Doing Nothing is Not Okay

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Well-intended people often ignore LGBTQ issues based on moral grounds or apathy. That’s not okay. Inaction kills innocent people.

An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics looked at 35 studies involving 2.5 million adolescents. The results are a startling indictment of societal norms.

Compared to all adolescents, attempted suicide is 3.7 times higher among homosexual youths, 4.9 times higher among bisexual youths, and 5.9 times as higher among transexual youths (1).

A 2023 U.S. survey of 28,000 LGBTQ youths ages 13 to 24 found 41% had seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, 14% had attempted suicide, 56% of those wanting mental health care were unable to get it, and only 38% found home to be LGBTQ-affirming (2).

If those rates of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide existed in the general population, no one would find it okay. They’d actively change it.

Suicidality and low self-worth are not intrinsic to the young LGBTQ community; they are imposed by the action and inaction of others. The same survey confirmed appalling rates of bullying, discrimination, and assault on LGBTQ individuals.

Of LGBTQ youths who attempted suicide, 56% had been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy. It’s not okay to pummel someone with the notion they are fundamentally flawed or need to change the very nature of who they are. It’s another form of bullying and assault.

Even if you oppose the actions of LGBTQ individuals on moral grounds, you don’t have the right, by action or inaction, to impose a 4- to 5-fold increase in their risk of death. It’s not okay.

Just one example: suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people are substantially reduced simply by having access to a gender-neutral bathroom at school. How difficult is that to provide?

Doing nothing kills people. It’s not okay.

(1) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2704490.

(2) https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2023/.