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.
Montemayor, Dr. Raymond (09/13-11/13. Class
Notes. Adolescent Sexuality. The Ohio State
University, Columbus OH.
Cravens-Brown, Dr. Lisa (09/13-11/13. Class
Notes. Human Sexuality. The Ohio State University, Columbus
OH.
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