With a first-of-its-kind survey since 2004, a new report conducted with support of The Rhode Island Foundation offers valuable demographics for LGBTQ+ advocacy, health care, anti-discrimination priorities, policymaking and more.

Reports the Boston Globe:

“Findings of the “Rhode Island LGBTQIA+ Community Needs & Experiences Survey,” conducted by the East Bay Community Action Program with support from the Rhode Island Foundation, were released Monday as “initial insights.”

“More than 234 people were surveyed statewide between June and October of this year. Respondents were questioned on a variety of topics, ranging from substance use, depression, and anxiety, to instances of discrimination they have faced based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Quinten Foster, the report’s author and the program’s director of transgender whole healthcare, told the Globe on Tuesday that the survey was intended to provide a “more data-driven understanding of what’s going on for our community.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of the surveying that we see go around, not only on [the] state level, but local and national levels, just simply don’t ask questions about LGBTQ identities,” Foster said. “So we don’t have a good pool of data on really anything to do with the LGBTQ community’s experience in general.”

“Foster said through his research, they learned there had not been a survey quite like this one in Rhode Island since 2004.

“Notably, the landscape of the LGBTQIA+ community has “vastly” changed over the past 20 years, and while the nation has expanded protections from discrimination, including in employment, housing, public accommodations, military service, and legalized same sex marriage, other challenges remain, such as bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in nearly half the states in the country, Foster said.

““It’s really hard to be able to write things like grant applications and do advocacy at the State House or even with local government when we don’t have hard and fast numbers to use for these things,” Foster said.

“According to the report, the survey is intended as a starting point for future surveys, and includes information on “demographics, holistic health outcomes and experiences, discrimination, affirmation, priorities, and services.”

Read the complete Boston Globe article here.

Not a subscriber?  Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine.  We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information.  Click HERE to sign up!