79% of lesbian young adults say they’ve felt “ashamed” of being LGBTQ+, study finds
A study by LGBTQ+ young people’s charity Just Like Us found that lesbian young adults were the most likely of all LGBTQ+ identities to say they were ashamed of being part of the community, with trans youth (78%) and non-binary youth (76%) following close behind.
The survey, which questioned 3,695 young people aged 18 to 25, found that five per cent of lesbians “always” feel ashamed of being LGBTQ+, 38% “sometimes” feel ashamed, and only 20 per cent report “never” feeling ashamed of who they are. Overall, over 70% of adults reported feeling ashamed of being LGBTQ+.
“It is heartbreaking to see that so many LGBT+ young adults feel ashamed of who they are,” Amy Ashenden, interim CEO of Just Like Us, said in a statement. “No young person should be ashamed because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans.”
“I’m incredibly saddened to see that young lesbians are the most likely in our community to feel ashamed of who they are. I know from working with young lesbians, and our previous research, that there are serious lesbophobic stereotypes delaying lesbians from coming out and lesbians still face complex challenges, stemming from a double hit of homophobia and misogyny.”
The data forms part of a new report by Just Like Us, called Positive Futures, which will look at the experiences of LGBTQ+ young adults in the UK, from well-being to intersections like race and disability.
Pippa Sterk, an ambassador for Just Like Us, previously explained that lesbians grappled with loneliness on a particularly high scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, with four out of five lesbians saying their mental health got worse through lockdown.
