The National Mental Health Commission is developing a National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy on behalf of the Australian Government. It aims to ensure stigma and discrimination on the basis of mental ill-health are not barriers to people living long and contributing lives.
LGBTIQ+ people experience significantly worse mental health outcomes. This is directly related to stigma, prejudice, discrimination and abuse experienced due to being part of diverse LGBTIQ+ communities. LHA’s submission urges the Commission to integrates action on stigma and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people with action on mental health stigma and discrimination.
In 2021, LHA launched Beyond Urgent: National LGBTIQ+ Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Strategy to guide urgent action for LGBTIQ+ communities. Our submission recommends the Commission consider and coordinate with our strategy.
We call for ongoing engagement with LGBTIQ+ community-controlled organisations, which are uniquely placed to work with their communities and to training mainstream organisations to provie inclusive care. These organisations need to be funded equitably to meet the need.
We recommend urgent action to strengthen research and data collection, especially to implement the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Standard for Sex, Gender, Variation of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables, 2020 (2020 Standard).