A study from UCLA is claiming that couples who identify as LGBT are at “greater risk of exposure to the negative effects of climate change than straight couples.” According to the study, LGBT couples are more prone to living in areas that are at the highest risk of being impacted by so-called climate change, such as coastal or urban areas.
“Policymakers and service providers must ensure that disaster relief is accessible and administered without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, including safe shelters, access to medication such as HIV treatment, and financial support for displaced LGBT individuals and families,” the study states.
Written by Lindsay Mahowald (pronouns they/them) and Ari Shaw of the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, the study suggests that history is not on the side of LGBT people when it comes to discrimination from mortgage lenders and government entities.
“The limited research on LGBT people and climate change suggests that geography may compound these existing vulnerabilities to environmental hazards compared to non-LGBT populations,” the study states. “Historical exclusion of LGBT people through ‘heteronormative NIMBYism’ that restricted zoning for gay-owned establishments, as well as Federal Housing Administration policies that promoted loans for straight married couples, often pushed LGBT people into low-income and under-resourced areas.”
Such “discrimination” has forced the LGBT community to segregate itself into what the report calls “gayborhoods,” despite the fact that gay couples typically make more money than their straight counterparts.
“Today, while some LGBT people are able to afford living in affluent ‘Gayborhoods,'” the study states, “employment discrimination and wage disparities leave many unable to afford quality housing, or they face discrimination given the absence of federal antidiscrimination protections in housing.”
So, despite the fact that gay couples have more money than straight couples, they still require special consideration when dealing with the effects of climate change.
“These differences have a meaningful impact on both how LGBT communities experience climate change and their ability to respond to it,” the study’s authors note.
The authors also complain that COP28 did little to address the challenges faced by “marginalized communities” in the face of climate change.
“While COP28 concluded with an ambitious global commitment to ‘[transition] away from fossil fuels,’ the largest contributor of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions,” the study notes, “less attention was paid to mitigating the existing and anticipated effects of climate change on infrastructure, health, and well-being that are disproportionately faced by marginalized communities.”
Therefore, the study’s authors suggest, LGBT persons should be given special consideration in regard to future expected climate-related disasters.
In addition, both NASA and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) are advised to step up their game — when it comes to the LGBT community at least.
“NASA and FEMA risk assessments, as well as other measures of climate risk, should include LGBT people among social groups with elevated vulnerability to climate change when assigning social vulnerability scores,” the report states.
Ridiculous studies such as this one are useful in telling us exactly what those who view themselves as “intelligentsia” are thinking. They would like to see the LGBT community be given special consideration with regard to the coming disasters associated with climate change and, perhaps more importantly, they want the LGBT community set aside as a special victim group.
