Same-Sex Attraction Does Not Increase Suicide Risk…

Zhao, Y., Montoro, R., Igartua, K., & Thombs, B. (2010). Suicidal Ideation and Attempt Among Adolescents Reporting “Unsure” Sexual Identity or Heterosexual Identity Plus Same-Sex Attraction or Behavior: Forgotten Groups? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 49 (2), 104-113

http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(09)00016-1/abstract

If I haven’t mentioned it already on this blog, the Australian government is currently undertaking a broad-ranging inquiry into suicide (see link, below). As is the Australian way, government directly funds most of the parties it then calls to give evidence at these inquiries, so what you end up with is a resounding chorus that we are doing a jolly good job but we could do even better. An actual evidence base for suicide prevention in Australia is sorely lacking, trounced by ideological and religious dogma that makes a big song and dance about how great we are to be trying to save the lives of suicidal people. In such a dumbed-down, go-nowhere culture, facts are scarce and grandiose assumptions, aplenty.

One of the richest grapes on the vine is that gay men, that is, young gay men, are at exponentially higher risk of attempting suicide than their straight counterparts. In the papers flowing from the aforementioned inquiry, I think I read the staggering figures of 1100 to 1800 per cent higher. I have been guilty of making such huge claims myself, citing aggregated evidence that probably suffers for that common mistake of forgetting to divide the total. I jest, sort of. Misuse of mental disorder prevalence rates by those pushers in Australia who want us all on big meds means that by 2020 the entire population will be utterly mad. I smell a similar rat with the gay=suicide equation. For example, it has become en vogue even for gay rights advocates to push the line that GLBTI people are highly vulnerable to mental disorder, substance misuse, and suicide.

And here, in this article by Zhao et al. (2010) (see link, above), the authors state that while GLB youth are at greater risk of thinking about or attempting suicide than their non-same-sex attracted counterparts, it was not the same-sex attraction that led to this elevated risk (p.112). Confirming what I have long suspected, it was something else, perhaps homophobia (p.111). Gay hating fundamentalist Christians champion the perverse view that the reported higher suicide attempt and completion rates among GLBTI people demonstrate compelling evidence that GLBTI people are fully sick. We are not and that so-called ‘evidence’ either stinks or is scabbily misquoted. We need more research of the type conducted by Zhao et al. (2010) to counter the mountain of crap that has been building up on this issue in recent years.

One more point: the authors are keen as mustard to encourage people ‘not to oversimplify sexual identity’ (p.105). I would agree with that.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/clac_ctte/suicide/index.htm

Update: I stumbled across this report (see link, below), from Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA), which highlights the inherent dangers when mythology seeps into what people might foolishly consider to be, ‘the evidence base’. Although admitting at the outset and at several other points besides that we don’t really know that much about the links between homosexuality and suicide, on p.4 comes the big statement that…

‘…not all of the risk factors experienced by SSA and transgender people may necessarily be related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity‘.

Not all? In fact, none are, and to conjecture in the absence of any hard evidence that we might veer towards assuming a non-reality is to give away the ideological bent of SPA, ergo, most of the suicide prevention industry in Australia. That is, an industry propelled by fundamentalist Christians.

Suicide and Self-Harm Among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Communities