by Kate Sosin

Ten years ago, a spate of suicides prompted LGBTQ+ journalist Dan Savage and his partner, Terry Miller, to record a YouTube video promising queer teens that life would get better. Today, that mantra has been turned into an international movement and a nonprofit. That’s one of dozens of organizations working toward improving life for queer youth. Research shows that more young people — 20 percent according to GLAAD — identify as queer than ever before.

Despite all of that progress, a new study from the Center for American Progress, progressive think tank, and the research group NORC at the University of Chicago, reports that young queer adults face staggering rates of discrimination.

“I was honestly shocked by the findings in the survey, just how widespread discrimination was,” said Sharita Gruberg, one of the study’s authors.

The survey, conducted in June, captured responses from 1,528 self-identified LGBTQ+ adults 18 and older. Discrimination forced 54 percent of queer people to hide personal relationships, the report says. Fifty-five percent of transgender people reported avoiding public places for the same reason. More than one in three LGBTQ+ Americans (36 percent) said they were discriminated against over the past year, and 69 percent of nonbinary people reported facing discrimination in the same timeframe. Among transgender Americans, the rate was three out of five. As stark as those numbers are, it’s the data among young adults that truly floored Gruberg: 67 percent of young adults surveyed in the study reported being discriminated against in the past year. Read more via 19th