POPSUGAR: Reading this study, I feel like it spurs a necessary conversation around mental health in Black youth — and Black queer youth specifically — in relation to police brutality, which comes up in the study itself. But I want to ask you, what are the key risk factors here for poor mental health?
"These are in many senses the impact of poverty that is largely brought on by societal conditions that Black people in general have to endure, and it's being experienced by Black LGBTQ youth as well."
Myeshia Price-Feeney: When we're looking specifically at Black LGBTQ youth, we see some of the same things we see with all LGBTQ youth in terms of: not getting support, conversion therapy, attempts to convince them to change their sexual identity or gender identity.
You see housing instability disproportionately in Black LGBTQ youth; you see food insecurities. These are in many senses the impact of poverty that is largely brought on by societal conditions that Black people in general have to endure, and it's being experienced by Black LGBTQ youth as well.
Then we have discrimination and victimization, and so we have Black LGBTQ youth who are experiencing that for both their sexual and gender identity, as well as race or ethnic background. And so, there's a compounding impact to some of these things that may be experienced by Black LGBTQ youth more compared to other youth.
