago, long before the world was hit by covid-19, we served as the chair and study director for a landmark report that warned about the “U.S. health disadvantage,” a gap in the health and survival of Americans relative to residents of other high-income countries. . . . . the report showed the United States had the lowest life expectancy among peer countries, and higher morbidity and mortality rates for dozens of causes. The disparity had been growing since the 1950s, by some measures, and was pervasive — affecting both sexes, young and old, rich and poor, and Americans of all races and ethnicities.
The committee examined five areas of relative deficiency that are likely contributing to the U.S. health disadvantage: (1) unhealthy behaviors, such as our diets and use of firearms; (2) inadequate health care and public health systems; (3) poor socioeconomic conditions; (4) unhealthy and unsafe environments; and (5) deficient public policies. The last category especially exerts a powerful influence on the other domains — and helps explain why other advanced democracies are outperforming the United States on almost every measure of health and well-being.
In the years before the covid-19 pandemic, as life expectancy continued to increase in other countries, U.S. life expectancy plateaued and then decreased for three consecutive years. Researchers identified a key reason: U.S. mortality in midlife (ages 25 to 64) was increasing, a phenomenon not occurring in peer countries. . . . . Enduring systemic racism and health inequities means that the U.S. health disadvantage is particularly acute among people of color, especially Native and Black Americans, whose life expectancy is far lower than that of White Americans.
In 2020 and 2021, U.S. deaths were the highest of any country and among the highest per capita. All five domains we identified in the “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health” report contributed to the death toll: Health behaviors (e.g., resistance to masking and vaccinations) facilitated viral transmission and limited vaccine uptake; health-care and public health services were unprepared and rapidly overwhelmed; socioeconomic conditions further deteriorated, especially for poorer Americans, as the economy imploded; . . . and the policy response to the pandemic was deeply flawed and highly politicized.
In 2021, declines were higher among White Americans than in most other groups, perhaps because of greater resistance to vaccination and masking in conservative communities.
Many of us long for a return to pre-pandemic conditions, but the reality is that health conditions in our country then were already dire. One study estimated that, between 1980 and 2019, the U.S. mortality disparity with peer countries resulted in an estimated 11 million excess deaths.
We know from other countries how to achieve higher life expectancy, since many have enjoyed better results than the United States for decades — and at far lower cost. Better food and nutrition policies, for example, can reduce the prevalence of disease. Common-sense gun-control measures could reduce the injury, death toll and psychological impact of threats from firearms. Better access to health care and behavioral health services would improve our physical and mental condition in the face of rising rates of depression, drug overdoses and suicides. The same goes for access to reproductive, sexual and maternity care. A living wage, a stronger safety net, more progressive taxation and more affordable care for families and children would go far in increasing our economic security — and thus our survival.
Unfortunately, in the United States, these proposals to improve health outcomes are seen by some as radical, if not un-American. A whole host of industries, furthermore, now depends on keeping things as they are: the health-care and insurance industries; manufacturers of drugs, unhealthy foods and beverages, and firearms; and companies responsible for carbon emissions and toxic pollutants.
Unless the country changes course, and soon, the structural conditions responsible for the shorter lives and poorer health of Americans will continue to claim lives and weaken the country. It is not just the old who pay the price. Young and middle-aged Americans are now more likely to die in the prime of their lives, devastating families and communities and taking a hard toll on our economic productivity.
Even more disturbing, in a change never recorded in the past century, the probability that children and adolescents will live to age 20 is now decreasing. If our country failed to hear the warning we sounded a decade ago, we can at least respond to the pandemic by starting to make the changes that could let more of our children see adulthood — and give the rest of us more years on Earth.
Yes, America is exceptional but in a very disturbing way that politicians - especially Republicans - bloviating about "American exceptionalism: will not reverse. Our peer countries show us the way to improve, but will Americans demand that their elected officals take needed action?
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