Shorter life span - toxic gay culture or lonliness?

According to a major study by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, “bisexual women die, on average, nearly 40 percent younger than heterosexual women, while lesbian women die 20 percent sooner.” These are tragic numbers that should concern all of us, regardless of our attitudes towards lesbianism and bisexuality. If you care about people, this is sad to hear.

As reported in the Daily Mail, “The researchers used data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a cohort of over 100,000 female nurses born between 1945 and 1964 and surveyed since 1989.”

So, while the study focuses on a particular segment of society, it relies on a tremendous amount of data and covers almost thirty years of death records.

What was the cause of these alarmingly shortened life expectancies? According to lead author Dr. Sarah McKetta, a research fellow at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, “The difference in mortality is said to be due to the ‘toxic social forces’ LGBTQ people face, which can ‘result in chronic stress and unhealthy coping mechanisms.’”

Varying Degrees of Isolation

The theory is that bisexual women, who are stigmatized both inside and outside the LGBTQ community, have the most social isolation. In contrast, lesbians only face that isolation outside the LGBTQ community.

The Mail also notes that a “2016 Australian study found that only 65 percent of lesbian women had ever received a cervical cancer screening, compared with 71 percent of bisexual women and 79 percent of gay women.” (What’s the difference between a “gay woman” and a “lesbian,” you may ask? Apparently nothing except the terminology they use to identify themselves.)

This is due to the “urban myth” that women who do not have sexual relations with men don’t need the screenings.

Yet there’s more bad news.

“While the findings, published in the journal JAMA, are ‘striking on their own’, Dr McKetta pointed out that there may be even worse disparities among women in the general public.

“She said, ‘Participants were nurses who likely have better awareness of their health and better access to healthcare.’”

So, the news may be even worse than this major study reports, and the life expectancy of lesbian and bisexual women who are not in the health care profession may be even shorter than that of those who are.

Spirit, Soul, and Body

Given, then, the seriousness of these findings, it would be wise to ask whether the data can simply be explained as the result of “toxic social forces.” Could this be an oversimplification of the situation, if not a largely gratuitous conclusion?

Were this a study of the life expectancy of gay men in the height of the AIDS epidemic, it could easily be reasoned that their higher rates of promiscuity, STDs, and unsafe sex practices had shortened their lives. But do the same criteria apply to gay and bisexual women?

“Much of my depression sprung from a solitary existence that would be eschewed by a race of alley cats. I do not know one single woman of my generation who lives such a life and actually likes it.”

I would propose something far more basic is at work here: namely, that gay and bisexual women are less likely to have long-term, family-based relationships (meaning, committed relationships that result in the production of children) than heterosexual women. And because healthy families provide the most stable, emotionally strong, and supportive environments for human thriving, the lack of this support base produces more emotional and social instability. And because we are tripart beings, what takes place in the spirit and the soul is inevitably worked out in the body.

Put another way, God’s ways are ways of life, and when we deviate from His intended pattern, we shorten our lives.

A Feminist’s Lament

That’s why a smoker’s life insurance policy costs more than a non-smoker’s, or the life insurance policy of a stunt man who is also a heavy drinker costs more than that of an accountant who doesn’t drink.

This is not to say that your average gay or bisexual woman is partying day and night, sleeping around freely, or engaging in substance abuse. It is simply to suggest that, even in the most-affirming environments, LGBTQ+ identified people will, on average, have shorter lifespans simply because they violate God’s pattern for human thriving.

Confirmation for this comes from a different and yet related angle, not through a major study but anecdotally. As the headline of the April 22 article in The Telegraph states, “Feminism has left middle-aged women like me single, childless and depressed. We were taught to prioritise our careers over marriage – and now we are paying for it.”

Only the Lonely

Petronella Wyatt, the author of the article, states candidly, “According to a recent study by an American medical institute, loneliness is the leading cause of depression among middle-aged females. I should know, as I recently fell prey to the unforgiving maw of mental illness. This has taken me to hospital several times after I experienced impulses so dark that friends became concerned.”

Then this: “But the truth is that much of my depression sprung from a solitary existence that would be eschewed by a race of alley cats. I do not know one single woman of my generation who lives such a life and actually likes it.”

What a telling, painful observation.

And she closes with these sobering words: “Feminism made the error of telling us to behave and think like men. This error was a grave one, and women like myself are paying for it, like gamblers in a casino that has been fixed. We are not men, and in living the single life, with its casual encounters, we play for much higher stakes and have more to lose. I wish I had not been taught to throw the dice so high. Even Shakespeare’s princes needed someone to look after them in their old age.”

There are certainly single women who are blessed, and there are certainly gay and bisexual women who settle down in families. But the extent that we deviate from God’s intended plan for human thriving will take its inevitable toll.

That’s why Proverbs says of wisdom, depicted as female in the book, “She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed” (Proverbs 3:18).

God’s ways are best!

 

Dr. Michael Brown is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. He is the author of more than 40 books, including Can You be Gay and Christian?; Our Hands Are Stained With Blood; and Seize the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival. You can connect with him on Facebook, X, or YouTube.