A new nationwide survey confirms once again what LGBTQ+ people of all ages already knew: affirming and supporting queer and trans youth saves lives.
On Wednesday, LGBTQ+ advocacy and crisis support organization The Trevor Project released its latest research into the mental health of queer youth, a survey of 34,000 young people ages 13-24. The report is a revealing portrait of how LGBTQ+ youth are dealing with legislative attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a road map for how to best support them.
One key finding in the survey — as has been noted in almost every other study of its kind, including last year’s survey — is the power of family and community affirmation to positively influence mental health. According to the report, only 6% of LGBTQ+ youth who “felt high social support from their family” had attempted suicide in the past year, less than half the rate of those who felt they had “low to moderate” family support. The same was true for communities in general; 21% of youth who described their community as “very unaccepting” had attempted suicide in the past year, compared with just 8% of youth who lived in “very accepting” communities.
The survey, which recruited participants via targeted social media ads, also highlighted the diversity and complex experiences of LGBTQ+ young people. 55% of survey respondents were White, compared to around 60% of the general U.S. population per the 2020 Census; 51% identified themselves as bi or pansexual, and 48% said they were transgender or nonbinary.
“Lumping diverse youth into broad identity categories and applying single-size approaches does a disservice to everyone, and makes our work to end LGBTQ youth suicide even harder,” said Dr. Myeshia Price, Senior Research Scientist for The Trevor Project, in a statement. “This year’s findings emphasize the importance of intersectionality in research, particularly among a community as diverse as LGBTQ youth, as disparities in mental health and suicide risk were found across race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
The survey also highlighted struggles that LGBTQ+ youth face in obtaining mental health care. Overall, of the factors preventing young people from obtaining the proper care, “fear of discussing mental health concerns” was the most common barrier, followed by “concerns with obtaining parent/caregiver permission,” the fear of not being taken seriously by providers, and affordability of care.
Even when it doesn’t pass, discriminatory legislation still impacts trans youth.
Crucially, however, the survey also includes data on how to best support LGBTQ+ young people, and things that bring them joy. Respondents reported feeling support from parents and caregivers who were welcoming to queer and trans peers, “talked with them respectfully” about their identity, and simply used their proper names and pronouns. “[T]hey also described hundreds of ways in which they find joy and strength in their lives,” the report notes, like attending drag shows, dance, video games, and “just knowing that there’s people out there like me.” That joy of community can come from close relationships and mass media alike; 89% of respondents said LGBTQ+ representation in TV shows and movies “made them feel good about being LGBTQ,” as did celebrities coming out and non-LGBTQ+ celebrities expressing allyship.
“We urge fellow researchers to include expansive identity terminology in all youth survey research, and for public health officials and youth-serving organizations to tailor services to meet LGBTQ youth’s unique needs,” said Dr. Price. “Only then will we be able to better understand and support the young people who need us most.”
I like this video blogger. A vlogger is someone who uses an avatar instead of their face while they do their videos. The avatar is female, but the blogger is male, happily male. Cis Male. Also is happily polysexual, but that is beside the point. He uses a female avatar to make the point that it doesn’t matter to him, he doesn’t get upset over it. I preferred it when he used his own face and body to do his videos, but I understand his point.
His content covers a lot of subjects and I recommend you check out his other videos. He is a staunch supporter of LGBTQ+ rights despite having been raised a highly evangelical conservative Christian forced to attend church schools. He admits he believed the crap forced on him and treated the LGBTQ+ very badly as a teen and young adult. He even drove away a friend he had for years because the friend was gay. Even though Chris tried to apologize that friend never forgave his treatment by Chris and that is something Chris understands and regrets to this day. Suris / Chris claims it took getting away from his highly religious parents and that community living on his own in the real world that he had his eyes opened. When he tried to push the religious views he had been taught to be normal and the way things should be he found himself at odds with all the people he wanted to be friends with. Talking to them and listening to who they really were, he found he couldn’t reconcile that with what he had been taught. So he started to open his eyes and change his views. Unfortunately, as he says he can never make it up to those he hurt and bullied for his god because he was taught that was what his god wanted. At least he is honest and will admit the damage his highly religious upbringing did to him and the people he encountered.
