The Center for Homicide Research keeps tabs on incidents of suicide. This may seem antithetical, but in the world of criminology, the two acts are linked. Homicide and suicide are both examples of lethal violence.
Linking homicide and suicide is not new. At the end of the 19th century, Emile Durkheim argued that the urge to commit either suicide or homicide comes from the same source. Some modern psychologists agree; people who take their own lives and offenders of homicide frequently display similar psychological states when they commit their acts of aggression -- both groups are generally without hope and clinically depressed. The difference? Homicide is aggression focused outward and suicide is that same aggression focused inward.
Researchers and theorists in many fields are actively debating what causes one person to commit homicide and another to commit suicide. Evidence suggests that money might have something to do with it. The richer a country or neighborhood, the more likely the people living there are to commit suicide rather than homicide. Others have argued the motive is cultural. Currently, there are no solid conclusions.
What is known is that people who are not miserable rarely commit lethal violence. That's what the It Gets Better campaign, The Trevor Project, and the push to end school bullying are all about. These efforts try to make teenage members of the LGBTQ community a little less depressed give them a little more hope.
I agree with the spirit of these initiatives and think they are a step in the right direction. However, they don't go nearly far enough. Suicide isn't only a problem for gay teenagers. Gay men, lesbians, and members of the transgender community of all ages attempt suicide at a much higher frequency than heterosexuals; it doesn't seem to magically get better after high school diplomas are handed out.
The increased rate of depression for people in our community is understandable; I don't think I'm breaking any ground by pointing out that society treats the LGBTQ population incredibly poorly. We grow up hearing that we are abominations/wrong/confused/inferior/genetic abnormalities -- none of this is easy on the ol' psyche. On top of that, as a community we're engaged in a battle to prove that old belief systems are wrong and have to change. It's a Herculean task, and some people succumb to the negativity that surrounds it.
That said, Durkheim had other ideas about suicide that are relevant to suicide among the LGBTQ community. One of them, "groups with low social status and integration who are denied society's usual privilege and rights are at risk for alienation and suicide unless protected by internal cohesion, religion or anti-suicide norms," highlights one potential, suicide-prevention area LGBTQ folk are pretty much ignoring. We're terrible at the whole "internal cohesion" thing.
I know I'm not so supposed to mention this for fear that I might be misquoted by social conservatives, but queer people are frequently and impressively mean to one another.
A few examples: the fact that racism within the LGBTQ community has been well documented; the fact that the isolation that LGBTQ people often feel in rural communities is frequently ignored or belittled ("Why don't they just move to cities?"); the volume of homeless LGBTQ youth that we leave to fend for themselves; the fact that the rights of transgender citizens have been sacrificed so that gay men and lesbians can gain their rights first; the fact that to fit a rigid and rather unrealistic body image, gay men have a higher prevalence of eating disorders than their heterosexual counterparts; and the fact, according to some, that it's the upper-middle-class, white men who dictate what is important to the LGBTQ community.
As a result, instead of coming out to a community who finally accepts them, some people find themselves still outcasts, still told that who they are isn't quite right. For them, it may never get better. Again, this is hard on the ol' psyche.
These issues get brought up on occasion, but they are rarely acted upon in a meaningful way by leaders of the LGBTQ community. I believe that by ignoring our lack of internal cohesion and constantly blaming all of our unhappiness on other people, we are missing the opportunity to decrease incidents of suicide in our community.
It's time to own up to our community's imperfections and actually change them. So, yes, it's important to let queer youth know it gets better, but it's more important to make sure that we mean it.
Follow Phillip M. Miner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PhillipMiner
Because it's dangerous and counterproductive to cut yourself from society as a whole only to live with people "just like you" and also because those persons aren't just like you.
Being queer is just a part of who I am, and it's certainly not the way I think of me. It doesn't make the list of the 15 first adjectives I would use to describe myself.
LGBTPA people are not an entity. There are a lot of people indentifying as one of those I have met and I couldn't stand, just as I've met straight people I couldn't stand, and others I have liked.
LGBTPA people shouldn't be the only ones responsible to take care of "our own". Because "my own" are also people with green eyes, people with a jewish mother, people who like history, people who listen to repetitive music, people who read more than 50 books a year, people who hate running, and so on.
There is no "LGBT community". There is society, and it's society as a whole who has to be educated. It's no point in the "community" evolving on certain issues if the rest just stays put.
And we shouldn't just pay attention to the problems of "our own people". A queer homeless teenager should het help, so should every homeless teenager.
Communitarism is dangerous. As human, we are part of whole. As human, we have to be treated as such.
When I was growing up, gays were hated. We were illegal. We were isolated. We were bullied. We were disowned. We were in poverty. We clung together because no one else would have us, because society lumped us together, because we needed support. And that was okay for awhile.
But it isn't community.
I really have no idea what you're talking about. I've been out (and proud) for 42 years, and I have never, ever seen a "gay community." Sure, my partner and I have a few gay friends. And we have a lot of straight friends. You may be talking about a large gathering of young people in a big city somewhere, but the rest of us--and in fact all the people in our small city--are just living our lives, doing the things everyone else does.
Please don't go accusing me of intolerance and racism when you don't even know me. Or my friends.
All of use are in the same fight against ignorance, religious bigotry, straight and cis privilege, and rigid, arbitrary gender roles. Divided, we're doing our opponents' work for them.
