GLR Forum
General Forum => GLBT General Topics => Topic started by: Feral on Wed, Mar 29, 2006, 01:53
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Today I came upon this report (http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=71865&pt=n).
A quarter of young gay or bisexual men in Northern Ireland have attempted suicide, new mental health research revealed today.
Nearly two thirds considered killing themselves and 30% self harmed, a survey disclosed.
The scale of the hidden emotional torment among non-heterosexual men, aged under 25, emerged in findings in advance of a major national conference in Belfast which will consider calls on the British Government to fund training and resources on different sexual orientations to all professionals working with young people, including teachers, youth workers and health and social services staff.
While the survey has a rather small sample size and pertains only to Northern Ireland (so may not be applicable to people in other countries), the news is not especially surprising. Many similar surveys could, no doubt, be unearthed.
A quarter had attempted suicide; over two thirds thought about taking their own lives while four out of five who had suicidal thoughts indicated they were related to same sex attraction.
Among the key factors which contributed to suicidal thoughts and self harm were homonegative experiences in school, bullying, homophobia from other pupils and neighbours.
According to the survey, different factors which affected their mental health were:
:: Difficulties in accepting their sexuality
:: A shortage of people who understood what they were going through
:: Homophobia at home, within society and at schools, even among teaching staff.
:: Loneliness and isolation.
This last point reminded me of another one of the surveys that occasionally get mentioned in passing in the gay press, namely this one (http://www.iglss.org/media/files/gengap_rel.txt) from the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies. The entire report (http://www.iglss.org/media/files/Angles_81.pdf) (in PDF form) is, as always, more informative than the press release that nearly all of the news accounts were based on.
"In interviews with LGBT youth and adults, we found a noticeable gap in communications across generations," noted Dr. Glenda Russell, a co-author of the report. "LGBT adults tend to project their own experiences onto today's young people, when in fact the lives of today's young people are often quite different."
The study notes several examples of this generation gap. "Alternative proms" organized by LGBT adults for LGBT high school youth often seem to be designed to meet the needs of the adult organizers who missed their own proms rather than the needs of today's young people. Adults tend to focus on the suffering and isolation of LGBT youth, even though many LGBT teens are actually doing well. From the other direction, young LGBT people sometimes complain that no one is doing anything about discrimination, apparently unaware of decades of prior activism by LGBT adults.
The challenge for the community is to turn these differences into opportunities for learning and growth. Co-author Dr. Janis Bohan notes, "The good news is that both sides can learn from each other. LGBT adults should be willing to follow the lead of young people, and young LGBT people should be willing to use adults as mentors."
Young people often provide a fresh perspective on issues that is both less constrained by past strategies for problem solving and less reliant on older--and perhaps incorrect--assumptions about the degree of homophobia. Adults, on the other hand, have greater experience and resources and are more familiar with the historical roots of the LGBT movement.
Now, many things have changed in the last several decades, and in some ways GLBT teens ARE doing well. The new study being discussed in Belfast suggests that our young people are not, however, doing so well after all.
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The "Gay Generation Gap" article by Dr. Russel and Dr. Bohan is very interesting - and controversial at some places, especially for the elders who have to accept that their political views are not necessarily shared by the youth. But does this necessarily mean that there is a real difference between generations? The authors neglected the role of the personal developent of an individual - it is possible that with due age, youngsters will develope very similar views as olders now. It is but natural, that a very young man cares less about the "community sense" and "historic contextes", and instead is looking for a suitable partner and a good job. With time, the accents shift a little bit.
The authors certainly have right with their assumption that the generation gap will be self-sustainable, if nothing is done to overcome this gap. Whereas there always has been a certain continuity among homosexual intellectuals through millenia (thanks to university libraries), the "working boy" was practically isolated from the gay cultural heritage. This has changed in the last decades (at least in wealthy countries), and with the means of the Internet the desolate isolation of gay youth seems indeed overcome. The plentitude of ressources shall not deceive us about their quality - there is still much to be done to achieve true cultural boost in gay communities. I suspect that much of the bravado of the young gays comes from the understandable wish not to belong to the "loosers". Certainly, they are not as unhappy as their predecessors were at the same age, but also far not as happy as their heterosexual peers are now.
