Survey: Anti-LGBTQ legislation takes alarming mental-health toll on queer youth
Across the U.S., anti-LGBTQ legislation — and especially anti-trans legislation — is limiting queer youth’s access to everything from bathrooms to gender-affirming surgery. A new national survey from the Trevor Project paints a stark picture of the mental-health toll of these forces: LGBTQ youth consider and attempt suicide at alarmingly high rates, and nearly one-third say their mental health was poor “most of the time or always” due to anti-LGBTQ policies and legislation.
“LGBTQ young people are not inherently prone to increased suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity, but rather they are placed at higher risk because of the mistreatment and stigmatization that they experience in society,” said Ronita Rath, the Trevor Project’s vice president of research.
