There’s a Suicide Prevention Infrastructure Out There But We Keep Focusing on Tumblr Memorials
The memorials pile up on Tumblr in a long stream of emoji hearts and comments that range from sad to despondent to rage. Online, friends and community members draw cartoons that at first glance could be slash art from a movie or cult television show. When 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn killed herself in December 2014, she left behind a long record of harassment, loneliness, and suicidal ideation, culminating in a suicide note that received a hailstorm of media attention. Since then, two more trans-identified teens who have also taken their own lives have also gotten online and media attention: 15-year-old Zander Mahaffey, and just last week, 16-year-old Ash Haffner. In mid-February, 13-year-old Damien Strum posted a suicide note on Tumblr but a reader alerted police who showed up at his house. He is now in an inpatient psychiatric facility. Again, a cursory look at these cases belies a much larger problem—trans youth suicide is not a new development, drivers for suicide among trans youth are not well understood, and even acknowledging when a trans-identified youth is at risk for suicide is stubbornly difficult to achieve.
What is becoming clear through research and outreach is that trans youth are under great levels of stress, often without familial support for their gender identity, and with few trans-savvy resources to access in crisis. Kate Bornstein, a transgender activist and author of Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws, described the situation in terms of pressure from mainstream culture to reject their trans identity, and then pressure to conform to being either male or female from the trans community, leaving them with no place to take risks and explore their gender. “The pressure to be one or the other is too much,” said Bornstein. “And the likelihood that these teens have explored their gender identity one hundred percent is low.” Her advice to struggling trans youth: “You don’t have to follow the binary. If you feel you’re something else, go for it.”
Dr. Jody Herman, senior research fellow at the Williams Institute, an LGBT-focused think tank at the UCLA law school, described the trans youth suicide this way: “Even though [scientists] have been studying this question since 1965, we’re really just at the beginning stages of research.” Data are hard to come by, between the mis-labeling of deaths to a cause other than suicide, the erasure of a minor’s trans identity by unsupportive parents, and differences across the country in tracking suicide attempts. So far there are no data to show causal links to trans youth suicide, and according to Herman, no clear evidence as yet of which interventions are most effective in reducing suicide attempts for young adults. Meanwhile there are concerns among researchers about the “contagion effect” of widely publicized suicide deaths. “How we talk about these deaths matters,” says Herman.
If the solutions are unknown, the stressors seem more transparent. In a 2011 national survey of more than 7,500 transgender Americans,* 78 percent of respondents reported suffering harassment in primary and secondary school. Thirty-five percent reported they experienced physical assaults in school, and 15 percent said they left K-12 school or a higher education institution due to the harassment. These experiences correlated strongly with weak outcomes in mental health, employment, and a higher level of suicide attempts. Also apparent from this and other research are that the stressors are cumulative; if a teen is facing harassment, a lack of support from his or her parents, and drops out of school or runs away from home, their risk escalates for suicidal ideation, self-harm, and suicide attempts.
People in direct services to trans youth see these issues on a daily basis. Alysia Angel, the Youth Program Coordinator at the Q-Spot, an LGBT community center in Sacramento, California, says she works with 100-150 young people a week. “They face multiple pressures like homelessness and mental health issues. One young trans woman of color has been coming in for two years, telling me about her suicidal thoughts.” Angel says the young woman tells her “something in me stops me.” Angel’s approach is to remain in the present with her and be ready with a referral when needed. Ruby Corado, founder of Casa Ruby in Washington, DC, echoes Angel’s sentiment: “I try to stay positive and be a role model so they can see someone who has overcome obstacles.” But Corado notes that many organizations focused on trans youth support are underfunded and struggle to reach the individuals who are potentially most at risk of suicide, the ones who don’t take the initiative to find an organization like hers for help. Aryah Lester, a crisis hotline counselor in Miami Beach, Florida, echoes these concerns. “Acceptance, realization of self, and conservative ideals are the main concerns I’ve heard on calls. We encourage them to find strength within, and empower [them] to face their new life with assistance in their area or trustworthy friends and family.”
If a young adult doesn’t have a supportive family, that’s where Casa Ruby comes in, at least for trans youth in the DC area. “We become their family, their chosen family.” Herman’s research suggests that supportive families may have a buffer effect against suicide attempts. But reactions from family like the so-called conversion therapy may have the opposite effect of making teens feel invalidated and hopeless. Young trans people flock to the web for more information and connection, and also find a glorification of their dead peers, along with the message that suicide is their only option in an uncaring world. Front-line staff like Angel, Corado, and Lester and research leaders like Herman know that there is a patchwork infrastructure in place to help trans youth but it hasn’t gotten the same media attention as the deaths themselves. Corado would like to see that change. “Many [people] are coming in and finding help. But we need more resources to find them online.”
For more support: Trans Lifeline and The Trevor Project
* Grant, Jaime M., Lisa A. Mottet, Justin Tanis, Jack Harrison, Jody L. Herman, and Mara Keisling. Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Washington: National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2011.
