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AAC – Health & Wellness – Body & Self-Care – LGBTQ Body Image and Self-Perception – Q1 · Wellbeing Solutions - Ask A Counsellor

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: A Mental Health Foundation survey found that adults who identified as members of the LGBTQ community had consistently reported higher levels of shame, more impact to their self-esteem, and higher incidences of suicidal thoughts relating to their body image than heterosexual adults.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: How we present as queer people doesn't necessarily match the societal stereotype for what a typical man or woman should look like.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't conform to those expectations, we can feel bad about ourselves and even challenged or criticized by other people.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: There can also be gatekeeping in the community, even in safe spaces.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Accessing these safe spaces can feel conditional to matching these stereotypes.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: For example, that all gay men should be fit and athletic, and non-athletic men should be hairy, hair growth not being something we can control and largely determined by genetics.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: For cisgender men, men whose gender matches their body, the expectation is often that they present more masculine than feminine, to be more athletic than have a normal dad bod.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some research shows that gay and bisexual men are more likely to idealize being athletic, and as a result, gay men are often more likely than heterosexual men to want to be thinner and therefore more at risk of eating disorder symptoms.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: For cis women, there can be tension between booch, or more masculine presenting women, versus femme, more traditionally feminine.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Research in this area has mixed results, generally tending towards similar levels of concern from heterosexual gain bisexual women regarding the perceptions of their bodies and their perceptions of what an ideal body looks like.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: For trans members of the community, things can be even more challenging.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Very broadly, when someone is trans, their gender doesn't match the body.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: As we might imagine, levels of body dissatisfaction in trans people tend to be higher before gender conformation treatments.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Trans people are a significantly oppressed group at the moment, putting even more pressure on people trying to live their lives just like anyone else, and gender conformation can be a challenging process to navigate in the NHS with long waiting lists.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not all trans people want to medically transition, and there are different forms of transitioning.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: How a trans person feels about their body also depends on where they are with this, and just like everyone else is influenced by other societal factors.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Often under the trans umbrella is non-binary, when someone does not identify with a binary gender identity, male or female, which can obviously influence their relationship with their body.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's an important distinction between someone who is non-binary or trans and someone who is into sex.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than a variation in gender identity, someone who is intersex has a body through a natural variation in chromosomes before being born that may not conform to traditional societal views of what a male or female body should look like, and this can result in an impact to self esteem and mental health, navigating a world which often doesn't account for their body type.