In , more than half of LGBT people reported being discriminated against by a health care providers and more than 25 percent of transgender respondents reported being refused medical care outright. Since then, LGBT people have gained protections from health care discrimination—most notably, regulations stemming from the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, have prohibited federally funded hospitals, providers, and insurers from discriminating against LGBT patients.
Transgender people of color and people with disabilities reported particularly high rates of discrimination from health care providers. These findings are consistent with research that has also identified patterns of health care discrimination against people of color and disabled people.
For example, one survey of health care practices in five major cities found that more than one in five practices were inaccessible to patients who used wheelchairs. To ensure that federal civil rights laws explicitly protect LGBT people, Congress should pass the Equality Act, a comprehensive bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, public accommodations, housing, credit, and federal funding, among other provisions.
Likewise, state and local governments should pass comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for all. Comprehensive nondiscrimination protections have more support from voters than ever before: A majority in every state in the country support nondiscrimination laws. Additionally, they send the message that LGBT people are both accepted and respected by all levels of government. Laura E. To conduct this study, CAP commissioned and designed a survey, fielded by Knowledge Networks, which surveyed 1, individuals about their experiences with health insurance and health care.
Respondents came from all income ranges and are diverse across factors such as race, ethnicity, education, geography, disability status, and age. The survey was fielded online in English in January to coincide with the fourth open enrollment period through the health insurance marketplaces and the beginning of the first full year of federal rules that specifically protect LGBT people from discrimination in health insurance coverage and health care.
The data are nationally representative and weighted according to U. All reported findings are statistically significant unless otherwise indicated. Using social media platforms, the study authors requested volunteers to anonymously recount personal experiences of changing their behavior or making other adjustments to their daily lives to prevent experiencing discrimination.
A national survey of sexual attitudes in the UK last year came up with lower figures. But most scientists researching gay evolution are interested in an ongoing, internal pattern of desire rather than whether people identify as gay or straight or how often people have gay sex. Qazi Rahman says that alleles coding for same sex attraction only explain some of the variety in human sexuality.
Other, naturally varying biological factors come into play, with about one in seven gay men, he says, owing their sexuality to the "big brother effect". This has nothing to do with George Orwell, but describes the observation that boys with older brothers are significantly more likely to become gay - with every older brother the chance of homosexuality increases by about a third.
No-one knows why this is, but one theory is that with each male pregnancy, a woman's body forms an immune reaction to proteins that have a role in the development of the male brain. Since this only comes into play after several siblings have been born - most of whom are heterosexual and go on to have children - this pre-natal quirk hasn't been selected away by evolution. Exposure to unusual levels of hormone before birth can also affect sexuality.
For example, female foetuses exposed to higher levels of testosterone before birth show higher rates of lesbianism later on. Studies show that "butch" lesbian women and men have a smaller difference in length between their index and ring fingers - a marker of pre-natal exposure to testosterone. In "femme" lesbians the difference has been found to be less marked. Brothers of a different kind - identical twins - also pose a tricky question. While that's a greater likelihood than random, it's lower than you might expect for two people with the same genetic code.
William Rice, from the University of California Santa Barbara, says that it may be possible to explain this by looking not at our genetic code but at the way it is processed. Rice and his colleagues refer to the emerging field of epigenetics, which studies the "epimarks" that decide which parts of our DNA get switched on or off.
Epimarks get passed on to children, but only sometimes. Rice believes that female foetuses employ an epimark that makes them less sensitive to testosterone. Usually it's not inherited, but occasionally it is, leading to same-sex preference in boys.
Dr William Byne, editor-in-chief of the journal LGBT Health, believes sexuality may well be inborn, but thinks it could be more complicated than some scientists believe. He notes that the heritability of homosexuality is similar to that for divorce, but "social science researchers have not… searched for 'divorce genes'. Instead they have focused on heritable personality and temperamental traits that might influence the likelihood of divorce.
Skinner's ideas aren't anywhere near conclusive—they form what scientists call a toy model, one meant to elucidate the concepts but not ready for rigorous experimental tests.
Yet even Skinner's toy raises a point often overlooked in the scientific discussion of homosexuality: There doesn't need to be some grand evolutionary reward to explain the existence of gay people. Some people just are. Quick Studies is an award-winning series that sheds light on new research and discoveries that change the way we look at the world.
California desert town takes back the night, wins rare "Dark Sky" award. The U. The International Astronomical Union has established a committee to finalize a list of official star names. Some companies offer unofficial naming rights for purchase. As the report authors explain:. Male fetuses carry male-specific proteins on their Y chromosome, called H-Y antigens. These antibodies bind to the H-Y antigens and prevent them from functioning.
Blanchard believes that this phenomenon grows stronger with each boy a woman bears. Studies have found that a man without older brothers has about a 2 percent chance of being gay, but one with four older brothers has a 6 percent chance.
Meanwhile, other studies have found the relationship to be weak or nonexistent.
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