According to a recent Jasmin Roy Foundation survey “LGBT Realities”, 13% of the Canadian population identifies as belonging to to the LGBT community.
Eighty-one percent of LGBT respondents say that Canadian society has shown a willingness to make efforts to integrate people from LGBT communities. Also, 73% of Canadians strongly or somewhat agree that much remains to be done to stop homophobic behavior and the bullying of members of the LGBT community, encouraging news for future work to be done at various institutions.
“The results of this survey will be used to help organizations and governmental bodies implement action plans to better meet the needs of young people in this community and foster settings that are more positive, caring and supportive of integration in educational and workplace settings,” says Jasmin Roy, founder of the Fondation Jasmin Roy.
Other results include:
Fifty-four percent of respondents from the LGBT community feel that their life will be or has been more difficult than that of a person not part of a sex or gender minority.
Forty percent of respondents from LGBT groups say they have experienced discrimination. In 40% of cases, this discrimination occurred at work (21% indicate they were fired, forced to quit or turned down for a job), while 13% were discriminated against in a public setting and 9% at school.
8% of respondents from LGBT groups felt that the available support and assistance resources were insufficient. They would like to benefit from:
- Support organizations, resources and visible and accessible networks in their communities, neighbourhoods and schools (26%).
- Clear and accessible information on sexual and gender identity in educational settings, libraries and on the internet (20%).
- Greater access to role models with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities to guide them (19%).
Forty-six percent of LGBT respondents say they are poorly represented in the media. Sixty-nine percent would like to see less stereotyped representations, and 66% would like to see greater diversity in the types of people from LGBT communities represented in fiction or the media in general.
Still its better than America and they have Justin Trudeau.
