Despite decades of progress on cultural visibility and political rights, queer youth are still killing themselves at alarming rates.
According to a study by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention organization, lesbian, gay and bisexual young adults are over four times more likely to report planning or attempting suicide in the past year. Nearly 50% of LGB high school students have considered suicide, compared to 13% of straight students.
The study is based on data from nationwide surveys of high school students and young adults taken in 2017 and 2018. Because federal surveys don’t collect data on gender identity for people over 18, the Trevor Project study does not include information on transgender or non-binary students. Research has consistently found that transgender youth have higher rates of suicide than their straight or LGB peers.
The study also reveals that the suicide disparity between straight and LGB high school students persists into young adulthood.
“We’re not seeing LGB youth catching up once they move out of the home and start independent lives,” said Amy Green, the Trevor Project’s research director. This indicates that the suicide disparity isn’t just the result of overt abuse from fellow students or parents during adolescence. Queer young adults may be experiencing lingering trauma from the time they spent in the closet or ongoing discrimination. Read more via HuffPost
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
About The Trevor Project
The Trevor Project is the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people. The Trevor Project offers a suite of 24/7 crisis intervention and suicide prevention programs, including TrevorLifeline, TrevorText, and TrevorChat as well as the world’s largest safe space social networking site for LGBTQ youth, TrevorSpace. Trevor also operates an education program with resources for youth-serving adults and organizations, an advocacy department fighting for pro-LGBTQ legislation and against anti-LGBTQ rhetoric/policy positions, and a research team to discover the most effective means to help young LGBTQ people in crisis and end suicide. If you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or suicidal, our trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386 via chat www.TheTrevorProject.org/Help, or by texting START to 678678.
About This Work
Significant increases in suicide deaths have occurred over the past 10 years in the U.S., particularly among adolescents and young adults (Curtin & Heron, 2019). However, suicide can be prevented through comprehensive public health strategies aimed at reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors (The Trevor Project, 2019a). Increased knowledge about populations at highest risk for suicide can assist prevention efforts aimed at ending suicide and enhancing well-being for those individuals. National prevalence data on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) high school students, collected as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS), indicate that LGB youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to straight peers (Kann et al., 2018). Recently, the CDC released a report focused on transgender high school students, with similar disparities found in suicidality among transgender compared to cisgender students as between LGB and straight students (Johns et al., 2019). Further, The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that 39% of LGBTQ youth ages 13–24 reported seriously considering suicide in the previous 12 months (The Trevor Project, 2019b). Among adults, individuals ages 18–25 have the highest rates of suicide attempts (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2019). Thus, there is an urgent need to understand suicide disparities among LGB young adults ages 18–25, including how they compare to findings among high school students. In 2015 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) included questions on sexual identity for the first time. The NSDUH is currently the only national-level dataset to use probabilistic sampling and include questions on both sexual identity and suicidality among this age group. This report is the first to compare findings on suicidality among LGB youth ages 18–25 to those among LGB U.S. high school students, including the provision of adjusted odds ratios to assess suicidality risk among LGB youth compared to straight peers.
Key Findings
The magnitude of disparities in suicidality between straight and LGB adolescents persists into young adulthood.
Even when adjusting for additional factors, LGB young adults ages 18–25 were more than four times as likely to report planning and attempting suicide in the past year compared to straight peers.
10.4% of LGB youth ages 18–25 reported making a suicide plan in the past year compared to 2.6% of straight peers.
5.7% of LGB youth ages 18–25 reported a suicide attempt in the past year compared to 1.3% of straight peers.
LGB young adults ages 18–25 were three times as likely to report a major depressive episode in the past year compared to their straight peers.
30.9% of LGB youth ages 18–25 met criteria for a major depressive episode in the past year compared to 11.1% of straight peers.
A greater proportion of bisexual young adults ages 18–25 met criteria for a major depressive episode (32.7%) compared to gay/lesbian young adults (26.8%).
The data currently collected do not allow for nationally representative analyses on gender identity or suicide deaths.
National surveys of youth and young adult experiences now include questions on sexual identity but do not consistently include questions on gender identity.
Death record databases do not currently include accurate information on sexual identity and gender identity that would allow for analyses to include deaths by suicide in addition to suicide ideation and attempts.
Methodology Summary
Prevalence rates by sexual identity for past year suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts are compared to rates among high school students based on the 2017 YRBS. NSDUH diagnostic prevalence rates are provided for major depressive disorder based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria. Logistic regressions were used to predict suicidality among youth ages 18–25 based on sexual identity while controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, and income. For high school students, logistic regressions were conducted to predict depressive symptoms and suicidality while adjusted for race/ethnicity and gender.
Notes on Terminology
The acronym LGB is used rather than LGBTQ, as the NSDUH dataset does not collect data on transgender, queer, or questioning identities. Additionally, we focus on ages 18–25 rather than 18–24, as the most detailed age variable in the 2018 NSDUH dataset combines ages 24 and 25 rather than providing discrete single ages. YRBS data are representative of high school students in the U.S., with the majority of students (87%) falling between the ages of 14 and 17.