New data links anti-LGBT school bullying with health risks

http://feministing.com/2011/05/16/new-data-links-anti-lgbt-school-bullying-with-health-risks/
5/16/11
By Jos

Today the Family Acceptance Project announced new research linking high levels of anti-LGBT bullying in middle and high school with negative health and mental health outcomes in young adulthood, including depression, suicide attempts that require medical care, STDs and risk for HIV. This is the first study linking experiences of bullying during adolescence with a range of negative health outcomes later in life.

In a survey of LGBT young adults, those who reported high levels of LGBT school victimization during adolescence were 5.6 times more likely to report having attempted suicide, 5.6 times more likely to report a suicide attempt that required medical care, 2.6 times more likely to report clinical levels of depression, and more than twice as likely to have been diagnosed with an STD and to report risk for HIV infection, compared with peers who reported low levels of school victimization.

  I can attest to the non-LGBT bullying I had as a child in Elementary and Jr High.  I had a lot of sick days and sessions with a shrink.  I got some ribbing from the tough guys, but not the jocks in High School!  Some of those tough guys I found on the 'Deceased' list in my class website.   There was one transsexual in my high school class back in fall '69 who did cut off his testes before the start of the school year and he and his family had to move to another state.  When he came in to my class, he wore a dress and handed off his signout sheet to my teacher, whilst all of us in that cramped classroom went silent in shock.  My teacher could not look him in the eye.  I do not know what happened to him/her.  There was no talk of that incident since because of the shock value.  I called the kid a 'him' here due to the attitude of the people then. 
  Joelene

TW: suicide


Pretty much sums up elementary school, junior high, and high school for me. The joys of fundamental Christian schools. I most likely still would have had trouble growing up because of my family situation and the difficulties of coming to terms with my own orientation and trans identity, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if school hadn't have been run, funded and attended by bigots. Could have shaved a few suicide attempts off my adolescence.

Mikah,
  I am a christian and I do think most of those schools leaves much to be desired.  Especially those run by the Focus of the Family.  One of my co-workers was educated in a Catholic school.  He was even a cop and airport security head once.  When a couple of old nuns came in the shop, I had to attend to their needs because he was still afraid of them!  The power of a woman with a 12" piece of wood with the metal straight edge! 
  Back when I was in school, anybody that was even thought to be gay (a homo back then) got beaten within an inch if his life.  Sometimes his family had to move far away because of the induced shame.  There was a lot of that in the 60's. 
  Joelene

Quote from: Joelene9 on May 17, 2011, 01:14:35 AM
Mikah,
  I am a christian and I do think most of those schools leaves much to be desired.  Especially those run by the Focus of the Family.  One of my co-workers was educated in a Catholic school.  He was even a cop and airport security head once.  When a couple of old nuns came in the shop, I had to attend to their needs because he was still afraid of them!  The power of a woman with a 12" piece of wood with the metal straight edge! 
  Back when I was in school, anybody that was even thought to be gay (a homo back then) got beaten within an inch if his life.  Sometimes his family had to move far away because of the induced shame.  There was a lot of that in the 60's. 
  Joelene

I really hope my comment didn't come off as anti-Christian, I really am not. I have problems when some churches instilling bigotry and  some followers subscribing to it, and then some of those followers indoctrinating their children in bigotry. I had negative experiences growing up with my father as a pastor in the REC and from attending only private Christian schools, though not all are bad. I realize my own trials there were minuscule compared to the experiences of many others, especially in decades past. I am lucky to have inherited the benefits of the work of LGBT liberation movements past and present. However, over the years the internalized homophobia and transphobia did take a significant mental tole on me, as it does on many others. Mental abuse is also significant, though I am lucky to have never been a victim of LGBT related violence, and many others are not so lucky.

Most of the school systems on this rock are just terrible and true education is often the last thing on any of the minds of those running them.  This study does not surprise me at all as I have met a great many victims of the so called child bullying that does nothing so you should quote -man up- and get over it.  The schools of this world are just garbage and if I ever have kids there is no way in hell mine is going to one.

Also as a victim myself of extreme bullies within the system and their manipulating parents this study is waste of money to me because it was a large stinking DUH!