Loneliness in the LGBTQ+ Community: Combating Isolation
Loneliness is a universal experience. It comes with a serious impact on mental and emotional well-being. For many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, the pain of loneliness can be amplified by societal pressures and personal challenges. Understanding and overcoming loneliness within our community is crucial for reducing stress and anxiety, and building better mental health overall. While the challenges are significant, there are many effective strategies for combating loneliness and forming queer community. In this article, we'll delve into the source of loneliness for queer people, how it impacts us as a group and as individuals, and end on some practical tips for overcoming it.
Understanding Loneliness
On its own, the emotion of loneliness is not inherently a problem. It’s uncomfortable, even painful. At the same time, the emotion on its own does communicate information that we need. If we never felt loneliness at all, we would be cut off from some valuable data that guide us to building connections and relationships that, in my opinion, make life worthwhile. The authors of the study “Minority Stress and Loneliness in a Global Sample of Sexual Minority Adults: The Roles of Social Anxiety, Social Inhibition, and Community Involvement” made this point well. In their 2022 study, they pointed out loneliness does serve an important function in our lives. As they put it, “loneliness evolved to alert us when our basic needs are lacking and prompts us to take corrective action.” Clearly, there is a reason why we evolved as a species with this emotion intact.
Loneliness becomes painful and a big problem in our lives when it gets overwhelming and when it gets out of control. The truth is that humans are a social species on a fundamental level. Longing for connection and feeling its lack causes real pain and emotional distress. Loneliness is classified into two main types in psychology research: emotional and social. Emotional loneliness stems from a lack of closeness and intimacy in our relationships. Social loneliness comes from a lack of a broader social network. That’s why you can have a devoted, loving best-friendship or romantic partnerships and still feel lonely. Similarly, you can have a broad network of many people to talk to, and still deal with loneliness. Both types can have profound effects on a person’s mental and physical health, leading to issues like depression, anxiety, and physical ailments like heart disease.
There’s also a cognitive component too; how lonely you feel depends in part on how you think of yourself when it comes to relationships. One study published in the Journal of Psychological Science emphasized the importance of your mental perception of yourself as social or isolated, loved or alone. Their findings supported the idea that whether you feel the pain of loneliness depends on how you “make meaning of… social relationships in your mental representations of loneliness and connectedness.”
Unique Challenges Faced by the LGBTQ+ Community
The feelings of loneliness that show up for us as queer people don’t come out of nowhere. Let’s talk about the unique difficulties we face as a group that can contribute to a sense of loneliness. Understanding these challenges is the first step toward addressing and overcoming them.
Social Stigma and Discrimination
Many queer people experience prejudice, either as violent aggression or a buildup of hundreds of indignities and little slights. Homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia: these things show up in a million ways in our lives, whether we are talking about employment discrimination, hate crimes, or erasure. Bias and discrimination occur across all types of settings, including schools, workplaces, and families. Sometimes it comes from within the queer community itself. All of this can add up to some pretty significant feelings of rejection and exclusion. These experiences contribute to an environment where we feel unsafe or unsupported, two of the major factors leading to overall loneliness and isolation.
Internalized Homophobia and Identity Struggles
Growing up in a heteronormative society rife with the pressure to conform to societal norms, we often internalize shame and homophobia. You better believe that makes it difficult for us to accept our sexual orientation or gender identity. 2024 is actually one of the better historical periods for growing up queer, at least in certain parts of the world. Despite social progress made in many parts of the world we can still end up stewing in feelings of shame or self-hatred. Even though we have done nothing to earn that just by being ourselves, we feel it anyway. We can get disconnected from both ourselves and others, and those knots take time to unravel. So if you have felt this in your own life, please know that you are not alone, and this is one of those things we have in common with each other.
Lack of Representation and Role Models
Queer visibility and representation in entertainment and media is so much better than I was in my teens. Let’s not pretend it’s all rosy. There are some serious limitations in visibility of LGBTQ+ people in media and on our screens, particularly for queer people of color. That contributes to feelings of loneliness too. When representation by people that look like us is scarce, we feel like we aren’t reflected in society. A lack of representation reinforces feelings of isolation and being pushed to the margins.
Relationship and Family Dynamics
Coming out to family and friends is a meaningful step for some of us in the LGBTQ+ family. That often comes with the risk of rejection. Particularly if you have to keep coming out, over and over and over again. The reality is that you may not be accepted by your loved ones on the basis of a core part of your identity. The fear of this loss pushes us farther towards estrangement and loneliness. Additionally, building relationships and holding on to them can be more difficult due to prejudices and a lack of understanding.
