Gay high school students at higher risk of suicide or rape, study finds

There is an estimated number of 1.3 million students, around 8% of the student population, who identify as LGBT in high schools across the US.

A study by the US Centres for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that gay high schools are at higher risk of suicide, rape, bullying and violence.

The study was conducted by Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at CDC, who said, “I found the numbers heartbreaking.”

Around 15,600 students ged between 14 and 17 took part in the study which revealed that 40% of the students asked had considered suicide.

Around 29% of them had attempted suicide in the last year. The students were three times more likely to have been raped than straight students or skip school because they don’t feel safe.

A third of them had been bullied at school and they were twice as likely to have been threatened or injured with a weapon at school.

Speaking to The New York Times Dr. Elizabeth Miller, the chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, said that:

“The intensity of homophobic attitudes and acceptance of gay-related victimisation, as well as the ongoing silence around adolescent sexuality, marginalises a whole group of young people.”

In This Article: