Young people in the LGBTQ community are four times more likely to attempt suicide than are other young people.
And nearly half of all transgender people have attempted suicide—many of them before age 25, says Kevin Wong, head of communication for The Trevor Project (thetrevorproject.org), the world’s largest LGBTQ suicide and crisis prevention organization.
The project’s experts train administrators, counselors, teachers and school staff to become more LGBTQ competent and to spot the risk factors for suicide, says Wong.
“It’s not being queer or lesbian or gay that makes these rates higher,” Wong says. “It’s all the rhetoric that goes with it—it could be family rejection or someone on TV talking negatively about the queer experience.”
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The project operates a 24-hour, LGBTQ-friendly crisis hotline. It also has a model suicide-prevention policy on its website and a report on recent policies enacted in California.
