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Undeserved Shame and the LGBTQ+ Community
The damage of toxic shame
Shame is an emotion everyone feels sometime in their lives. This intense feeling can be used for good, warning us that our behavior is causing problems for ourselves and others. However, when used to harm someone, it is a powerful force that damages and cripples those who do not deserve it.
This article will focus on how shame has been weaponized against our LGBTQ+ neighbors and family members who do not deserve such treatment. We will focus on how shame hurts the communities and ways to diminish and hopefully end its use as a bludgeon.
The Causes of Shame in the LGBTQ+ Community
There are two leading causes of shame in the community; abandonment and hate crime. Unfortunately, we are currently in a time when both are used with impunity.
It is hard enough to come out to parents and peers, no matter your age, when you do so, but having your family reject you and then abandon you causes excellent harm and stirs up feelings of shame.
Add the abandonment of hate crime to your list of worries, and you have a perfect soup of fear, anxiety, and depression. Unfortunately, you have reason to be afraid, as one study found that LGBTQ+ people experienced 6.6 violent hate crimes per 1,000 persons.
