The Home Front and Queer Youth.

There’s No Place Like Home: Families Are an Essential Support for LGBT Youth

Center for American Progress

February 25, 2011


“With a targeted strategy, and a lot of attention, we can build a child welfare system that addresses the needs of the LGBTQ population,” said Bryan Samuels at a CAP event February 7 on the importance of family support of LGBT youth. Samuels, commissioner for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, was joined on a panel by Dr. Caitlin Ryan, director of the Family Acceptance Project, or FAP, and Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Jeff Krehely, CAP’s Director of LGBT Research and Communications, gave welcoming remarks. Immediately following, David Hansell, the assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, spoke about the role of government in ensuring acceptance and equality for LGBT youth.

A series of highly publicized suicides by LGBT youth last fall punctuated the need to address bullying in schools, a problem endemic in communities across the country. “Ostracism is one of the worst thing kids can experience,” Hansell said in his remarks. “It eats away at their self-esteem, and they become less able to resist bullying. And that’s why there is a coordinated effort going on across government to try to prevent the coercive effects of bullying, and to imbue young people with the self-confidence to stand up against those who try to intimidate them.” Evidence of the government’s resolve can be found in the Affordable Care Act, which makes it easier for LGBT individuals and same-sex couples to access healthcare, as well as in efforts to make adoption viable for same-sex couples, Hansell argued.

For many LGBT youth, bullying doesn’t stop in the schoolyard. These youth find themselves equally vulnerable to humiliation, intolerance, and even violence in the one space that at the very least ought to offer refuge: the home. No one denies the horrible effects that bullying from peers can have on the mental health and self-esteem of young people, but recent research conducted by FAP suggests that the effects of intolerance in the home may be even worse.

Typically, Dr. Ryan explained, families are removed from the care equation: “The inclination is not to engage the family, but automatically to exclude the family because families are seen as unsupportive at best and volatile or potentially dangerous at worst.” The work of FAP, however, offers a new framework for family engagement and looks to ways in which families can be educated about the consequences of rejecting their child.

Indeed, FAP research demonstrates the alarming consequences of family intolerance of LGBT youth. Dr. Ryan stated that, for instance, HIV incidence increases drastically with higher family intolerance levels: “LGBT young people who experience a high level of family rejection … during adolescence are more than three-and-a-half times more likely to be at high risk for HIV infection as a young adult. That risk is about cut in half for families that express moderate levels of rejection.”

The research found similar trends with respect to depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and suicidality. In each of those categories, LGBT youth who experienced high levels of rejection were considerably more prone to self-destructive behavior. Engaging family in the discussion, and educating them about the consequences of rejecting their child, is therefore paramount to ensuring the mental and physical well being of LGBT children.

On the panel discussion, both Minter and Samuels stressed that Dr. Ryan’s research should inform policy decisions regarding LGBT youth.

“If we really want to address the problems facing LGBT youth, we also need resources and policies that are focused on keeping these young people in their families [and] in their communities. … that’s the way we’re going truly protect future generations,” Minter stated. He continued, “I think the most hopeful and inspiring aspect of Dr. Ryan’s research, to me, is that they’ve developed family intervention programs that really work, and that have shown us that the goal is eminently achievable.” More funding for research efforts such as those undertaken by FAP and the increased availability of materials and programs to educate families about the importance of accepting LGBT children can help make substantial improvements in the lives of LGBT children across the country. Those interested in learning more about FAP’s findings can access their research here.

See also: *
Families Matter by Shannon Minter and Jeff Krehely

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"Trickle-down homophobia" and teen suicide.

-------------good post from change.org-------------

Anti-Gay Bullying Suicides: Who's Really To Blame?

by David Badash October 09, 2010


The media has been awash in news of recent teen suicides, teens literally bullied to death. Much of the mainstream press is reporting there were five or six teen suicides in the back-to-school month of September, all the result of anti-gay bullying. Sadly, that number is much higher. After reports from my readers, and after much research on local news sites, it is clear there were at least ten male teen suicides across the country in the month of September alone. There are reports that almost all of these teens -- many who had either come out as gay or were perceived as gay -- were bullied, and most if not all of the bullying was anti-gay bullying.

