Unreal, unsheltered, unseen, unrecorded: The multiple invisibilities of LGBTQI+ homeless youth

Abstract

There is significant research evidence which demonstrates that LGBTQI+ young people experience higher rates of homelessness than their straight and cis peers. However, estimates of the scale of their over representation in homelessness vary significantly. This partially reflects difficulties in identifying and researching LGBTQI+ homeless youth due to their invisibility within homeless services. Drawing on in-depth interviews with homeless LGBTQI+ youth in Dublin and other Irish cities and with policy makers, homeless service providers and advocacy group representatives, this article reflects on the causes and implications of this invisibility. As its title suggests, the article identifies four interrelated causes of the invisibility – the unreal, unsheltered, unseen and unrecorded nature of LGBTQI+ youth homelessness. The article examines how these factors individually and collectively perpetuate the invisibility of LGBTQI+ homeless youth, impede their access to services for homeless people and reduce the likelihood that homeless services will be tailored to meet their needs and enable them to successfully exit homelessness.

Personas LGBT+ sin hogar: una revisión de la literatura

“…Por otro lado, existen áreas que requieren una mayor consideración y atención. Por ello, es necesario eliminar la invisibilidad de las PSH LGBT+ y que los recuentos oficiales de PSH empiecen a recopilar, cotejar y difundir datos precisos sobre la orientación sexual e identidad de género (Norris y Quilty, 2021;Campos y Moretti, 2018). En este sentido, hay numerosos estudios que agrupan a jóvenes lesbianas, gais, bisexuales y transgénero en una sola categoría homogénea lo que imposibilita comparar y conocer las necesidades de los subgrupos.…”

“He was like, my ride or die”: Sexual and Gender Minority Emerging Adults’ Perspectives on Living With Pets During the Transition to Adulthood

“…In residential treatment spaces, encouraging residents to put up pictures of their pets and talk about them would be a way to include these meaningful family members as part of treatment. Given the high rates of homelessness among SGM youth (Morton et al, 2020; Norris & Quilty, 2020), youth shelters should be very intentional around their pet policies, and if they are not able to house pets, should build partnerships with local agencies to offer fostering of pets while their consumers are in transitional housing spaces.…”

Intersex equality, diversity and inclusion and social policy: Silences, absences, and erasures in Ireland and the UK

“…This is due to a range of factors including sex/gender binarism and endosexism, the ongoing pathologisation of intersex (Carpenter, 2019), and the lack of substantial disruption to date of endosexism by protest groups. There is also an underlying key issue of nomenclature at play here: the term 'gender' is generally used in equalities discourse, which elides (biological) sex, so that either sex diversities are erased, or intersex people, where they are included, are mistakenly wrapped into the categories of 'transgender' or 'sexual orientation' (see Norris and Quilty, 2021).…”

“…Their invisiblisation is also present in the work of authors addressing LGBT equalities. For instance, Norris and Quilty (2021) in an Irish study of ‘LGBTQI+’ youth homelessness in Ireland indicate that they include intersex research participants. However, there is no evidence of this, or signs of knowledge about key issues for intersex youth, such as experience of non-consensual medical interventions and related trauma and fallout with family (Callens et al, 2021; Henningham and Jones, 2021).…”