LGBTQ+ Mental Wellbeing Declined ‘Significantly’ Under Trump’s Administration, Reveal Studies

There was a significant decline in the mental wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+) people while Donald Trump was president, according to two recent independent studies.  Depression, anxiety, and stress were just some of the emotions that LGBTQ+ Americans experienced during the Trump administration, which revealed the results of UCLA and the Economics and Human Biology Journal studies, published in NBC News.

One of the studies, to be published in the December issue of the Economics and Human Biology Journal found that “extreme mental distress”, increased among LGBTQ+ people during Trump’s rise and presidency.  In fact, the study found that the “extreme mental distress gap” between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ people rose from 1.8 percentage points during 2014–2015 to 3.8 percentage points after Trump’s presidency became a real possibility in early 2016. The study highlighted “that even seemingly small increases in extreme distress are important because such distress is not common”. 

According to the Human Rights Campaign 2021 was “the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history”, particularly given the number of bills aimed at curbing the rights of transgender Americans across the country. The majority of those bills would specifically affect transgender youth.

Between 2015 and 2019, 42 US states introduced more than 200 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation, according to research institute Child Trends.  This year alone, the country has seen over 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level. These measures have a negative impact on LGBTQ+ health, affe