The Intersection of Loneliness and Mental Health
The relationship between loneliness and your mental health is complex and intertwined. Loneliness can be both the cause and the consequence of mental health concerns. It creates a cycle that feels impossible to break. It is well documented in the research that the LGBTQ+ community faces higher rates of mental health issues compared to our heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, as a direct result of the societal factors listed above. According to data from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, we are “more than twice as likely as heterosexual adults to experience a mental health condition.” As you might have predicted, this is even more difficult for transgender people, who “are nearly four times as likely as cisgender individuals to experience a mental health condition.” Loneliness contributes to conditions such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, and vice versa. That’s why overcoming loneliness is not just about finding more friends; it is also a critical component of developing better mental health.
Addressing Loneliness to Improve Mental Health
So what do we do about it? Looking at the powerful influence of loneliness on mental health outcomes, we’re going to have to address the issue in a comprehensive way. The first tip I have is the “comprehensive” part; overcoming loneliness requires a holistic approach that considers both the social and personal aspects of your life. None of these tools work on their own. I encourage you to experiment with different combinations of these strategies, and be mindful as you decide on which ones work for you personally.
LGBTQ+ Affirmative Therapy: Affirmative therapy helps you navigate your experiences with identity, discrimination, and internalized stigma, to bring all of these strategies together. Therapists who are knowledgeable and competent to deal with the specific challenges faced by the queer community can offer more effective support. If that sounds helpful to you, contact us here for LGBTQ+ friendly therapy with a goal-directed approach.
Building Supportive Networks
Let’s start with the social part of loneliness: that feeling of not having a broad enough network of connections. Creating mutual relationships that provide support is crucial for combating this type of loneliness. LGBTQ+ focused groups and online communities can offer spaces for people to connect. If you are just starting to build that network, start with community centers or groups on social media that are local to your area.
The emotional part of loneliness is the feeling of the relationships you have not being intimate or close enough. You may need to go a little deeper than just making new friends. Nurture the connections you already have by prioritizing those relationships. This is difficult for us adults, when there are so many demands on our time. You can start small, with texts to check-in, or devote more significant time for closeness via weekly hangs or trips together. Build new connections by putting yourself out there as much as you can. Allow it to be weird and uncomfortable at first, and attend meetups or clubs despite that initial awkwardness. These networks are worth the discomfort or pain it takes to build them; they can provide a sense of belonging and reduce feelings of isolation.
Building Solidarity
In 2023 the Surgeon General released a report called “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” That’s how widespread loneliness has become in our culture. Ironically, we are all experiencing loneliness, together. Connecting with other people who are also dealing with it can help you find solace and strength. Let go of any shame you have about feeling lonely. We are all carrying that weight. The power of collective support is that it proves that this is a common problem. You are in good company.
Advocacy and Social Change
One option for how to find people to connect with is by volunteering for LGBTQ+ nonprofits and advocacy groups, like Gay for Good. This provides a sense of purpose and puts you in front of others who are passionate about similar causes. Not to mention the fact that it helps build a stronger, more inclusive community for everyone. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD work to change policies and attitudes that contribute to discrimination and loneliness.
Personal Development and Your Sense of Agency
I spoke above about how part of what makes loneliness so painful is the mental perception you have of yourself as being isolated and not belonging. Working to make new connections with like-minded people helps. So does deepening your connection with the people you already know and love. At the same time, it can also help reduce your experience of loneliness if you can change your self-perception. How do you start thinking of yourself as belonging? How do you believe that you are worthy of connection? Can you start changing how you think of yourself in an authentic, organic way? Here are some strategies to try:
Engage in Continuous Learning: It will be easier to strike up conversations with strangers or put yourself out there if you have something you are excited to talk about. That’s what I do when I feel like I’m stuck in a small-talk loop. Taking affordable classes, going to some workshops, or doing a deep dive into new topics of interest might make you feel like you are a more interesting person, or deepen your sense of your inherent self-worth.
Set Personal Goals: You are born with inherent worth just by being a person, and you don’t need to constantly achieve in order to matter and to belong. The difficulty is that capitalism has equated feeling worthwhile with productivity. That makes it hard to feel worthwhile if you’re not working towards a goal. Setting goals is not necessarily a bad thing. If establishing and working towards personal goals gives you a genuine sense of achievement, then you can absolutely benefit from that practice and I recommend you stick with it. It is fine and helpful to choose a goal related to career, education, hobbies, or personal development, and build your self-worth by taking small steps to get to that goal. I just want to voice a note of caution, that you don’t beat yourself up for not advancing quickly enough, as that would defeat the purpose.
Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind to yourself. Self-compassion is necessary at every step of this process.
What we gain by addressing our loneliness as a queer community is better mental health and a deeper sense of belonging. By understanding the source of some of the challenges faced by this community and by implementing tools to combat loneliness, we can create a more inclusive and supportive society and work towards forming queer community. If you are struggling with this, remember that so are many other people. Help is available, and building connections makes a significant difference. We work towards making sure all of us feel seen, heard, and valued.