At the very beginning there is some blog stuff he does with his followers, I usually ignore it as I am also doing other things. It is not very long but if it bothers you please fast forward to the real subject of the video, a Florida teacher got fired for answering a question by her students over her family / sexual partner relationships. Spoiler she was not graphic nor explicit, but she simply was not cis heterosexual one woman one man. How dare she let kids know that all people don’t follow that religious dictate! Watch the video to what life in the US under Republican rabid right religious wing is going to be like. Remember these are not little kids these are middle schoolers what was called JR high in my schooling years. This was not about teens drawing sexual pictures of their orientations but about the flags they drew representing their orientations. Colored flags are now so offensive that you can be fired in Florida if they do not represent the republican religious heterosexual normative one man / one woman only nature of sexual expression. I hate this so much! The right wing media really misrepresented this story.
Channel 9 is learning more about an alleged “cult-like” secret society operating within Leesburg High School involving both faculty and students. Records show it was started as some kind of religious group by two school employees and a few former students.
Gabriel Fielder has requested a chance to resign in lieu of termination after a report was made to Leesburg police by a former student who said he was “a member of a secret society at Leesburg High School called the Elder Council.”
State records show Fielder and a guidance counselor named Leonardo Finelli started a nonprofit group in 2019 named Elder Council, Inc. It’s described in part as setup for “not-for-profit missions and teaching activities for the greatest evangelical Christian church globally.”
The former student also told police that the guidance counselor once sent sexual text messages to him and asked to “meet up.”
The man told police that he did not meet up with Finello. Once he graduated, however, he told police the two were in a romantic relationship for about three months, the report stated.
While the text messages were “romantic” in nature, they did not contain sexually explicit or pornographic images, the report stated. Because the alleged sexual activity was between two consenting adults, no criminal charges were filed.
The number of members of the group, which has now reportedly disbanded, is not yet clear. The incorporation papers for the nonprofit list a 13-acre Marion County property owned by Felder as its address.
Please take 2 minutes out of your day and watch @PeteButtigieg perfectly articulate why Republicans behave the way that they do, and how it harms people more than it could ever help.
CEO of the Trevor Project, Amit Paley, and former Federal and State Prosecutor in New York, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, join Chris Jansing to discuss concerns sparked by the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion, regarding other rights, including same-sex marriage.
Border Patrol officers in Roma, Texas, on Thursday process a migrant family after the family crossed the Rio Grande into the United States.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says his state shouldn’t have to provide free public schooling to undocumented students, despite a long-standing Supreme Court decision that says the opposite.
The high court’s Plyler v. Doe ruling of 1982 struck down a Texas law that did two things: It denied state funds for any students deemed not to have lawfully entered the U.S., and it allowed public school districts to deny admission to those children.
Abbott first made his remarks about the landmark education decision on Wednesday, in the aftermath of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Abbott said the court’s 1982 ruling had imposed an unfair burden on his state.
“I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different” from when the decision came down, Abbott said in an interview with conservative radio host Joe Pagliarulo.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the Texas legislation violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and would create a distinct underclass.
An advocacy group slams Abbott for his remarks
In response to Abbot’s remarks, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) — which filed the original case on behalf of four families whose children were denied a public education — sharply criticized the governor.
Abbott is seeking “to inflict by intention the harms that nine justices agreed should be avoided 40 years ago,” said Thomas Saenz, MALDEF’s president and general counsel, in a news release.
The 1982 decision was a 5-4 ruling, but the justices who dissented in the case did indeed say that it was “senseless for an enlightened society to deprive any children — including illegal aliens — of an elementary education.”
Their dissenting opinion, written by then-Chief Justice Warren Burger, said the court’s majority was overreaching to compensate for the lack of “effective leadership” from Congress on immigration.
Saenz also said that unlike Roe v. Wade, the Plyler v. Doe decision has been incorporated into federal law.
Migrants in La Joya, Texas, on Tuesday wait to be processed after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The governor predicts a coming influx of migrants
After his initial remarks, Abbott reiterated on Thursday that his state is in an untenable position.
