Worried mostly about non-accepting families and school bullying, only 37% of queer youth in the U.S. consider themselves happy while 67% of straight teens say they are, according to a study released by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights organization in America. HRC interviewed 10,000 self-identified queer teens aged 13-17 for its ‘Growing up LGBT in America’ survey. Here is a sampling of some of the comments from those surveyed:
‘It makes me afraid to walk around knowing there are people in my hometown that hate me and people like me." — "I want to be able to go to school without being called a faggot and a dyke bitch." — "It’s hard. Very hard. My own best friend doesn’t know about the real me & I’m scared to tell her because it might ruin our friendship."
HRC President Chad Griffin calls the poll results an urgent call to action. ‘Growing up in small-town Arkansas, I remember what it’s like to not know a single other gay person,’ Griffin says. ‘Now I think about the LGBT youth that lie awake and stare at the ceiling for hours, dreading the next day at school or worrying that their parents will reject them.’
Griffin says that in addition to worries about the future, the pressure of school, and stress of peer relationships that all teens face, LGBT youth have the additional burden of statistically being twice as likely to be harassed as their straight peers.
Among the report’s key findings: Over one-half of queer teens (54%) say they have been verbally harassed and called names involving anti-gay slurs. Nearly half of queer teens (47%) say they do not ‘fit in’ in their community while only 16% of non-LGBT youth feel that way.
67% of straight youth describe themselves as happy but this number drops to 37% among LGBT young people. 83% of LGBT youth believe they will be happy eventually, but only 49% believe they can be happy if they stay in the same city or town. 6 in 10 LGBT youth say their family is accepting of LGBT people, while a third say their family is not.
92% say they hear negative messages about being LGBT – 60% say those messages come from politicians. Griffin says politicians need to see and understand the poll’s results and know how their words and actions are affecting kids. He is encouraging people to send the poll results to elected officials.
‘It doesn’t help when politicians drag their heels on important legislation or make uneducated comments about bullying – but our allies in Congress and statehouses around the country need these facts to bolster their case for progress, too,’ Griffin says.
HRC says the report is the first in a series of efforts to analyse the landscape for LGBT youth. Over the next several months, HRC will be providing additional analysis that will provide a better understanding of the unique experiences of specific groups of youth such as transgender youth, different races, and religious traditions.
Via Gay Star News
