Identifying contributors to unique life stressors faced by LGBTIQQ in Uganda; Stressing strategic mental health interventions

An organization serving LGBTIQQ seeks to provide life promoting tips but three issues stand in the way as barriers. One of them is tagged funding which only caters to paying salaries of CEO and about 12 permanent staffs including ensuring they have a trip or two outside Uganda. Most if not all executive staff are not qualified in identifying, addressing and following through to resolution health needs faced by LGBTIQQ. This means the fortitude to lobby for funds to address mental health needs is almost non-existent. How many organizations can present a plan promoting optimal ART adherence for those LGBTIQQ living with HIV?

The second is the tendency of promoting and billing homogenized glamour interventions (HGI's) as the sole evaluated measurable indicators of effective services targeting LGBTIQQ. These assume that participants or beneficiaries either need say, HIV testing and later refreshments. This blanket approach pushes traumatic issues faced by LGBTIQQ further off the treatment agenda/grid.

The third is the default programming featuring: Anniversary, Bash, Carnivore. Most organizations have set aside funds for an anniversary or think up one; they then have some form of community event to attend which emphasizes celebration or an outdoor carnivore. This context cannot therefore be a platform for presenting real felt needs faced by LGBTIQQ.

Research by scholars (including small N interview surveys by MARPS in Uganda) shows that there are neglected needs still simmering and LGBTIQQ may face traumas that end up being dismissed by those who have the funds, staff, spaces and interactions with LGBTIQQ. 

Jacob Anderson-Minshall in article entitled "Same-sex couples face unique sexual problems" points out “stress discrepancies” for those LGBTIQQ living as couples. The lesson one takes out of this article is that there is a situational discordance. One of the partners may have one or more of the following: be more out, more educated, established, desiring a more settled life, different age, has more accepting friends, community or family. 

Stressors unique to same-sex couples according to Jacob include: 

• Internalized stigma 
• Coming out as a couple
• Exclusion from social supports
• Lack of role models
• Negotiating gender roles
• Navigating legal benefits (or lack thereof)
• Limitations to participation in family
• Managing stereotypes 
• Public scrutiny
• Seeking safety and community
• Terminology regarding the relationship
• Being invisible as a couple and being tempted to hide 
• Efforts required to have children
• Rejection, devaluation, and discrimination
• Consequences of unequal legal recognition

Does your organization have a strategic mental health plan targeting LGBTIQQ? This is a first step in addressing neglected needs faced by LGBTIQQ. Most At Risk Populations' Society in Uganda (MARPs in Uganda) strives to make activism targeting LGBTIQQ more effective. We have a programme providing anti-suicide, grief counselling, entrepreneur skilling, mental health information, education and communication. We hope to train over 250 beneficiaries in demanding for what matters to them. It is our hope organizations can and will, at the minimum, be able to present a plan promoting optimal ART adherence for those LGBTIQQ living with HIV and this will be the measurable indicator for effective services.