Young people with LGB identity and their sense of belonging: Evidence from Northern Ireland – A society emerging from violent social conflict

Joseph Charles Van Matre and Dirk Schubotz

Children and Youth Services Review, 2024, vol. 159, issue C

Abstract: In 2023 Northern Ireland celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement (GFA) which is regarded as a milestone of the Northern Ireland peace process. Via the 1998 Northern Ireland Act, the peace process saw equality and anti-discrimination legislation being implemented in Northern Ireland that legislates that public authorities must carry out their duties with due regard to equality of opportunity, including between persons of different sexual orientations and gender identities. Using time series data from 2013 to 2023 taken from the annual Young Life and Times (YLT) survey conducted among a randomized sample of 16-year olds in Northern Ireland (N = 15,162), this article explores the extent to which same-sex attracted young women and men express a sense of belonging to, and influence in, their local neighborhoods and Northern Ireland. We argue that the sense of belonging and influence can be used as suitable policy indicators to assess how same-sex attracted young people fare in Northern Ireland, a society emerging from significant violent conflict. The YLT dataset allows us to track, if any change in attitudes can be detected over the last decade. Our analysis shows that there was an increase in the proportion of young people, especially among young women, expressing same-sex attraction. However, our study also indicates that, regardless of gender, LGB 16-year olds consistently felt a lesser sense of belonging and influence than their non-LGB individuals. We found no LGB-specific differences among respondents with different religious affiliations. LGB respondents disproportionately rejected both Protestant and Catholic faiths and community affiliations, unlike their non-LGB counterparts. Our findings are a strong indicator that religion still plays a major part in the relationship between ethno-national communities in Northern Ireland and that there still is a long way to go until LGB young people feel valued and feel that they belong.

Keywords: Gender and sexual diversity; LGBTIQ+; Vulnerability; LGBTIQ+ policies in childhood and youth; Self-determination; Children’s rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740924001087
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:159:y:2024:i:c:s0190740924001087

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107536

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().