Friday, May 29, 2015






LGBT Issues in Adolescence: Bullying and Suicide
Jared Smith (Honey Badgers)
Adolescent Sexuality (T-Th 9:35-10:55)
The Ohio State University











Abstract
            The purpose of this project was to take a real life interview of someone on the LGBT spectrum and see how their personal life experiences matched up with the experiences we had learned about in class, through looking at the results of empirical studies.  My group then divided what were deemed “LGBT Adolescent Issues” into different categories.  The category I was given to research was Bullying and Suicide.  After having a one-on-one interview with a man on the LGBT spectrum regarding his adolescent experiences with bullying and suicide, I then conducted a side by side comparison of what my Interviewee said versus what our class literature had said.  I also used the presentation as an opportunity to raise suicide and bullying awareness, through the use of ant-bullying and anti-suicide campaigns.  Many of the campaigns I chose were marketed directly at LGBT youth.
My Interviewee
            For my interview I chose to use a 26 y/o gay male (Male by gender and biology). The Interviewee, from now on referred to as “S” was white, and self-identified as Appalachian. S had grown up and gone to school in low SES conditions. S is currently still in academia, seeking his doctoral degree in Psychology, in Dayton, Ohio.
My Interview
The interview was collected in a very casual atmosphere over lunch, in a quiet restaurant where S was comfortable talking about personal information.  The data was collected using a set of interview questions I had written, which were then approved by my group.  The questions ranged from demographic in nature, to personal experience, to opinion of other data.  Before interview took place I disclosed to my interviewee the purpose of the interview, and assured him anonymity.  Upon finishing the interview anonymity was again discussed, and S was given the opportunity for clarification, or to ask any remaining questions he had about the presentation. S was not compensated for interview.
                                                                      Results of Interview
            The interview questionnaire was focused on first gathering demographic information followed by a series of questions related to bullying and suicide.  The demographic portion found that S had a relatively young age of first contact at 11 years of age. His age of first suspicion of non-heterosexual gender identification was age 10, a year before his first contact.  First contact took place with a slightly younger peer.  The encounter did not involve intercourse but did involve oral sex.  First contact was Male-Male though S reported he had had two different Male-Female sexual encounters later in life.  S reported that his sexual identity in high school was confusing to him, and that he didn’t confidently begin identifying himself as gay until after he was 22 years of age.
            The bullying component of the interview consisted of personal experience questions, and opinion questions about other bullying research.  S reported very little peer bullying, but did report some family bullying from an older brother. The bullying in either case he felt was unrelated to his sexual orientation “I didn’t identify as gay at the time and I’m not an obvious gay”. S did however know of one openly gay male in his high school and reported that he was bullied.  “They called him names, the bullying never turned physical that I know of. I didn’t really know him nor did I know those who bullied him”. S said this bullying was the result of “Appalachian culture”.  A question from the opinion portion of the interview reads “A 2010 study conducted by the Trevor project shows that LGBT teens are 3 times more likely (at 22%) to report not feeling safe in their school than their heterosexual counterparts. Do these data surprise you? What do you think accounts for the discrepancy between LGBT youth and heterosexual youth? S was not at all surprised by the data presented. S reasoned that the discrepancy was related to the culture we live in being heteronormative in design.
            The suicide portion of the interview was conducted similarly to the bullying portion; containing both personal experience as well as research prompted opinion questions.  S had gone through suicidal episodes as an adolescent. S described these episodes as mild, stating that they were mild because he never had a serious plan or inflicted self-harm.  Rather that he just had bouts of wishing he was no longer alive.  S feels that his high school suicidality was not related to his sexuality, as he didn’t identify as gay in high school.  He added the caveat, “at least they weren’t consciously related”.  His suicidality was more related to “teen issues” and family troubles.  He says that there was also an overall fear that he would be trapped in a small town for the rest of his life.  For the opinion portion I posed the following question: The Suicide Prevention Resource Center estimates that between 30-40% of LGBT teens have attempted suicide. Do these data surprise you? Why or why not? What would you estimate the attempted suicide rate for heterosexual teens to be? What can be done to decrease bullying and suicidality in teens? Again S was not at all surprised by the data.  S once again relate the high rate of suicide attempts to heteronormative society, but this time also added in he felt that homophobic school environment and lack of education was also a big part. He estimated the amount of suicidal heterosexual students to be around 18% which was much higher than the actual statistic, 7%.  As for solving the problem of teen suicide he felt that teachers needed to be more involved with the issue and that there wasn’t enough education happening on both the bullying end and the sexual education end of the equation.  He felt that stronger anti-bullying alongside better sexual education for non-heterosexual teens could lead to a lower suicide rate.
Class Data versus Project Data
            This project turned up a lot of data which was easily matched up with data we learned in class. This data will be divided into sections data which was congruent with class data and data which was not.
Incongruent data
            My subject varied from average data in that his age of first contact was lower than average.  Age of first romantic contact according to class data is 13 years of age; S at 11 was much younger.  Furthermore of the 9% of males who do engage in intercourse before 13 most do so with an older partner, both the experience of first contact and first intercourse occurred with a younger same sex peer, in the case of S. A statistic turned up by the Trevor project is that 9/10 LGBT kids report some type of bullying, yet S reported no significant school bullying. Finally the California Quality of Life Survey found that over half of gay men confidently identified their sexual identity between the ages of 14-19, S placed above this average by not confidently identifying until 22.
Congruent data
            In class we learned that only about 3% of males self-identify as gay (Savin-Willaims & Ream 2007) this seemed congruent with S’s high school in that there was only 1 openly gay student he was aware of.  This experience illustrates the vast minority of 3%. S also reported that until college all of his same-sex encounters were with peers who were self-identified as heterosexual peers.  In my human sexuality class we learned that the Kinsey report found more than 1/3 of men, had achieved orgasm via male-male interaction.  This accounts for the discrepancy for number of S’s adolescent sex partners and number of self-identified homosexuals in the school. The data was also congruent when looking at sexual confusion.  (Ramefeti) found that uncertainty about sexuality is not uncommon for adolescents. S reported not to be sure of his sexual identity until 22, and while that still places him above average for Ramefeti’s study, it still shows congruence with the commonality of orientation confusion amongst adolescents.
Limitations
            It should be noted that because only one interviewee was used for this project there were bound to be discrepancies amongst research.  It should be observed that the likelihood of any one individual fitting in perfectly amongst average data is unlikely.  If more subjects had been used the data incongruences would likely have sorted themselves out, resulting in average consistent data.
Works Cited
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Additional information regarding lesbian, gay and bisexual suicide. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Valentine, T. K. (2013, October). Interview by J Smith []. Bullying and suicide in lgbt teens.
FCKH8.org. (Producer). (2010, December 05). Fck BULLIES by FCKH8.com [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjFafCR6FOI
Ke$ha. (Producer). It Gets Better: Ke$ha [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.itgetsbetter.org/video/entry/DV4EmSviDfQ
Frog, K. T. (Producer). Kermit The Frog's It Gets Better Video [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.itgetsbetter.org/
Suicide Prevention Resource Center. (2008). Suicide risk and prevention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.Newton, MA: Education Development Center, Inc.
MontemayorDr. Raymond (09/13-11/13Class NotesAdolescent Sexuality. The Ohio State University, Columbus OH
Cravens-Brown, Dr. Lisa (09/13-11/13Class NotesHuman Sexuality. The Ohio State University, Columbus OH







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