Young gay people whose parents or guardians responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news, according to a new study.
You can read the full story here.
One mother described in the article shows hope for educating parents:
[Researcher Caitlin] Ryan recalled a teenage girl whose mother forced her to date a boy and sent her to live with her grandmother when she learned her daughter was a lesbian. After hearing about the connection between parental attitudes and suicide, the mother stopped arranging the dates with the boy and instead inquired about her daughter's girlfriend.
"She was really concerned," Ryan said. "She saw that her daughter had become increasingly withdrawn and that she was contributing to these feelings of isolation and sadness."
Along with the studies showing that anti-gay political campaigns like Prop 8 create mental health problems for gay people, this study sounds like a no-brainer. Of course hostile parents make gay kids feel rejected! But hostile parents don't necessarily think of themselves as being hostile. They want what's best for their children, they want their kids to be happy -- and being gay strikes few as being for the best or a good chance for happiness. That seems reasonable. Only, thwarting gay kids does not make them less gay, it makes them less happy, even desperate.
Here are some more excerpts:
The way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth's sexual orientation profoundly influences the child's mental health as an adult, say researchers at San Francisco State University, whose findings appear in Monday's journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Among other findings, the study showed that teens who experienced negative feedback were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.
More significantly, Ryan said, ongoing work at San Francisco State suggests that parents who take even baby steps to respond with equanimity instead of rejection can dramatically improve a gay youth's mental health outlook.
One of the most startling findings was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents in terms of negative feedback, Ryan said.
Consistent with other studies, the youths in Ryan's study were on average under 11 years old when they first experienced a same-sex attraction, were just over 14 when they realized they were gay and came out to their families before they had turned 16.
Doctors, in a misguided attempt to comfort parents, may tell them a child who isn't sexually active couldn't know if he were gay or not, Ryan said.
"When providers and adults and family members think of gay people, they think of sex. They don't think of emotional attraction or social interaction or spiritual connectedness or deep-rooted psychological feelings," she said.
"The Southern Baptist doesn't have to become a Unitarian," [Sten Vermund, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician] said. "Someone can still be uncomfortable with their child's sexual orientation, but if they are somewhat more accepting and do the best the can, they will do the youth a lot of good. That to me is an important message."