Survey offers insights into health, discrimination reported by LGBTQIA+ Rhode Islanders – The Boston Globe

Quinten Foster, the report’s author and the program’s director of transgender whole healthcare, told the Globe on Tuesday that the survey was intended to provide a “more data-driven understanding of what’s going on for our community.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of the surveying that we see go around, not only on [the] state level, but local and national levels, just simply don’t ask questions about LGBTQ identities,” Foster said. “So we don’t have a good pool of data on really anything to do with the LGBTQ community’s experience in general.”

Foster said through his research, they learned there had not been a survey quite like this one in Rhode Island since 2004.

Notably, the landscape of the LGBTQIA+ community has “vastly” changed over the past 20 years, and while the nation has expanded protections from discrimination, including in employment, housing, public accommodations, military service, and legalized same sex marriage, other challenges remain, such as bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in nearly half the states in the country, Foster said.

“It’s really hard to be able to write things like grant applications and do advocacy at the State House or even with local government when we don’t have hard and fast numbers to use for these things,” Foster said.

According to the report, the survey is intended as a starting point for future surveys, and includes information on “demographics, holistic health outcomes and experiences, discrimination, affirmation, priorities, and services.”

“Rhode Island is a relatively progressive state, and we see that reflected in the data,” Foster said. “That does not mean that we’re doing perfectly, though. There are still a significant number of community members that are struggling, and it’s going to be really important in the coming years to keep in mind the intense impact of the challenges that we have noted in the report, because even when it is a relatively small number of folks that are struggling with it, the impact on their lives is extreme.”

Specifically, Foster pointed to struggles with the increasing cost of living and the state’s housing crisis, and “just the basic experiences of being discriminated against in our daily lives having a significant impact on folks’ mental health and stress levels.”

According to the report, 147 participants responded to questions about discrimination.

Of those who reported being discriminated against because of their gender identity or expression, 32 percent said they experienced “invalidation by a stranger or professional.”

“This was followed by reports of ‘invalidation by a loved one’ (24.5 percent), ‘verbal abuse’ (23.8 percent), and ‘online or electronic harassment’ (21.1 percent). Neither physical assault nor assault with a weapon were reported,” the report said.

Similarly, for those who said they were discriminated against based on their sexual or romantic orientation “most of the discrimination reported was ‘invalidation by a stranger or professional’ (22.5 percent), ‘invalidation by a loved one’ (17 percent), and ‘verbal abuse’ (15 percent),” the report stated.

Respondents were also asked how stressed they are on average, with 32 percent reporting they are “somewhat stressed;” 25 percent reporting “quite a bit stressed;” 22 percent “very much” stressed; 17 percent “a little bit” stressed; and 5 percent “not at all” stressed.

“When participants’ stress levels are graphed based on gender identity, a pattern appears: those identities at the margins of power and privilege (gender diverse) show higher levels of stress on average versus those identities that are viewed as the default (cisgender),” the report states.

The survey also included health screenings for depression and anxiety.

Results showed, of the 198 people who participated in those sections, 43.9 percent scored as having “minimal depression,” followed by 27.8 percent with “mild depression,” and 15.2 percent with “moderate depression.” Moderately severe depression and severe depression each made up 6.6 percent of the total scores.

On the anxiety screenings, 45.5 percent scored for “minimal anxiety,” 27.8 scored for “mild anxiety,” 16.7 percent scored for “moderate anxiety,” and 10.1 scored for “severe anxiety.”

According to data cited in the report from the Rhode Island Foundation, 6.5 percent of Rhode Island residents identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Survey respondents largely reflected Rhode Island’s racial demographics based on US Census data, according to Foster, but he acknowledged there is an “under representation” of Black and Indigenous people and people of color in the state.

“We are definitely looking at reaching a wider pool in a few different ways in subsequent surveys,” Foster said.

Omar Mohammed of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.