40 percent of LGBTQ youth 'seriously considered' suicide in past year, survey finds

[Behind the Aegis]

Two in 5 LGBTQ youth in the United States have "seriously considered" suicide in the past year, a sobering survey released Wednesday said, showing what one expert called the "devastating mental health consequences" of society's failure to create a safer and more affirming environment for America's queer youth.

The 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization, paints a stark picture of pervasive mental distress among America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth, with a majority reporting symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

The survey, the largest of its kind, polled 40,000 LGBTQ people between ages 13 and 24 and found that 68 percent of the respondents reported symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, 55 percent reported symptoms of major depressive disorder and 48 percent reported engaging in self-harm. In addition, 40 percent say they have “seriously considered” attempting suicide in the past year.

In a clinical mental health setting, survey responses like these would lead to follow-up screenings, according to Amy Green, the study lead and director of research at The Trevor Project.

“Our physicians, pediatricians and mental health providers need to be screening youth,” she said, urging professionals to take a closer look at sexuality and gender issues in youth mental health settings.

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[Soxfan58]

1. These kids in some cases

Are taught that being gay is horrible. They have seen their parents make jokes and condemn gays for years. Their minister or Priest says those people will go to hell. Sometime religion really sucks.

[Demsrule86]

2. My daughter was hospitalized twice this year. She is on new medicine, but I worry everyday.

We never did the above...but she gets negative feedback at college...just going out in the community.

[Maraya1969]

8. That is horrible that she gets negativity at college! College is one place where she should be

accepted. I would encourage her to join a LGBTQ group. Years ago when I came out, (I am bi) I just found a large group of gay people like myself and felt very comfortable - more comfortable than I had been feeling previously.

I'm sure other people talked but I wasn't listening.

[Demsrule86]

11. She used to run the only LGBTQ group but the faculty advisor left and no one would

act as advisor so the group was disbanded. Thus there is no LGBTQ group at her college. Some faculty admitted it didn't look 'good' on their resume.

[dsc]

3. Arguably this will go down as the biggest failure of the LGBT rights movement

I admit, I don't know how to make this problem disappear but it really should be better than it is now. I am a gay teacher, out at school, and I advise a GSA. Yet I know this could well happen at my school. It might well already have (we had a suicide last year and I heard conflicting things). It should be noted that this survey was prior to COVID. A depressing but necessary read.

[denem]

5. I didn't realize things were still this bad.

What can be done?

[dsc]

7. Good question which means it will be a heck of a lot better than my answer

I honestly don't know. Here are some ideas.

1) We need to get the data that will allow us to define the problem(s). What data I have seen has led me to believe that suicidal thoughts, attempts, and successes are up among teens as a whole. It also suggests that LGB have higher rates than overall, and that T have rates that are off the charts. The first step would be to determine just how true that is.

2) The privileged place of religion in terms of LGBT discrimination has got to go. There were equally valid (which is to say invalid) religious arguments in the 1960's in regards to discrimination on the basis of race. That was shut down in terms of any and all public accommodations. Yet in this era far from being shut down, they are being given full merit. In my state, I still can be refused a marriage licence by a magistrate whose salary I help pay with no recourse whatsoever. Religious schools in several states can and do take tax money paid in part by LGBT citizens and use it to run schools at which LGBT students can not attend, the children of LGBT parents can not attend, and at which LGBT employees can not work. This leads to LGBT students believing they are second class citizens.

3) We have to recognize that while younger people as a whole are better about LGBT issues, it isn't some sort of uniform thing. I work in schools and I have been called faggot more than once. I have had to discipline students for misgendering and dead naming students, and don't get me started on teachers in that regard. We need to understand that we aren't in some sort of promised land in this regard yet.

4) We need to have a better system of helping LGBT youth who are rejected by their families. A ridiculous number of homeless teens are LGBT who have been rejected by their families. This is still very much a thing. I had one of my GSA students have it happen to him, he wound up in a homeless shelter which then rejected him as well. This can't be permitted to happen.

5) LGBT things have to stop being put in the adults only category. Be it history, or film, or anything else. The whole LGBT will recruit your children is still alive and well in many parts of the country. Thus any attempts to help LGBT youth are exponentially harder.

[denem]

10. Thank you.

I am going to think about this, and talk to my brother who is gay. He came out to me before he left high school, but remained closeted for a few more years.

Anyway - I thought things were getting better. This shocks me.

[Tipperary]

4. As a gay woman in my later years, I find this sad.

Society was very different when I was coming out. Young people seem to think it is cool nowadays. It was not that way for me as a teen, young woman...but I never wanted to kill myself. I remember a tremendous sense of relief when I realized, finally, what it was about me that was “different.”

[bucolic_frolic]

6. People should grow up naturally wherever it leads them

Those choices were never available when I was growing up, not that I would have looked for them, and I have no idea if any of them were needed in my school. It was all silent, you were what you were.

I wonder today if they're not being given too many choices. By keeping this out in the open we're sowing much confusion and anxiety into the simple process of growing up. They will choose in their time. Going this way or that way (now!) is a timetable, not a coming of age.

[cally]

9. Stunning and horribly sad

I did not know it was this high and that most have other mental health problems. This has to change.