How Trauma Increases Suicide Risk in LGBTQ+ Youth
Trevor Project.The study, “Trauma and Suicide Risk Among LGBTQ Youth,” used data from the Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, collected in an online survey conducted between September and December of last year of 33,993 LGBTQ+ youth recruited via targeted ads on social media.“Individual trauma happens when a physically or emotionally harmful or threatening event, or series of events, is experienced by a person and has lasting effects on their well-being,” the study explains. “Therefore, experiences of discrimination or physical threat or harm based on one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity may be experienced as individual trauma.
Trauma-related symptoms, such as hypervigilance and avoidance, may even be related to perceived covert discrimination and microaggressions.”“Research has consistently found that LGBTQ youth report increased experiences of trauma-related events compared to their straight, cisgender youth, often because they experience discrimination and victimization based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity that their peers do not. … Despite this, the relationship between trauma and suicide among LGBTQ youth has been understudied,” the document continues.Among the study's key findings are that LGBTQ+ youth who reported high levels of trauma symptoms had more than three times greater odds of attempting suicide in the past year compared to those with no, low, or moderate trauma symptoms.