I hope you'll repost, Jerry. Your voice -- all our voices are important here.
Too many people think that once you come out that everyone in the lgbtq community is this great big supportive community. Infact, we have a large segment of our community that is highly supportive and positive, but we like the society as a whole also have biggots, social-economic discrimnators, racist and just plain arrogant people. The point of this article as I see it, is to point out to those who are willing to read it or try to understand it that there is work to do if we truly want to be a positive and encompassing community. Take off the rose colored glasses put aside any assumed slights you think may be pointed at you.
For me it is important for self inspection and outward reaction to make not only the lgbtq community a better place for all but as well that it may rub off into the community of humanity,
I think it’s more important to educate the entire society that orientation is on a continuum. That all human beings have a wide range of feelings and relationships in life that are poorly defined by the crude labels of gay and straight.
We have a huge glaring falsehood in this culture that 93% percent of the population is flawlessly heterosexual and 7% is strictly homosexual (like they're aliens from another planet). This kind of misrepresentation and oversimplification of orientation damages the mental health of all Americans. To me this helps to illustrate a gift that the "gay community" has to offer to the greater community. That gift is freedom from restrictive, unrealistic roles of what a male and female can be in this society.
The sometimes desperate ways that human beings try to meet these narrow roles causes enormous dysfunction, stress, resentment, arrogance, and unfortunately...suicide. Unwise, unconscious, judgmental people and organizations that abound in human society foster and maintain these artificial notions of what moral behavior is without considering the real harm done.
My father once told me that women civilize men and it seems to me that gay men are a bit uncivilized in that they do not have someone around to temper their impulsivity. They seem at greater risk for drug dependency, sexually transmitted disease, and domestic problems than their lesbian counterparts. At times, it seems the only thing we have in common is that we are queer.
I know you say that the gay community compromised the trans community by getting our rights first and it's true. I always thought that lesbians would have no problem getting equality if we didn't have to wait for the world to accept our gay brothers. I think it's important that we stick together but the reality is that those ties are weak at best because the only thing we seem to have in common is our queerness.
I'm trying to do a research project on in-group stereotypes for the LGBTQ community. This statement is a perfect example of why we need research like this. Honestly, it's meant to help us understand how we put obstacles up for ourselves. I am personally offended by that comment. I'm not sure about the drug dependency issue. As far as STD rates go, I think it's true that gay men are a higher risk because anal sex (heterosexual or homosexual) is more risky than any other type of sex. Also, I think I read somewhere that men have a higher chance of infecting their partner than women because of semen, so two men means a lot worse than two women. Domestic problems, again, I don't know whether that's true or not. But please, don't generalize us as uncivilized. I've met my fair share of uncivilized gay men, but there are others that aren't. Let's just try to do this all together !
Just because we all have our 'queerness' in common, that doesn't disappear some of our other differences. As a person of color who happens to identify as queer-one who lives in a college town where most of my queer peers are white- I get it.
While I have a number of hetero identified colleagues and friends, I spend the vast majority of my time with my queer identified peeps many of whom are lesbian identified. There are many times when I am the only 'guy' that is allowed into the circle of women and I find that there are times when I have more fun in those settings than I do while hanging with my guy friends.
It's unfortunate that this has been your experience but it's equally if not more problematic for you to denigrate an entire group of folk based on your inability to click with those around you.
I was tormented for half of high school, and that stopped when, frankly, I got bigger than them. lol
But after high school I was in for a big surprise. Isolation.
I'm just speaking from personal experience, but every time I hear "lgbtq community" I giggle at best, or feel ambivalent at worst. I simply don't feel included in what should be my community.
There are constant messages even on gay run XM stations that people like me, bisexuals, don't exist, are lying, can't come out of the closet, etc.
Not to mention misogynistic/anti Lesbian comments coming from gay men, stereotypes by lesbians, etc, and I must say the way the Transgender community is treated by everyone is absolutely appalling, and all, seems to me, based on ideas of heteronormativity, even though, supposedly, we don't think along those lines.
I'm not a certain percentage gay, not a certain percentage straight, but I am 100% bisexual and sick of having to explain, defend, and answer intimate details about my sexual habits simply because people think they're entitled because, in the simplest terms, I'm "not like them."
Thank you Phillip.
Ever hear this joke? "He's 20 years old --- that's 40 in gay years."
It's funny until you reach about 30 ... me, I'm 60. You do the math in gay years ...
I dated someone much younger than me. He was very nice, but after a while, I got tired of answering questions like:
"Who was Patsy Cline?"
"Why does everyone hate Richard Nixon?"
"Pizza or McDonald's?"
After a while, I said to myself, "You know, Rocky, you've raised your kids. You don't have the energy to educate another one."
Anyway, I wish you nothing but the best and hope you find a gamer who is a mirror reflection of yourself, which is what it sounds like you're looking for.
P.S. "30-" is "60 minus" in gay years, so I'm told. And everybody becomes "old wrinkly" eventually. If they're lucky. Hopefully, you'll live long enough to experience it.
When you hit 40, you *might* have enough depth and substance to be interesting, but your up-yourself attitude doesn't bode well for your personal development. But time will take care of that.
Of course, life can have some cruel ironies and you might just end up being one of those creepy old guys hitting up on young things because you haven't quite got it through your head you're no longer one of them.