In the last decade, cancel culture exploded at the behest of the woke mob, demanding justice for what it claimed was scrutiny it endured. Those who identify as part of the LGBT community spoke out time and time again, insisting that their poor mental health was due to backlash and bullying from belonging to a marginalized minority group. 

But it turns out this might not exactly be true. A study by Cambridge University says that LBTQ mental health issues most commonly stem from familial causes, not societal discrimination. 

“Compared with heterosexual persons, non-heterosexual persons have worse mental health. Sexual Minority Stress Theory (SMST) explains the disparity as resulting from stigma and discrimination,” says Cambridge Core. “To the extent that heterosexual genetic relatives reared with non-heterosexual persons also have worse mental health, SMST is falsified. We conducted a systematic meta-analysis of studies containing family-genetic comparison data to interrogate the empirical support for SMST.”

Jay Richards, vice president of Social and Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Washington Stand that the theory was weak from the start.

“The minority stress theory was always implausible. It makes little sense to argue that there’s more prejudice against ‘sexual minorities’ now than there was, say, 50 years ago. Indeed, the most influential parts of our culture go out of their way to praise newfangled ‘gender identities,’” Richards explained.

The research identified over 15 studies in which twins or siblings shared about their sexual identity and mental health. 

“We conducted a multilevel meta-analysis, focusing on the degree to which any sexual orientation disparity in mental health diminished with genetic relatedness,” Cambridge said. “Most of the mental health disparities between non-heterosexual and heterosexual persons were eliminated after controlling for family-genetic factors.”

Richards added that poor mental health and gender dysphoria go hand in hand. “The data has consistently shown that people who suffer from severe gender dysphoria often suffer from other psychological disorders as well.” And disorders themselves often connect to family dysfunction. So in this case, the scientific evidence seems to confirm common sense,” Richards continued.

Katy Faust, a children’s rights advocate and the founder of the organization Them Before Us, shared in a conversation with Dr. Albert Mohler that there is a wide misconception that Christians are the source of bigotry that homosexual people say they experience. 

“What crossed the line for me was when Obama evolved on the topic of marriage in 2012. That is when I saw a huge shift in the public narrative around gay marriage where it felt to me like, ‘Now that we have the president, we can call everybody that disagrees with us bigots.’... The notion that support for traditional natural marriage was grounded upon bigotry, phobia, and animus towards gay people. That’s a problem because my mom’s been in a relationship with her partner for more than 30 years, and I pray that I am on the top two list of people that love them, that when they think about people that love them, that I make the list,” Faust said. 

Cambridge found that traits unrelated to bullying are more likely to impact the way someone says they identify sexually rather than bullying.

“Foremost among these traits is neuroticism. Signs of a neurotic temperament often emerge quite early, well before puberty when sexual orientation becomes apparent for most persons. Genetic factors, which are important causes of both mental health problems and temperament, preexist life experiences. SMST research has ignored a possible role of genetically influenced temperament. There is evidence, however, for early emerging temperamental differences between heterosexual and homosexual persons. Furthermore, genes for non-heterosexuality are positively correlated with those for major depressive disorder and neuroticism, for both males and females.”

One of the study’s authors, Professor Michael Bailey of Northwestern University’s Department of Psychology, summed it up this way: “We need to look elsewhere, other than minority stress, if we want to improve their mental health.”