Nevertheless, we indeed must not forget that our live is generally good and there are many joys to be discovered. ;D Solely, while reading our statistics and reports from all corners of the world, one easily forgets this.
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I suspect that much of the bravado of the young gays comes from the understandable wish not to belong to the "loosers". Certainly, they are not as unhappy as their predecessors were at the same age, but also far not as happy as their heterosexual peers are now.
Young gays would be well advised to find and serve the purpose of their existence in the spring rather than seek it belatedly and in the winter of their lives.That purpose is of course and naturally gay self-determination,a goal beyond the individual and beyond the limitations of the stateless neo-liberal times in which we are living.A gay involved on the side of gay self-determination will never be alone,surrounded as he will be by countless gays of the past and of the future noding approvingliy at his conduct.
K6
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There is a web ressource dedicated to the issue of gay/bi youth suicide: http://www.youth-suicide.com/gay-bisexual/.
Some date are a couple of years old, but it seems that problems still remain.
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In an ORF.AT article (http://science.orf.at/science/news/144701) (in German) a report on youth suicide by Elizabeth Saewyc (http://www.nursing.ubc.ca/Faculty/memberbio.asp?c=76.1774244773345) is quoted.
Here in my free translation:
"Canada: High suicide risk of lesbian girls
According to an investigation with 30.000 Canadian young people, 38 % of homosexual girls between 13 and 18 committed an attempted suicide within a year. Among bisexual girls, the portion was 30.4 %, among heterosexual girls 8.2 %. From homosexual boys, 8.8 % attempted suicide within a year. Among bisexual boys, the portion was 2.8 %, among heterosexual boys 3.3 %.
Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc emphasized the fact that attempted suicides among boys substantially more frequently resulted in death. The study suggests that the specific problems of lesbian girls clearly are not noticed sufficiently in the public. In Canada, suicide is secondarymost frequent cause of death among young people after the traffic accidents."
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A version of this story from the Canadian press is here (http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=b433f217-3947-49c3-b045-9c03ce3de848).
And despite well-established anti-bullying programs in schools that encourage students to respect different races, cultural backgrounds and sexual orientations, she said the surveys show homosexual and lesbian youth are far more likely than heterosexual youth to report being discriminated against, insulted or physically assaulted at school because of sexual orientation.
According to the 2003 survey, some 55 per cent of the homosexual or bisexual boys reported being discriminated against due to their sexual orientation.
Saewyc, who is also an associate professor of nursing at the University of B.C., suggested the higher levels of abuse, harassment and violence that "sexual minority youth" suffer help explain why they are more likely to engage in risky, health-threatening behaviours -- even to the point of trying to kill themselves.
"More kids are choosing suicide attempts as a way of coping," she said in an interview after her presentation at the Canadian Public Health Association conference in Vancouver, because they don't feel they have the support of the family, their school and their community.
A great many half-hearted studies of gay youths have been done over the last three decades, all of them tightly focused upon one or two issues at a time. Taken as a group, these studies suggest that over a third of the gay population in North America never makes it to adulthood. The figure may be as high as 40%. These studies do not prove this horrendous claim, they merely suggest it as a hypothesis. Periodically the mainstream media draws attention to the remarkable slaughter that str8 teenagers inflict upon themselves. Only occasionally is it realized that the death toll is far greater among gay teens. When Saewyc says that "more kids are choosing suicide attempts as a way of coping," I believe she is in error. I think the number is more than likely unchanged. Given other, older studies for comparison, it might even be claimed that the current number of suicide attempts represents an improvement. Naturally, this study actually says nothing about the rate of successful suicides, which is the real issue.
