Lil Nas X was awarded the inaugural Suicide Prevention Advocate of the Year Award in September from the advocacy group The Trevor Project.
Photo: The Trevor Project. One may think of trauma as something related to a physical attack or a car accident. But discrimination can be traumatic too.
LGBTQ+ youth experience higher levels of trauma than their straight and cisgender peers — and that’s associated with a heightened risk of suicide attempts, notes a new study from the 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,” according to the study. “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.