VULNERABILITY OF YOUNG LGBT PEOPLE AND CREATING RESILIENCE, Jan Bridget, 1st December 2010

Dr Elizabeth Saewyc, of the University of British Columbia[i] and the McCreary Centre Society[ii], gave a presentation at the Gay Men’s Health Summit in Vancouver (Nov 2010) in which she said that most gay and bisexual young men were not suicidal.[iii]

Dr Saewyc examined the British Columbia Adolescent Health Surveys from 1997, 2003 and 2007, and found that two out of three gay or bisexual boys had no suicidal ideation. She says. "And suicide attempts are even less common: 74 percent of gay or bi boys did not attempt suicide in the past year. Although the rates are higher than hetero teens, the majority of LGB teens are not attempting suicide, thinking about suicide, harming themselves - and that's good news."

Saewyc's study, "Strong in Spite of Stigma," also found that most gay and bisexual teens reported a lack of anxiety, despair and self-harm. However, Dr Saewyc pointed out, government and policy makers tend to be problem-focused, so if an organization wants funding, it has to present a problem to get attention.

The healthy and happy gay and bisexual youth described in her report benefits from family connectedness, school connectedness, supportive teachers, caring other adults and self-esteem.

"Family connectedness reduces the odds of suicidal attempts by 96.5 percent," she says. "School connectedness has an even stronger impact. When they feel safe, cared about and by their school they are 98 percent less likely to attempt suicide."

Normally these teen studies ask about suicidal tendencies and unhappiness, Saewyc acknowledges. But if researchers stop focusing on the negative and look at the flip side instead, they may find more good news than bad.

I agree with much of what Dr Saewyc says. However, the situation in Britain is different. For a start, we have not had the very visible acknowledgement of completed suicides by young gay men that there has been in the USA and Canada over the past few months. It is my belief that the situation will be similar, if indeed not worse, in Britain but it is hidden.

The reason why I suggest it may be worse is that we do not have, for example, a national organisation similar to the Trevor Project which provides a 24 hour helpline to young LGBTs who are suicidal; nor do we have a network of Gay Straight Alliances in schools across Britain as there are in the USA and Canada. Nor do we have a national suicide prevention strategy that includes LGBT young people[iv].

We do not have large adolescent health studies that include sexual orientation or gender identity, so we do not have large scale regular research studies that can identify the vulnerabilities of LGBT young people.

There are several small scale studies in Britain, including data from Gay and Lesbian Youth in Calderdale who have developed a Needs Assessment Tool (NAT) to identify the needs of young people who access our service. The consolidated NAT results can be used to give a snapshot of the situation facing those LGBT young people who are using GALYIC.

It is clear that the mental health of young people who access GALYIC is worse than those young people in the Canadian study. As Fig 1: Mental Health Issues shows, there are higher levels of attempted suicide amongst the GALYIC data (40%) compared with the Canadian study (26%).

Fig 1: Mental Health Issues

Mental Health / 1998
n15 / 2008
n50 / 2010
n20
Depression / 82% / 72% / 60%
Anxiety / 67% / 56% / 50%
Suicidal thoughts / 80% / 72% / 50%
Suicide attempts / 13% / 56% / 40%
Self harm / 40% / 74% / 75%
Phobias / 13% / 20% / 30%
Eating disorders / 20% / 8% / 12%

I have contacted Dr Saewyc and asked for a copy of her paper so that more clear comparisons can be made but meanwhile it may be useful to examine the five elements which Saewyc says contributes to the happy and healthy young LGBT person.

1. Family Connectedness

There is research from the USA[v] which shows the importance of family acceptance with regard to mental wellbeing, levels of substance use and unhealthy sexual practices of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people. The GALYIC findings show that around 50% of our members do not get support and acceptance from their parents.

Fig 2: Parental Rejection

Parental Rejection / 1998
n15 / 2008
n50 / 2010
mothers / 2010
fathers
Out to parent / 93% / 88% / 80% / 55%
Negative response / 14% / 71% / 44% / 45%

Even though about 50% of GALYIC members are out to and ‘accepted’ by their parents, this does not give an accurate picture of the situation facing our members at home. For example, 60% said they had experienced emotional abuse whilst growing up, this included: restriction of movement; belittling, denigrating, name-calling; threats, intimidation; being frightened; discrimination; ridiculing; constant criticism; rejection; scape-goating; and with-holding love. This abuse came from parents, other family members and family friends. Over a third of the abuse was related to their sexual orientation.

