Study: GLBT Youth At Much Higher Risk than Straights for Homelessness

Being gay and young turn out to be two major risk factors for homelessness, a new study shows, MidDay.com reported on July 25.

The study, conducted by Children's Hospital in Boston, found that 15% of GLBT teens are homeless. By comparison, only 3% of heterosexual teens are in similar straits. The American Journal of Public Health published the study on July 21.

"The study is the first to quantify the risk of homelessness among teens of different sexual orientations with population-based data," MidDay.com said of the study, which analyzed homelessness among youth in Massachusetts. "Less than 5 percent of students overall identified themselves as GLB, yet they accounted for 19 percent of those who identified themselves as homeless."

The study also looked at teens who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, MSM ("Men who have Sex with Men," self-identified heterosexuals who nonetheless have sex with people of the same gender), and exclusively heterosexual teens, and found that the rates of homelessness were similar among all groups except for heterosexuals.

The study's lead author, Heather Corliss, offered an interpretation for the troubling results.

"This suggests that they may be more likely to be mistreated or rejected by their families and more likely to leave home," Corliss said.

The issue of how GLBT youth fare in the social context of school, where many sexual minorities face harassment and bullying, has been a focus over the last year, following a rash of gay teen suicides that were covered in the mainstream media. That coverage has woken America up to the fact the young sexual minorities, and straight teens perceived as gay, are at risk for suicidal conduct as a result of being bullied, harassed, and mistreated by peers and, sometimes, school staff.

But the implications of a wider social rejection of gays -- even in the midst of rapidly rising social acceptance -- are only now emerging. A March, 2010, study in the American Journal of Public Health determined that the mental health of gays suffers when the social and political climate subjects them to the intense scrutiny, extreme hostility, and wild mischaracterizations of who they are and how they live that are part and parcel of campaigns to pass anti-gay ballot initiatives.

That study's results were confirmed by a study published earlier this year, "Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations." The report shows that GLBTs who live in states where their rights are denied or are subject to popular vote suffer elevated instances of anxiety and depression, along with the kinds of substance abuse problems that are known to stem from those mental states.

A study published earlier this year in the health journal Pediatrics showed that gay youth in conservative regions were up to five times more likely to engage in suicidal behavior than straight teens. One case in point is the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota -- which lies in the district represented by Congresswoman and anti-gay politician Michele Bachmann.

Nine students in the school district have killed themselves in the last two years, with a number of others having attempted suicide, noted a July 25 Mother Jones Magazine article. Teen suicide is so prevalent in the Anoka-Hennepin School District that health authorities in the state have labeled it a "suicide contagion area," Mother Jones reported.

Deep-seated distress can affect the developing brains of young people, according to the work of another Boston-based researcher, Dr. Martin Teicher, who has used imaging technology to pinpoint neurological changes in teens who have experienced bullying and harassment.

Bullied teens and those with histories of sexual and other forms of abuse also share elevated risks for self-destructive behavior, including drug use and suicidal conduct. Familial rejection can also play a role in such conduct, which might then invite further rejection and alienation.

But for gay teens specifically, the risk of family rejection -- up to and including being tossed out of the family home -- are significantly higher than for heterosexual teens.