Socioeconomic Data on Manchester's LGBTQ Community

The United Kingdom is the abode of many people having different sexual orientation which include lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and queer population along with heterosexuals (Bandini and Maggi 2014). The LGBT community of Manchester, where the particular sample size, say 500 people have been taken and analyzed in this section. It is estimated that around 4-5% of the people in the UK identifies themselves as LGBTQ. It suggests that Manchester alone has a population of an estimated 25000-35000 sexual minorities where 215000 is the total sexual minorities in the entire country (Uhrig 2015). This particular patch will focus on the socioeconomic data collected by authentic sources (Lgbt.foundation 2017) for the purpose of analyzing the poverty and social exclusion that occurs based on sexual orientation.

Manchester is one of the places with highest number of homosexual and bisexual population along with London and Brighton (BBC News 2015). The Greater Manchester LGBT plan has been introduced with the aim to improve the lifestyles of the sexual minorities by paving the way for opportunities and various other such measures (Aksoy, Carpenter and Frank 2018). The responded groups who participated in the survey will be discussed on the basis of multiple factors done by the lesbian and gay foundation in Manchester (Lgbt.foundation 2017).

The table below reflects the respondents categorized by their age. The survey has been conducted by the residents of Manchester in the year of 2012 (Aksoy, Carpenter and Frank 2018).        

The most respondent group in this table is the age group of 26-30.

The employment status of the community in 2012 says that 75% of them were employed within the respondent group of 16-65 years. This is more or less similar to the general population including heterosexuals. However, according to (Perraudin 2019), it has been found that 70% of sexual minorities faced sexual harassment at workplaces. 27% of the people surveyed in that research have reported to receiving unwanted verbal sexual advances (Perraudin 2019). Even far more reports have been made by black and minority ethnic women who faced greater sexual advances cases along with the community of disabled men and women in their workplaces (BBC News 2015).

Almost all of the respondents have experienced mental taxation and emotional upheaval related to their sexuality in their lifetime. The table below will show the approximate mental illness they have suffered which will indicate the rate of mental health issue among the LGBT community (Mordaunt 2019).

Age

From the above data, it can be concluded that 7% of the population said they never experienced mental health problem (Mordaunt 2019). However, the majority of them have faced some kind of these mental health issues which might have originated from bullying, harassment and stress. The respondents were also asked about whether they sought emotional help or not (Bandini and Maggi 2014). A 20% of them gave a negative reply while the rest of the people have asked for help to their friends, families or psychologists.

The health conditions of the sexual minorities in Manchester were also accessed where the key findings according to (Lgbt.foundation 2017) were –

• Around 80% of the respondents had accessed or tried to access healthcare services.
• 54% of the sexual minorities reported that they have disclosed or discussed their sexual orientation with healthcare staffs. The percentage of people who stayed away from disclosing this fact thought it would either be irrelevant to their disease they have come to treat, and the rest 14% thought of having a negative reaction from the healthcare staffs (Uhrig 2014).
• 40% of transgender respondents reported that they have experienced negative comments while opting for healthcare (Uhrig 2014). 21% of them also said that their particular needs were ignored and not taken into account as a result of negative reaction (Lgbt.foundation 2017). 

While dealing with this context, the respondents also shed light on how it as affected their material disadvantageousness (Lgbt.foundation 2017). The respondents were less satisfied with their life than the average satisfaction level of the general population. The score for the sexual minorities for this instance is 6.88, whereas the same as that of the general population are 7.66 (Kingston and Smith 2020).

Conclusion

The above analysis backed by the survey reflects the condition of LGBTQ community residing in the Manchester region. Most of the people have suffered from mental health problems which is one of the significant problems within the sexual minorities. The LBTQ Action Plans and other such associations are uniting in the aim to strengthen the communities and raise voice against the various problems persistent to them. Since Manchester is the most accepted LGBTQ community in the UK, the issue of social exclusion is not a very persistent problem. Instead, plans have been set up for sexual minority communities where they would prevent and take proper steps regarding sexual bullying and harassment at academic institutions for protecting them from awkwardness leading to social exclusion (BBC News 2015). The data of the United Kingdom will vary to some extent as it also reflects a part of the country with the highest number of sexual minorities. 

References

Aksoy, C.G., Carpenter, C.S. and Frank, J., 2018. Sexual orientation and earnings: new evidence from the United Kingdom. ILR Review, 71(1), pp.242-272.

Bandini, E. and Maggi, M., 2014. Transphobia. In Emotional, Physical and Sexual Abuse (pp. 49-59). Springer, Cham.

BBC News (2015). LGBT centre plan for bullied pupils. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-30846563 [Accessed 4 Feb. 2020].

Joseph, A. (2020). Map reveals Britain's gay capitals. [online] Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4427710/Map-reveals-Britain-s-gay-capitals.html [Accessed 4 Feb. 2020].

Kingston, S. and Smith, N., 2020. Sex counts: An examination of sexual service advertisements in a UK online directory. The British Journal of Sociology.

Lgbt.foundation (2017). LGBT Foundation - Evidence Exchange - National LGBT Survey. [online] Lgbt.foundation. Available at: https://lgbt.foundation/evidence/national-lgbt-survey/21 [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Mordaunt, P., 2019. LGBT Action Plan: annual progress report 2018 to 2019.

Perraudin, F. (2019). Survey finds 70% of LGBT people sexually harassed at work. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/17/survey-finds-70-of-lgbt-people-sexually-harassed-at-work [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Uhrig, S.C., 2014. An examination of poverty and sexual orientation in the UK (No. 2014-02). ISER Working Paper Series.

Uhrig, S.N., 2015. Sexual orientation and poverty in the UK: A review and top-line findings from the UK household longitudinal study. Journal of Research in Gender Studies, 5(1), pp.23-72.