“We know what we need.”

The sentence, written on a large sheet of paper set in the
middle of a roundtable discussion, was circled and underlined
twice. It was a running theme of several conversations that
took place last Thursday and Friday in the Wabano Centre for
Aboriginal Health in Ottawa during the pan-Canadian Rainbow
Youth Health Forum. The forum was organized by the Mental
Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) in partnership with the
Wisdom 2Action initiative.

Participants in the forum were asked to answer three main
questions:

¢ What gaps and/or barriers do 2SLGBTQ+ emerging adults
face when accessing health services?

¢ What positive experiences do 2SLGBTQ+ emerging adults
face when accessing health services?

¢« How could health care organizations make an emerging
adult’s experience safer and more inclusive?

To answer these questions, the forum issued an open
invitation to 2SLGBTQ+ people across Canada between the ages
of 18 and 30 with lived experience navigating the mental health
care system.

The cross-section of humanity that came together to discuss
these issues covered a broad spectrum of experiences. Many in
the room found solidarity with one another—un fortunately,
much of that solidarity was based in shared negative and often
traumatizing experiences with the Canadian health system.

“The number of youth who [don’t] have any positive
experience at all [accessing healthcare] just shows how broken
our health systems are,” said educator Fae Johnstone on Twitter.
Johnstone acted as facilitation support and host for the event.

Indeed, that second question stumped many of the
participants in the forum, so much so that it had to be reshaped
when it came time to answer it. Instead of asking for positive past
experiences with the health system specifically, members of the
forum were asked about any positive or supportive experiences
they’ve had with regards to someone caring for their mental
health—or even just to imagine what a compassionate and
effective mental health care system would possibly look like.

Recognizing a need

The forum itself came as a direct result of the Mental Health
Commission of Canada’s renewal for another 10-year mandate
back in 2015.

The Commission was originally created by the Canadian
government in 2007 with the goal of examining the mental

 

welfare of Canadian citizens. The original three objectives of the
Commission were to form a national mental health strategy, to
develop and implement anti-stigma and anti-discrimination
campaigns, and to form a Knowledge Exchange Centre to
promote education and improved mental health care practices.

It’s no secret that 2SLGBTQ+ people struggle with mental
health concerns at higher rates than cisgender and heterosexual
people. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association,
2SLGBTQ+ youth “face approximately 14 times the risk of suicide
and substance abuse than heterosexual peers,” and “double the
risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than heterosexual
people.”

There are many factors contributing to these troubling
statistics, though much of it comes down to societal stigma.
Acceptance of 2SLGBTQ+ people, while
certainly more widespread than it was
even 10 years ago, is still far from
universal.

Recognizing the problems

Accessing mental health care looks
very different when you're doing
so as a 2SLGBTQ+ person. It looks
different again when you fall on
that spectrum and are also a person
of colour or Indigenous.

Everyone at the forum had
their own stories of at best, a
decidedly tone-deaf response from
healthcare practitioners regarding
their lived experiences—at worse,
outright abuse. Misdiagnoses based
on gender or sexual identity were
one of the topics that came up often
during roundtable discussions. For
example, bisexual and pansexual
people found themselves more
likely to receive a diagnosis of
Borderline Personality Disorder
because ofthe assumption that their
relationships are more likely to be
unstable, even if that assumption
did not reflect the patient’s reality.
Lack of basic knowledge from
healthcare providers was also cited,
such as practitioners not knowing
how hormone replacement =
therapy could interact with certain j
prescribed medications or telling i

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