The Impact of COVID-19 on the Psychosocial Wellbeing of the Sexually Marginalized Community in Bangladesh

17, November 2020 | Bangladesh

Authors:

Abstract

The aim of the following research is to look at the impact of COVID-19 on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ ) individuals and activist organizing scene in Bangladesh. The pandemic has exacerbated social inequities and has posed unique challenges for communities and individuals that already experience marginalization, exclusion and various forms of violence and discrimination from mainstream societies. Individuals whose identities fall beyond the gender binary of male and female, and whose sexual orientation is non-heterosexual, have also experienced the effects of the pandemic in the socio-cultural, economic, health and political realms. This report pays particular attention to the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has affected psychosocial well-being (determined by one’s socio-cultural, economic, health and political realities) and hindered organizing and community building of diverse gender and sexual communities in Bangladesh.