By Kellan Baker and Josh Garcia
Kellan Baker is a health policy analyst with the LGBT Research and
Communications Project at the Center for American Progress and a member of the Action
Alliance for Suicide Prevention LGBT Task Force. Josh Garcia is an intern with
the Project.
Before he completed suicide at the
age of 26 in 2010, Joseph Jefferson
recorded his final words on Facebook: “I could not bear the
burden of living as a gay man of color in a world grown cold and hateful towards those of us who live and love differently than the
so-called ‘social mainstream.’”
Though LGBT suicide is
frequently portrayed as a wholly youth phenomenon, Joseph was an LGBT activist
who had built a life for himself as an adult after getting through what many
people assume to be the only tough part of an LGBT person’s life—adolescence.
The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, the public-private partnership aimed at saving
the more than 34,000 lives in the United States lost every year to suicide, has
taken a lead in changing public misperceptions about LGBT suicide. In
particular, the Action Alliance task force that concentrates on the LGBT
population has changed its name from the LGBT Youth Task Force to the LGBT Populations
Task Force, acknowledging the struggles with suicide ideation, suicide
attempts, and death by suicide that many LGBT people confront at different
points in their lives.
The reasons that suicide
is a lifelong concern for many LGBT people are complex and dynamic. These
risk factors include family rejection, lack of social support, lack of access
to culturally competent healthcare providers, and the stress of living with discrimination
and prejudice.
Because of family or employment
obligations, many LGBT adults, like most LGBT youth, do not get to choose where
they live and work—often leaving them trapped in hostile environments with
family members, co-workers, or neighbors who do not accept them.
Certain protective factors may
mitigate these risks. Such factors include family acceptance, affirming and culturally
competent mental and behavioral health services, and policies that extend legal
protections and promote acceptance.
Indeed, the past several years
have seen several advances across the country on behalf of fairness for LGBT
people. New York state passed marriage equality for same-sex couples in 2011,
and Washington state and Maryland followed suit in 2012. And, recently, the
federal government has taken an active role in implementing LGBT-inclusive laws
and policies.
But much remains to be done to
help eliminate suicidal thoughts and behavior among LGBT individuals. In
addition to increased legal protections and working to change stubborn social
prejudices, there is a particularly pressing need for further research and data
collection regarding mental health and suicide among the gay and transgender
population.
Currently, there are no national data regarding suicidal
ideation or suicide rates among the LGBT population as a whole. Nor are there
sufficient data regarding the experiences of specific segments of the LGBT
population, including LGBT youth and elders, transgender adults, and LGBT
people of color, who may be at increased risk because of the multiple burdens
of discrimination they bear.
Thus, as part of the
implementation of the upcoming National
Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP), the Action Alliance must take the
lead in pushing for nationally representative data on suicide rates among the
LGBT population. These data will inform the development and implementation of
evidence-based interventions that can help protect the lives of LGBT people.
Such interventions may include initiatives
fostering resilience and help-seeking behaviors among LGBT people, connecting them
with providers who are both familiar with mental and behavioral health issues
and comfortable accepting and respecting their LGBT clients, and promoting supportive
school, work, and other environments.
In addition to driving research that
can guide efforts to prevent LGBT suicide, the ultimate purpose of the Action
Alliance is to save lives by decreasing the rate of suicide in our country. And
to do this, each one of us—whether LGBT or ally, pastor or policymaker,
researcher or activist—must respond to the moral imperative to help build a
world where LGBT people count and are counted, and where they can live their
lives free from discrimination, harassment, and the violence of suicide.