That this particular study was undertaken in Canada, where the gay rights movement has achieved nearly every one of their stated goals is especially illuminating. Indeed, in Canada gays seem to have achieved full legal equity with str8s, yet gay children continue to die. It is a phenomenal failure of the gay community; one which needs to be admitted and addressed at once.
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A version of this story from the Canadian press is here (http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=b433f217-3947-49c3-b045-9c03ce3de848).
A great many half-hearted studies of gay youths have been done over the last three decades, all of them tightly focused upon one or two issues at a time. Taken as a group, these studies suggest that over a third of the gay population in North America never makes it to adulthood. The figure may be as high as 40%.
According to the Merck Manual,about one third of males adolescents are homosexual,but on a temporary basis.Upon becoming adults,they also become heterosexuals just like the rest of the heterosexual population.My own parents,who without entering here the detail of their trade were of professionnal scientific background,even told me that such a form of homosexuality was a normal thing.A number of those who comitted suicide would thus not have turned gay in adult age anyway.Heterosexuals are probably more hit by suicide because they have homosexual tendencies conflicting with their hethro ones.
K6
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That this particular study was undertaken in Canada, where the gay rights movement has achieved nearly every one of their stated goals is especially illuminating. Indeed, in Canada gays seem to have achieved full legal equity with str8s, yet gay children continue to die. It is a phenomenal failure of the gay community; one which needs to be admitted and addressed at once.
Gays do not realize that the position which may expect them in a tolerant country like,say Canada,is the one of jesters at yet another hethro imperial court.Especially the characters and clowns who make up certain gay pride parades (which inspire me absolutely no pride about being
gay).
K6
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A culture, any culture, is well judged by the way in which it treats its youngest, oldest, weakest, and sickest individuals. On nearly every score the gay people does not fare well. It is certainly true that the cause of this failure is the widespread belief that gay persons are simply individuals within the greater hetero culture around them. As insignificant and ultimately meaningless individuals, they may squeal about how str8 society treats them and at the same time evade any responsibility for tending to themselves.
That perhaps 95% of the gay people resolutely insist that they do not exist ought to be a matter of some concern. However, I find the idea that a third part of our people never reach their twenty-first birthdays intolerable. That the figure may not be so high is cold comfort. There is little difference between the nooses of Iran and the hooligans of Canada in this respect--both are a means to the same attempt at exterminating children. That gays have no rights at all in Iran yet seem to have all of them in Canada would appear to be irrelevant.
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However, I find the idea that a third part of our people never reach their twenty-first birthdays intolerable. That the figure may not be so high is cold comfort.
That a part of our human assets do not reach adult age because of suicide makes no doubt in my mind.The proportion of one third is however and I think an exageration.It incorporates individuals who are homosexual only on a temporary basis,and for whom the gay political body would have found later no more use than for the real but dead gays who committed suicide.Suicide is more likely to have been committed by young heterosexuals and because of a conflict between their heterosexual orientation on one hand,and their transitory or peripheral homosexual tendencies on another hand.Had they grown up and lived into adult age and retained their inner conflict and confusion,they could have added
numbers to the crowd of quintessential homophobes who precisely bash any gay,even defenceless minors for instance.The body count of teen suicide certainly causes us a prejudice.But it causes a greater prejudice to the larger hethro group by trimming in advance its future homophobic
elements,some of whom could become politically active,and who are better six feet under anyway.
K6
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According to the Merck Manual,about one third of males adolescents are homosexual,but on a temporary basis.Upon becoming adults,they also become heterosexuals just like the rest of the heterosexual population.My own parents,who without entering here the detail of their trade were of professionnal scientific background,even told me that such a form of homosexuality was a normal thing.A number of those who comitted suicide would thus not have turned gay in adult age anyway.Heterosexuals are probably more hit by suicide because they have homosexual tendencies conflicting with their hethro ones.
How many of that ambiguous, 'temporary' 30% would proceed into adulthood as gay people were it not for the enormous stigma invariably applied to homosexuality in tolerant countries and intolerant ones alike?
We'll never know, because the fact is that the stigma is still alive and well, always. Every bit of credible research suggests that the default setting for sexual orientation is *not* 'heterosexual.'
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How many of that ambiguous, 'temporary' 30% would proceed into adulthood as gay people were it not for the enormous stigma invariably applied to homosexuality in tolerant countries and intolerant ones alike?
We could compare the statistics of both tolerant and intolerant countries,to see wether there exists a difference between them.The figure of
the Merk Manual,of the order of 33% of adolescent gay males,appears to be universal.I read somewhere else,but do not remember the reference,
that by age 20,only one fith of males were still gay.
K6
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Every bit of credible research suggests that the default setting for sexual orientation is *not* 'heterosexual.'
If you mean by that that individuals are neither heterosexual nor gay at birth,I am entirely in aggreement with you.Most people are heterosexual
because most humans being gullible,they swallow without asking themselves questions whatever culture and education spoonfeed them with.
A few individuals either remain skeptical,or are too independent to be told,even by society and by an hethro majority,how to satisfy their sexual instincts.Gayness could thus have a component and origin located outside sexual orientation properly speaking.
K6
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According to the Merck Manual,about one third of males adolescents are homosexual,but on a temporary basis. [..]
I think we must first clarify what we understand as being “homosexual”. There is a certain confusion there, especially in assuming being “temporarily” homosexual: not everybody engaged in homosexual intercourse is a homosexual person (not even “temporarily”). There is a difference between feelings and deeds, in other words, one should not confuse behavior and identity. Those 30% of “contemporary” homosexuals are, more accurately, the percentage of juvenile males involved in bodily “homosexual” activities – like, let’s say, mutual/collective masturbation, often watching a (heterosexual) porn or a tit magazine. This kind of behavior has nothing to do with homosexuality as such, because this is often simply an expression of gaining a bodily “relief” in a lack of an adequate (heterosexal) partner. Recent european studies on juvenile sexual behavior have indicated a dramatical decrease of same-sex experiences in the young generation: these 30% you mention have turned to 2% - not in Sudan, not in Nigeria, but in Germany and Holland. What does this mean, now? The answer is pretty simple: straight youth in Western Europe is currently extremely liberated and uses every opportunity to start up very early – unlike their homosexual peers, who still have extreme difficulties to find a partner and therefore mostly remain unexperienced for a a couple of years longer.
A great many half-hearted studies of gay youths have been done over the last three decades, all of them tightly focused upon one or two issues at a time. Taken as a group, these studies suggest that over a third of the gay population in North America never makes it to adulthood. The figure may be as high as 40%.
There is no reason to assume that homosexual youth is less successful in actually accomplishing suicide than straight youth. We can assume that the distribution of deads between “our” and “their” youth (dear god, what dreadfull things we actually are talking of) is the same as in the overall attemps. The ratio of gay to straight victims is about 2.5 : 1, so one should be able to calculate the actual numbers over the years.
Suicide is more likely to have been committed by young heterosexuals and because of a conflict between their heterosexual orientation on one hand,and their transitory or peripheral homosexual tendencies on another hand.
Think it’s not like you are suggesting here. The reason, why somebody commits suicide is the lack of alternatives – the person simply sees no way out. Now, for a straight boy/girl with “peripheral homosexual tendencies” or experiences, the way out is very easy and indeed, the society and family readily forgives the minor misdemenour as youthfull digression and are offering any possible help to find the way back to a “useful member of society”. There is no deep inner conflict between desires, social expectations and impossibility to comply with them, which is so typical for suicidal homosexual youth.š
A culture, any culture, is well judged by the way in which it treats its youngest, oldest, weakest, and sickest individuals. On nearly every score the gay people does not fare well. [..] I find the idea that a third part of our people never reach their twenty-first birthdays intolerable. That the figure may not be so high is cold comfort.