But let's be honest. What enables and maintains this culture of hate are groups like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) which exists to tell America that gays and lesbians aren't good enough for marriage. Or groups like Focus on the Family (FOF) which exists to tell America that gays and lesbians aren't good enough for anything, and even has a "pro-bullying" website, "True Tolerance," dedicated to teaching parents how to rid their schools of anti-bullying programs.

These are but two hate groups, groups whose real missions are neither to "protect" marriage, nor to "focus" on the family.

The Southern Poverty Law Center five years ago listed "a dozen of today's most influential anti-gay groups," including several they today classify as hate groups: American Vision, Family Research Institute, and the Traditional Values Coalition. Others, like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Minnesota Family Council, and the Alliance Defense Fund should qualify as well.

Anti-gay groups, from the National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family, to the Family Research Institute, and the Traditional Values Coalition, to local churches and other houses of worship which preach intolerance and hatred against the LGBTQ community, regularly inject hatred, oppression, and fear into America's families.

It's no wonder, as comedian and activist Sarah Silverman says, "Dear America, when you tell gay Americans they can't serve their country openly, or marry the person they love, you're telling that to kids." She says we shouldn't be "shocked wondering where all these bullies are coming from," because "they learned it from watching you."

America's children are under attack. But what difference is there between the schoolyard tormentor who literally bullies to death a gay or questioning youth, and their adult counterparts -- like the National Organization for Marriage, or Focus on the Family -- shrouded in Orwellian nomenclature, who provide them with the ammunition?

Kathy Griffin calls this "trickle-down homophobia." And she's right.

A sixteen-year-old lesbian who says she just came out to her family recently wrote on my website, "I wish my family will stop treating me like im a freak and love me the way they use to again. Iv been screamed at, emotionaly abused, called names like faggot , bitch , whore. Iv been told i have aids because i had sex with a female. Im trying to stay strong but sometimes you need help from others who been through the same."

Her words, the depiction of her treatment by her own family is exactly what children fear most when they even think about coming out to their families. For many, coming out can be a growing experience for the entire family. For other children, coming out can lead to homelessness and a path to suicide.

Gay and lesbian children and teens, even those who are merely "questioning," are between three and six times as likely to attempt or to die by suicide than their heterosexual peers. The radical and religious right, and groups like the Minnesota Family Council (MFC) would have you believe that is because these youngsters have made poor choices or are defective, that "they’ve embraced an unhealthy sexual identity and lifestyle." In point of fact, the pain that drives these young people to suicide is not caused by being different, it is caused by others who tell them they are "different," and treat them as different.

These ten teens who succumbed to suicide are the ones we know about. Some had full support from their families. But there are countless others every year, hidden from the public by shamed families, too embarrassed to acknowledge either their own failure to see or address the problem, too consumed with guilt for having been unable or unwilling to prevent the bullying, or, sadly, for some, too embarrassed to even acknowledge that their child was "different."

Reading the messages written about these teens on Facebook pages and funeral home websites is heartbreaking. So is reading some of the "code" in the obituaries. No doubt, there are many of this nation's teenagers who love going to church with their girlfriends, but no doubt there are many teens who succumb to suicide because, much to their parents' distress, they love neither church nor a girlfriend.

This "trickle-down homophobia" has to come from somewhere. The torment and bullying doesn't start with parents, or even with the school-yard bully.

So, who are the real tormentors? Who is really to blame? It's time for America to start making the connection. It is unimaginably tragic that so many teens had to succumb to hopeless desperation and suicide for there to be an awakening in America. But I think the tide may be turning. I think America is starting to realize who the real bullies, the real tormentors are. They are the ones with a non-profit tax license, who are using it as a license to kill.