CCIS Spotlight: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The COVID Community Impact Survey (CCIS) Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Spotlight highlights experiences and inequities related to the pandemic across sexual orientation, gender, and transgender experience.

Summary of key findings

• Systems of oppression, including heteronormativity, heterosexism, and transphobia, continuously exclude LGBTQIA+ individuals and put them at risk for worse health. This was true prior to the pandemic and was exacerbated by the pandemic. 
• Intentional community-based outreach and collaboration resulted in unprecedented levels of survey participation (more than 4,000 LGBTQA+ adults and 900 LGBTQA+ youth) allowing for a clearer picture of subgroups who been historically made invisible by small sample sizes.
• Through the pandemic, LGBTQA+ adults and youth experienced disproportionately worse impacts around employment, economic and housing stability, healthcare access, and mental health.
• Both LGBTQA youth and adults reported higher rates of poor mental health and PTSD-like symptoms related to the pandemic. Nearly 70% of non-binary adults reported experiencing poor mental health15+ days in the last month, and 84% of non-binary and queer youth reported experiencing at least two weeks of poor mental health in the past year.
• Non-binary and transgender people have been disproportionately impacted by violence during the pandemic, with transgender youth reporting having experienced household violence during COVID-19 at more than three times the rate of cisgender youth, and trans and non-binary adults experiencing intimate partner violence during COVID-19 more than three times the rate of cis adults and men, respectively.
• LGBTQA adults and youth were more likely to report indicators of housing instability, which can hamper health and safety.
  • LGBTQA adults reported worrying about paying rent and mortgages as well as worrying about needing to uproot their living situations due to conflict at home.
  • Compared to straight and cisgender adults, LGBTQA adults were twice as likely to report worrying about needing to move, and up to 10 times as likely to report needing to move due to conflict with family or roommates.
  • Compared to straight and cis-gender youth, LGBTQ youth were up to five times as likely to report experiencing violence at home during COVID-19.

Spotlight slides and webinar

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Additional Resources

CCIS Webinar Slides: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity