The first study of the negative social and psychological impacts of the campaign in Ireland reveals a high degree of distress among respondents

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Advertisements for the anti-marriage equality case in the Irish referendum caused a majority of LGBTI people to feel angry and distressed, according to a new study.

The survey of 1,657 Irish LGBTI people also found that only a minority of respondents would be prepared to face the referendum again if they did not know about the eventual successful outcome.

The results are contained in Swimming with Sharks, the first study of the negative social and psychological impacts of the no campaign in Ireland. Its authors are researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland and Victoria University along with Grainne Healy, a co-director of the Irish yes case.

The survey found that 75.5% of participants often or always felt angry when they were exposed to campaign messages from the no campaign before the referendum.

It found 80% felt upset by the no campaign materials, and two-thirds felt anxious or distressed.

Younger LGBTI people scored lower on psychological wellbeing compared with older people, including feeling anxious and afraid.

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When asked if they would be prepared to face the referendum campaign again, 30.5% gave positive answers, 15% were undecided and 54.5% responded negatively. The largest group (36%) said they would be “not at all happy” to go through the campaign again.

The survey was funded in part by Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Australia, which is opposed to a marriage equality plebiscite in Australia.

The survey also asked people about their positive experiences of the yes campaign and the successful result of the referendum, which legalised same-sex marriage, although those results will be published in a separate report.

One of the study’s authors, Victoria University’s Liz Short said: “This research provides very clear evidence that significant social and psychological detriment results from holding a nation-wide debate.”

UQ’s Sharon Dane, told Guardian Australia the vivid detail and emotion of respondents’ answers to qualitative questions suggested the impact of the no campaign was “more than a fleeting experience or something that could be simply undone through a win for marriage equality”.

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In qualitative responses to questions, LGBTI parents spoke about the harmful effect of the campaign on their children. One said: “It affected my daughter hugely, she would come home from school crying.”

One young LGBTI participant responded: “I would get extremely irritated obviously as I hadn’t come out to my family at the time and there were often cruel remarks saying that gay people turn their stomach, especially from my father, grandmother and one sister.”

On Thursday, a Galaxy poll found that support for a plebiscite continued to decline with only 38% of voters in favour and 44% against.

The Labor caucus will meet on Tuesday to decide if it will block the plebiscite, which the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, is expected to recommend.

He has warned of harm to LGBTI people and labelled the plebiscite a “taxpayer funded platform for homophobia”.

Australians for Equality director, Tiernan Brady, the political director of the yes campaign in Ireland, opposes a same-sex marriage plebiscite and has said the referendum in Ireland was “the more difficult way to go”.

But he has also described the referendum as a “unifying moment for our country”, a reflection of the joy at the successful result that may be reflected in the second half of the study yet to be published.

Dane said she “is not disputing the win was positive but the study is about the negativity of the process, not about the result”.

On Thursday, the attorney general, George Brandis, said: “My message to [LGBTI groups] is as simple as this – if they want marriage equality, they can have it and they can have it soon and they shouldn’t confuse means and ends.

“Now I understand that most members of the gay community don’t like the plebiscite. I get that, but that’s the policy the government took to the election, that’s what we committed to doing.”