As a people, we are at a primitive stage of developement. Not only do most gays refuse to recognize the common identity (many even look at their likes with disdain), but also there is a wide-spread assumption that gays as a species exist only in the age between 18 and 45, and as long as they are pretty and able to spend money for commercial amusement. The logical consequence is that gay youth is interestingly solely as an object for consumption, not as children they actually are.
Every single one of these kids, gay and straight, is one too much. In the particular case of homosexual children, gay and straight community have a joint responsibility: these culturally “our” youth are “their” biological children, and “their” ignorance is as fatal as our inability to integrate these kids early enough into our community. Had gay children have sufficient positive role models and a welcoming gay community with decent possibilities to engage socially at the age of 13, we had much less suicides even among these teenagers who grow up among vicious religious bigots. It is, however, very helpful when parents learn to understand what consequences their relentlessness actually can have – rarely do they wish to see their children rather dead than homosexual.
That this particular study was undertaken in Canada, where the gay rights movement has achieved nearly every one of their stated goals is especially illuminating. Indeed, in Canada gays seem to have achieved full legal equity with str8s, yet gay children continue to die. It is a phenomenal failure of the gay community; one which needs to be admitted and addressed at once.
The most striking examples of meaningless legislation are Brazil and South Africa: both countries have very preogressive legislation towards gay people in the meanwhile, but social realities outside of the major cities are looking very different. Recently there was a report on a lesbian woman being stoned to death right on the street of her village by an outraged mob of some 20 men instigated by an old woman. Ok, even in Germany it happens sometimes that a person is attacked by a gang of neo-Nazis, but a spontaneous lynching on a street somewhere in a village? Social oppression did not cease to exist neither in North America, nor in Europe, except perhapts the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The most common invectives on German schoolyards are still “schwul”, “Schwuchtel”, “Schwanzlutscher” etc. – alltogether less nice epitets for a homosexual person, and it is still very difficult for schoolboys and girls to come out. Nothing has really changed – the youth describe the same old probles of social isolation and the fear to enter consultation centers and gay bars/cafés, as ever before. There must be more age-adequate positive public presence, with ads depicting merry gay peers engaged in positive social/cultural activities etc. It will be certainly a difficult enterprize, but a local gay teenage volleyball team could make wonders. It is, of course, not possible to offer a complete spectrum of activities specially for gay kids in every small town, but it should be possible to establish at least local youth groups - there are already many good examples existing.
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Think it’s not like you are suggesting here. The reason, why somebody commits suicide is the lack of alternatives – the person simply sees no way out. Now, for a straight boy/girl with “peripheral homosexual tendencies” or experiences, the way out is very easy and indeed, the society and family readily forgives the minor misdemenour as youthfull digression and are offering any possible help to find the way back to a “useful member of society”. There is no deep inner conflict between desires, social expectations and impossibility to comply with them, which is so typical for suicidal homosexual youth.š
In the place I live,and which is a medium size city,gay and non-gay sexual minorities congregate in the same bars and discos,know each other and this must be said,do not like each other very much.Several individuals belonging to non-gay sexual minorities either effectively committed suicide,or threatened to do so.The accomplished facts came to my knowledge,and in the case of the threaths they were uttered in my presence.Whereas in the case of young gays,I have so far only observed directly a flight from the family home,never to come back.You understand that in the absence of a gay State and government which could provide me with objective information on issues of sexual orientation and identity,I have to rely on my own observations which sometimes contradict even the information provided by existing gay organizations or activists.There is no doubt in my mind that where a gay State would exist,or where a coherent gay community exists,young gays would flee rather than commit suicide.Suicide is for those who,being confused and not knowing who they are,consequently do not know where to flee.