“The Supreme Court has ruled states have no authority themselves to stop illegal immigration into the states,” Abbott said, according to The Texas Tribune. “However, after the Plyler decision they say, ‘Nevertheless, states have to come out of pocket to pay for the federal government’s failure to secure the border.’ So one or both of those decisions will have to go.”
Abbott said Texas’ challenges will get worse when the Biden administration ends the Trump-era public health order known as Title 42, which has barred migrants from the U.S. in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The shift will bring a new influx of immigrants, he said.
In that respect, the governor is echoing an argument his state made in the Plyler case 40 years ago. In that Supreme Court hearing, then-Texas Assistant Attorney General Richard Arnett said Texas was hoping to discourage immigrants from entering the state illegally.
“The problem is not the kids that are here,” he said. “The problem is the future.”
Gov. Abbott wants to ban unauthorized immigrants from Texas schools
Texas Attorney General and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott speaks against President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration at the Price Daniel Building in Austin, Texas, on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014.
Jay Janner, MBO / Associated Press
Gov. Greg Abbott wants to try to reinstate a 1975 Texas law withholding state funds from school districts for kids who were not “legally admitted” into the United States.
In an interview Wednesday on the Joe Pags radio show, Abbott said he would “ressurect” a legal challenge over the law, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1982.
“The challenges put on our public systems is extraordinary,” Abbott said, before referencing Plyler v. Doe, the ruling that overturned the Texas law. “I think that we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many years ago.”
In that case, the court ruled that “education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society,” and withholding it from the children of immigrants in the country without paperwork “does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice.” People living without documentation in the country remain people “in any ordinary sense of the term” and are thus entitled to the same basic rights as anyone else in the country.
The plaintiffs in the Plyler case, four families who lost access to education under the Texas law, were represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“Greg Abbott has once more distinguished himself as one of our most irresponsible and desperate politicians,” Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, said in a statement. The Plyler decision, he said, is firmly established by the court and has also been endorsed by Congress.
Republican-appointed justices now hold a strong majority on the court, and conservative elected officials like Abbott have been pressing the advantage to reshape federal policy. The governor’s remarks Wednesday came shortly after a draft Supreme Court opinion was leaked showing five of the nine justices ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group that studies migration globally, estimates there are 1.7 million people living in Texas without paperwork, including 116,000 enrolled in schools. The total student population is 5.4 million, so those without documentation make up roughly 2 percent.
During the interview Wednesday, Pags said there were a large number of children taking classes to learn English as a second language in his child’s school.
“You know that you’re not ethnocentric, neither am I, we love Latinos, we love everybody,” said Pags, who is conservative. “But we’re talking about public tax dollars, public property tax dollars, going to teach children who are 5, 6, 7, 10 years old who don’t even have remedial English skills. This is a real burden on communities.”
Public polling shows immigration and border security to be among the top policy priorities for Texans — particularly Republicans — and Abbott has made it a priority during his administration.
The state is pouring billions of dollars into border security and Operation Lone Star, where Texas National Guard troops are patrolling the border and apprehending immigrants and refugees. Abbott speaks frequently about the need to stop the influx of drugs into the country, though the amount of drugs apprehended at the border through the operation has been minimal, and critics have accused the governor of engaging in political theater without tangible policy objectives with the operation.
Abbott also has set up buses to transport migrants from Texas to Washington, a policy he promoted during theWednesday radio interview. The White House and some of the migrants themselves have thanked Abbott for the free cross-country ride, as many intended to go to Washington anyway or it will be easier for them to access services from there.
White House Press Secretary Jenn Psaki on Thursday called Abbott’s comments harmful. “We’re talking about – to just restate that – denying public education to kids, including immigrants to this country,” she said. “That is not a mainstream point of view.”
A spokeswoman for the governor did not respond to an email asking for more details about the governor’s Wednesday comments.
Rodolfo Rosales Jr., state director for the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens, said estimating the real number of people without documentation is difficult because they are often “living in the shadows” and avoiding any official record.
“I think that the governor is really out of touch and out of line, and I think his all out assault on people of color is just so blatant,” Rosales said. “These little immigrant children are not taking away from any other children in Texas schools.”
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