Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations (2020) / Chapter Skim
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7 Community and Civic Engagement
7 Community and Civic Engagement
Pages 165-196
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From page 165... ...
This chapter considers what community is while examining the ways that SGD communities claim, integrate, and negotiate spaces. It also includes a discussion of the effects that community and mobilization have on the lives and histories of SGD populations and explores how space is used as a tool for community building and mobilization.
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From page 166... ...
In general, the role of community can be examined as three interconnected points: a form of public culture, a site of internal and external contests, and a key source of social and political support. Thus, community is both a site and a source of struggle, hierarchy, and liberation for SGD populations.
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From page 167... ...
Thus, public culture for SGD populations can be understood as occasions, spaces, and domains that enable people to come together to socialize, connect, engage, and, in some cases, create, affirm, and promote, either implicitly or explicitly, shared social identities, experiences, and locations.
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From page 168... ...
Get used to it" was often chanted at LGBTQ festivals, events, and rallies in the 1980s and 1990s, not only as a message to heterosexual and cisgender populations but also as a message to SGD individuals to reaffirm their rights to be themselves, form communities, and take up space. In this context, space can be described as the means through which marginalized communities, particularly SGD populations, reimagine and remap spatial landscapes, domains, and "spheres that are livable under often unlivable conditions" (Bailey and Shabazz, 2014, p.
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From page 169... ...
In this context, pivotal moments in the effort to combat SGD oppression, like the Compton riot and the Stonewall uprising, can be seen as violent responses by authorities and others to prevent SGD people from convening and taking up space. Activism and political mobilization in SGD communities continued throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, and it contributed to the rise in HIV/AIDS activism in LGBTQ+ communities.
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From page 170... ...
. Convening places for SGD populations, such as bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, bars, clubs, and bathhouses, have been a defining feature of gayborhoods.
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From page 171... ...
Sociologist Greggor Mattson found that between 1997 and 2017, 33 percent of gay bars closed.2 In addition, there has been an increase in the heterosexual appropriation of queer spaces, such as heterosexual women who hold their bridal and bachelorette parties in what are generally gay male spaces (Casey, 2004) .3 Although research on gayborhoods and on queer spaces has primarily focused on gay men, studies have documented the complicated history that lesbian women and women in general have had in claiming space in urban areas (Gieseking, 2013)
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From page 172... ...
And because public spaces for SGD populations are often situated in segregated neighborhoods, SGD communities of color suffer "spatial marginalization" (Sibley, 1995; Wilkins, 2000)
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From page 173... ...
Although there is notably less research on the topic, discrimination and self-segregation are common within queer spaces, as many of these spaces explicitly and implicitly exclude transgender and gender diverse populations, people of color, immigrants (Epstein and Carillo, 2014) , and those at their intersections.
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From page 174... ...
marginalized within mainstream SGD communities. Phoenix is said to hold the largest Latinx LGBTQ+ pride event in the country, and there are also events in Dallas and other cities with large Latinx SGD populations.
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From page 175... ...
For SGD populations of color, ballroom culture has been a space and practice of
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From page 176... ...
Online communities can provide safe spaces for people to explore their identities and express themselves authentically, often with others who share their experiences. This type of safe space can be especially important for people who feel alienated or alone in their local communities or do not have access to in-person resources because of geographic barriers, such as those living in rural communities (Hardy, 2019)
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From page 177... ...
.9 While SGD populations derive many benefits from online communities, negative interactions like online bullying, harassment, and discrimination also occur. Despite an overall sense of greater social safety in online communities than in real-world interactions, almost one-half of LGBTQ+ youth report being bullied online (Kosciw et al., 2017)
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From page 178... ...
There is also a need for the technology industry to understand the needs of SGD populations in order to avoid creating technology that can lead to discrimination, harassment, and violence. Thus, although online communities are frequently charged with helping to destroy the bars, bookstores, clubs, and other spaces that have been a mainstay of SGD communities, these online communities have helped to redefine the meaning and the uses of space for SGD people.
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From page 179... ...
Some SGD people challenge antagonistic and exclusionary religious groups to be open and affirming; others have separated from these religious institutions, or they have started their own SGD-accepting religious institutions. There are several kinds of mostly Christian churches that are open to or welcome SGD populations.
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From page 180... ...
At a seminar entitled "Amplifying Visibility and Increasing Capacity for Sexual and Gender Diverse Populations,"14 Khadija Kahn (Muslim Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth) noted that the stereotype that Islam is inherently anti-LGBTQ and anti-woman is dangerous and untrue.
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From page 181... ...
Health Care Institutions This section examines the role of community in raising awareness around key health issues for SGD populations, such as HIV/AIDS (access to health care is discussed in Chapter 12)
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From page 182... ...
. Ironically, it was the early medicalization and pathologization of same-sex sexual behavior and gender nonconformity that caused health organizations and agencies to overlook the unique health issues and disparities facing SGD communities, especially those who are among the most marginalized in those communities -- people of color, transgender individuals, undocumented immigrants, and those living in poverty -- for whom intersecting structural oppressions exacerbate many of the health concerns they face.
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From page 183... ...
by the Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Primary Health Care was Baltimore's Chase Brexton in 2002, and several more have since been recognized, including Fenway Health, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, New York City's Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, Philadelphia's Mazzoni Center, and Washington, D.C.'s Whitman-Walker Health. The FQHC designation ensures federal funding and reimbursement for health services provided by these health centers (Martos, Wilson, and Meyer, 2017)
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From page 184... ...
. Educational Institutions As a direct result of the activism of LGBTQ+ faculty, students, staff, and their allies, colleges and universities have increased services for SGD populations in recent years.
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From page 185... ...
While progress continues to be made in sectors such as employment, legal rights and protections for SGD people in other domains have been rapidly rolled back. While a more detailed discussion on the legal and political challenges confronting SGD populations is taken up elsewhere in this report, this chapter considers how SGD communities help to mitigate some of the harm they experience from legal setbacks through creation and participation in public culture and their sociopolitical involvement.
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From page 186... ...
. However, information is limited regarding registration rates from nationally representative studies of SGD populations that overcome potential biases of self-reported measures.
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From page 187... ...
. In examining motivators for sociopolitical involvement and civic engagement among SGD populations of color, research reveals that individual connectedness to other SGD people (not necessarily people of color)
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From page 188... ...
LGBTQ+ pride celebrations in major cities attract thousands of attendees, but many remain self-segregated, leaving ethnically diverse SGD groups to respond by protest or creating their own pride events. Online communities provide and transform spaces in which SGD people can explore their identities and express themselves openly.
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From page 189... ...
While political involvement is often conflated with civic engagement, experts note that the two are different, and civic engagement can manifest itself through participation in both in-person and virtual activism (i.e., social media and online forums)
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. Combahee River Collective Statement.
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. Religious conflict, sexual identity, and suicidal behav iors among LGBT young adults.
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From page 192... ...
. Two Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality.
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From page 193... ...
Los Angeles: Williams Institute UCLA School of Law. Available: https://escholarship.org/ content/qt4232v8j9/qt4232v8j9.pdf.
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. "You have to be positive.": Social support processes of an online support group for men living with HIV.
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. Online social support as a buffer against online and offline peer and sexual victimization among U.S.
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