Canetto, Silvia Sara, et al. "Suicidal as Normal–A Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth Script?." Crisis (2020).
Abstract.
Background: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth are more likely to report suicidal thoughts and/or behavior (STB) than heterosexual youth. The elevated suicidality of LGB youth is not fully accounted for by sexual-minority stress, according to a meta-analysis. A less-tested explanation is that suicidality has become an expected idiom of LGB youth distress. This explanation is consistent with suicide script theory and evidence that suicidal behavior is most likely when it is relatively acceptable.
Aims: Building on suicide script theory and evidence, two studies were designed: one of LGB youth attitudes about suicidal behavior, and the other of LGB youth attitudes about suicidal individuals.
Method: Surveys of LGB and heterosexual youth (total N = 300; M age = 20; 51% female) were conducted.
Results: LGB youth were more accepting of and empathic toward suicidal behavior than heterosexual youth. They also viewed suicidal individuals as more emotionally adjusted. Limitations: Attitudes were not examined by sexual-minority subgroups.
Conclusion: LGB youth’s understanding attitudes may translate into less judgmental behavior toward suicidal peers, but also into normalizing suicidality as a way to express distress and cope with life problems. There may be utility in evaluating LGB youth suicide attitudes in suicide prevention initiatives.
It has been recommended that new directions for research be pursued to understand what drives LGB youth suicidality because LGB youth suicidality is not well-accounted for by factors that propel heterosexual youth suicidality (e.g., depression, problem drug use) (Silenzio, Peña, Duberstein, Cerel, & Knox, 2007) nor by sexual-minority stress factors (Hatchel et al., 2019). Consistent with the call for innovation, our studies built on theories not usually applied to LGB youth suicidality, that is, suicide script (Canetto, 1997) and suicide diffusion (Abrutyn et al., 2019; Lake & Gould, 2014) theories.
Conclusion and Implications for Prevention
The findings of our studies and related research (e.g., Bohan et al., 2002), that suicidality may be perceived as inevitable, normative, and in some ways normal for and by LGB individuals, have implications for the well-being and status of sexual minorities. The normalization of LGB suicidality may contribute to the stigmatizing narrative that LGB individuals are damaged and even damaging to society. The findings have implications for the design of suicide prevention programs. On the one hand, they fact that LGB youth may be more open to talking about suicidality, and less judgmental of suicidal peers, may mean that they are easier to engage in suicide prevention initiatives. On the other hand, LGB youth may be harder to engage in suicide prevention if their accepting attitudes signal that they normalize STB – and perhaps think of it as an inevitable rite of passage.
Either way, given the role of attitudes in suicidality, there may be utility in including an assessment of LGB youth suicide attitudes in suicide prevention initiatives. If suicidality-normalizing attitudes emerge, these problematic attitudes may be targeted for change – consistent with suicide prevention programs addressing dysfunctional help-seeking attitudes (Pisani et al., 2012). An insight contributed by suicide script theory (Canetto, 1997) and evidence (e.g., Abrutyn et al., 2019) is that suicide scripts, including suicide attitudes, are local and dynamic. Therefore, LGB youth suicide prevention should be grounded in local LGB scripts and adapt to evolving scripts.
The findings of these and related studies have implications for how LGB communities and organizations as well as the media speak about LGB youth experiences and suicidality. The focus on stigma, discrimination, and victimization has been critical to educating the public about heterocentric social structures and practices, and about LGB youth minority stress. However, the dominance of struggle, suffering, and vulnerability themes in narratives of LGB youth experiences, and the focus on suicidality, may contribute to the pathologizing of LGB youth, and to overlooking their advantages (Cover, 2016). The findings of these and related studies are a call to LGB communities and organizations and the media to represent the diversity of experiences of LGB youth, including the ways in which they are similar to those of heterosexual youth, as well as the ways in which LGB youth, a result of not being represented in dominant life scripts, may be freer to explore more flexible and functional ways of self, family, and community.