Study: 1 in 4 young Irish gays tried suicide

This article sites some disturbing statistics:

• One-quarter of young gay or bisexual men in Northern Ireland have attempted suicide
• 30 percent have self-harmed
• Over two-thirds of the respondents have considered suicide
  

Some will probably refute these statistics. Others may even suggest that the prevalence of suicide among gay teens is a myth.

Ask yourself: why would a teen or anyone else, for that matter, contemplate suicide?

Consider, for a moment, being gay and growing up in a homophobic society. Imagine that one day you go to school and discover that someone has scrawled FAG across your locker in huge letters with an indelible marker and drawn lines on all of the others with arrows pointing at you. You go to that locker six times a day, and each time more and more spectators congregate. Most of them stand around whispering to each other and stare at you as if you're a carnival geek and your life is some fucking sideshow. You hear some of them laugh.

What would you do? How would you feel?

I can tell you how I felt, because it happened to me. I felt awful, afraid and completely alone. I wanted to die.

You can sit there and argue about the statistics all day. You can lament the tragedy and even recriminate these boys and girls for their so-called "selfish acts". You can spew all sorts of platitudes, even the cliche that "suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems". But while you're sitting there trying to rationalize your prejudices and assuage your collective conscience, the world keeps spinning, and gay teens keep dying.


tags: homosexuality, homosexual, gay, suicide