Family Response Linked to GLBT Life Patterns

According to a new study conducted by researchers at San Francisco State University, gay youth, who have parents or guardians that respond negatively when the youth reveal their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and turn to drug use than those who have families that accept their sexuality. The findings appeared in Monday’s journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The research concludes that the way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth’s sexual orientation greatly influences the child’s mental health on into adulthood.

Caitlin Ryan, the lead researcher and a social worker who directs the university’s Family Acceptance Project stated;

“Parents love their children and want the best for them. Now that we have measured all these behaviors, we can see that some of them put youth at extremely high risk and others are wellness-promoting.”

The study clearly demonstrated that teens who experienced negative reactions from family when coming out were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.

According to Ryan, one of the most startling findings of the research was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents.

53 families with gay teenagers were studied in the first part of the two-part endeavor, to identify 106 specific behaviors that could be considered “accepting” or “rejecting.” Examples include blaming a youth for being bullied at school, shielding him from other relatives or belittling her appearance for not conforming to social expectations fell into the rejecting category.

In the second part of the study, the researchers surveyed 224 white and Latino gay people between ages 21 and 25 to see which of the behaviors they had experienced growing up. The responses then were matched against the participants’ recent histories of severe depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and unsafe sexual behavior.

While the results might seem intuitive, Ryan said the study, funded by the California Endowment, was the first to establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.