Almost Half of LGBTQ Youth Contemplated Suicide Last Year

(Bloomberg) -- Almost half of LGBTQ youth considered attempting suicide in the past year, and nearly three-quarters said they had symptoms of anxiety, according to a new survey. 

The survey from the advocacy group The Trevor Project chronicled the responses of more than 34,000 LGBTQ people between the ages of 13 and 24 in the U.S. Data released Wednesday show 73% of respondents who said they had symptoms of anxiety, and 45% who said they considered attempting suicide in the past year. The latter was the highest recorded in the history of the survey, which started in 2019.

Younger LGBTQ respondents were even more likely than their older counterparts to say they had thought about or attempted suicide in the past year: 50% of survey respondents aged 13 to 17 said they had considered suicide, compared with 37% of those aged 18 to 24. Suicide attempts were also higher for transgender and non-binary youth, as well as youth of color compared with their White peers. 

Amit Paley, the organization’s chief executive officer, pointed to Covid-19 as well as the escalation of anti-LGBTQ and anti-transgender legislation at the state level as key contributors to the growing mental-health crisis for LGBTQ youth. A majority of those bills target transgender and non-binary youth and many attempt to block them from gender-affirming medical care, access to which Trevor Project surveys have linked to lower rates of suicide attempts. 

“We know that this impacts young people — not just the policies, which can have a devastating impact, but the words themselves,” Paley said. “We have seen young people saying that these discussions and debates about their identity and civil rights have impacted their mental health.”

Overall, 14% of LGBTQ youth had attempted suicide in the past year, a percentage that was consistent with findings from 2020 and 2021. That figure grew for those of color, with 21% percent of Native youth reporting a suicide attempt in the past year, 20% of Middle Eastern and North African youth, and 19% of Black youth.

More than four in five LGBTQ youth said they had wanted mental-health care in in the past year, but three in five said they were unable to access it, the survey found. Youth of color were more likely than their White peers to say they didn’t think a therapist or other mental health professional would understand their culture, and nearly half of respondents said they were afraid to discuss mental health with a professional or that their parents might not give them permission to do so.

The findings come at a time when more young people than any other generation identify as members of the LGBTQ community. In a survey published in March by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 22% of high school students in the U.S.  identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, or said that they identified in some other way or were questioning their sexual or gender identity. A similar number of Gen-Z respondents aged 18 and over identified as LGBTQ in a February Gallop poll.

”We know that having just one accepting adult in a young person’s life reduce the risk of suicide by 40%. We know that access to gender-affirming care reduces the risk of suicide. We know that accepting and respecting trans and non-binary people’s pronouns reduces risk of suicide,” said Paley. “These should not be subjects of culture wars. Suicide prevention is about saving lives.”

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