K6
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straight youth in Western Europe is currently extremely liberated and uses every opportunity to start up very early – unlike their homosexual peers, who still have extreme difficulties to find a partner and therefore mostly remain unexperienced for a a couple of years longer.
This is mitigated by two things.
Heterosexuals had not to make much effort or to suffer for what they are.Their identity is not the result and product of struggle.They will pay
a price should they encounter adversity.Their only slight disadvantage is that they have to decipher the opposite sex and adjust two sets of
interests and possibly of goals which are a bit different.
Gays do not have to decipher their mates,or to adjust different sets of interests or goals: advantage over the heterosexuals conceded here.They have however to discover their orientation on their own and set it into motion without role models.At best,they will receive some scientific advice which may be regarded as positive,but which will nevertheless be incomplete.Most often,they will have to take on the unfavourable opinion of the majority of the population.There is more toil and effort behind a successfull gay orientation,and thus and incorporated to it more resistance to adversity.
In this task of the future,which is the establishment of a gay independent State,their experience with adversity will give gays an advantage over populations who never knew what adversity was.Certain hethro liberal societies,where precisely the hethro youth encounters no obstacle in
life in sexual matters or in others,could collapse like houses of cards under a major impact or during a serious international crisis.The social products of struggle are genuine and sturdy,while the ones of confortable social-democrat societies of plenty remain to be tested.
K6
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They have however to discover their orientation on their own and set it into motion without role models.At best,they will receive some scientific advice which may be regarded as positive,but which will nevertheless be incomplete.Most often,they will have to take on the unfavourable opinion of the majority of the population.There is more toil and effort behind a successfull gay orientation,and thus and incorporated to it more resistance to adversity.
This is true: individuals with experiences in adversity and overcoming stereotypes often have an independent mind and are used to contraversies.
Unfortunately, the opposite is not very rare as well: people experiencing public and familiar dispproval and abuse since early days often loose their self-confidence and become uncertain and weak individuals, used to failures and misfortunes. As a result, they do not dare to engage in productive activities and tend to avoid controversies instead of facing them. Sadly, but this is still a fact - heterosexist society is wretching many young gay souls day by day.
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Unfortunately, the opposite is not very rare as well: people experiencing public and familiar dispproval and abuse since early days often loose their self-confidence and become uncertain and weak individuals, used to failures and misfortunes.
The generation and circle of gays I belong to or grew up with in the late 70s and early 80s was composed of courageous individuals,not corresponding at all to the type you are describing here.No amount of adversity would have broken them.I do not include myself in the whole lot,for I am alive an in good health.I was spared the ordeal they had to go through,from the fatefull day they were told that their days were counted.Most of those gays I am describing here are now six feet under.They were wiped out by AIDS in the late 80s and mid 90s.Out of,say 20 friends I had in 1980,perhaps 3 or 4 are still alive today.The are my heroes,whom I have seen in person awaiting quietly their end,sometimes commenting about those times when they would no longer be around and among us.Surely,they would have approved of this task of self determination of which I am,like them,but a moment in history.
K6
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Most of those gays I am describing here are now six feet under.They were wiped out by AIDS in the late 80s and mid 90s.Out of,say 20 friends I had in 1980,perhaps 3 or 4 are still alive today.The are my heroes,whom I have seen in person awaiting quietly their end,sometimes commenting about those times when they would no longer be around and among us.Surely,they would have approved of this task of self determination of which I am,like them,but a moment in history.
Yes, too many died too early. Lots of brilliant people were taken away by the epidemie when they actually were in full blossom intellectually and personally. When I re-read many of the Denneny's propositions, I am bitterly struck by the observation that much of those high-flying prospectives and inspirations were simply stolen from the gay people in the most vicious way - by eradicating the people. Certainly, much have been achieved from the "gay rights" point of view, but as a gay and merry people we have suffered a stroke which will be difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, it is time now to regain our lust for life as a people - a people of young and old gays, sharing time and knowledge together.