2. & 3. School Connectedness & Supportive Teachers

LGBT young people are unlikely to feel connected at school if they are experiencing and witnessing homophobic bullying. Fig 3: School Data shows that LGBT youth experiencing and witnessing homophobic bullying in schools across Calderdale has been consistent over the past twelve years with more young people dropping out of school because of the bullying.

Similarly, young people are unlikely to feel connected at school if there is little positive information available about homosexuality. There has been a slight increase in this. In Calderdale, GALYIC have managed to get the blanket ban on access to our website in schools lifted so both students and teachers can now access the resources available. This is not the case, I think, for many other areas in Britain.

Fig 3: School Data

School / 1998
n15 / 2008
n50 / 2010
n20
Knew about sexuality / 80 / 92 / 100
Out at school / 13% / 44% / 60%
Experienced homophobic abuse / 67% / 76% / 70%
Witnessed homophobic abuse / 80% / 74% / 80%
Truanted/dropped out / 13% / 28% / 43%
Supportive teacher / 7% / 73% / 45%
Positive information / 13% / 18% / 35%

Whilst this snapshot is about schools in Calderdale, a recently published report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as part of their ‘How Fair is Britain’ report, shows that teachers across England reveal a similar and shocking situation. Fig 4: NFER Teacher Voice Omnibus February 2010 Survey included questions posed by the EHRC to find out what teachers thought the situation was facing young people based on gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity and religion. The findings reveal that LGBT young people are the most likely to be bullied, least likely that schools are promoting respect for, and least likely to feel supported in school.

Fig 4: NFER Teacher Voice Omnibus February 2010 Survey

Secondary school teachers view of group. 1,700 teachers / Target for bullying / School actively promoting respect for / Seen by teachers as feeling supported in school
Boy / 8% / 68% / 39%
Girl / 10% / 70% / 43%
Trans / 15% / 7% / 7%
LGB / 46% / 16% / 14%
Disabled / 25% / 81% / 78%
Ethnic minority / 19% / 67% / 47%
Religion / 11% / 53% / 37%

4. Caring Other Adults

Accessing GALYIC means that members automatically have access to caring other adults, and the following findings from our annual evaluation reveal the benefits of this:

•73% of members said they were less isolated since attending GALYIC

•55% of members said they felt less depressed

•91% of members said their confidence increased

•100% of members said they were more positive LGBT identity

•91% of members said GALYIC had improved their self esteem

There are only a few organisations similar to GALYIC in England; many places do not have LGBT youth support groups and of those that do, many simply provide a once-a-week or fortnight youth group with no capacity to conduct one-to-one or crisis intervention work.

5. Self-esteem

Without data from the Canadian study to compare with it is difficult to comment on levels of self-esteem except to say that when we analysed the findings from the 50 NATs in 2008 we discovered that for those young people who accessed GALYIC whose mental health problems were connected to their sexual orientation, there was a significant rise in their levels of self-esteem (utilising the Rosenberg Self Esteem survey) after attending GALYIC compared with those who said their mental health problems were not connected to their sexual orientation[vi].

Conclusions

Whilst the GALYIC data is small and it could be argue that the findings will be skewed as young people who access GALYIC are in need of support whilst there may be many others out there who do not need support. However, I would challenge this: it has been suggested (although I cannot put my finger on the reference) that LGBT young people who are out to their parents and their parents are supportive are more likely to access LGBT youth support groups. Certainly, it is my feeling that there are many more LGBT young people in Calderdale who are not accessing our service who are extremely isolated and vulnerable.

I would also suggest that if the NAT was conducted in other parts of the country which are similar to Calderdale the findings would be comparable. It is only in places like London and other major cities where there are lots of support groups and other services to meet the needs of LGBT people that the findings will be better.

Recommendations:

  1. Include sexual orientation in all adolescent health surveys; see one from British Columbia or there are several in the USA.
  2. Roll out the NATnIMP to other LGBT youth groups and youth services in Britain – this will both improve service provision as well as providing data sets from around the country.
  3. Not sure if recent education white paper will be enough to tackle homophobic bullying in schools. Opportunity with Public Sector Equality Duty in April 2011 to ‘make’ schools give priority to tackling homophobia, creating respect for LGBT youth and providing support.
  4. Get schools in other parts of Britain to put a link to the GALYIC website as it is one of the best (if not the best – but I am biased) in the country. This, then, gives schools easy access to information.
  5. Safeguarding Boards need to take account of vulnerability of young LGBT people who live with homophobic/transphobic parents.

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