CSS-NYS Note: The columnist who wrote the below column seems to shrug off the fact that the Massachusetts survey (administered by the MA - Department of Education) was funded by the Center for Disease Control-Prevention, CDC-P (US Government), with oversight. He also fails to note the CDC-P survey results in Vermont (administered by the VT Health Department), were similar. These surveys are known as Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, YRBS. Both these surveys produce numbers of "attempted suicides". Thousands of students are surveyed in each state every two (2) years. NY State's YRBS encompasses 100 randomally selected school districts throughout the state. NYS does NOT include a question regarding "sexual orientation" or "sexual behavior". Therefore, there is not a data breakout for gay and non-gay, as is the case in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Anyone who analyses the data, especially the similarities, must wonder why NY State and all other States do not intergrate a "sexual orientation" question into the survey, as allowed?

Answer: FINDINGS NOT WANTED

Therein lies the problem, while children are suffering mental and physical terror, regardless of their sexual orientation.

DENVER POST, April 9, 2000
650 15th Street, Denver, CO, 80202
(Fax 303-820-1369 ) (E-MAIL: Letters@denverpost.com )
( http://www.denverpost.com )

Gay suicide studies flawed

By Al Knight, Denver Post Columnist

The next time that somebody claims gay and lesbian teenagers are committing suicide at (pick a number) three, five or seven times the rate of heterosexual youth, don't believe it.

Those claims, which have been widely used to help establish a number of schoolsponsored support groups for gay and lesbian teenagers, are long overdue for a closer examination.

The issue of suicide by gay and lesbian teenagers has been a topic of discussion for more than a dozen years now. Allegations about the frequency of suicide among this population group have figured prominently in discussions about public health and school programs, but the fact remains that there are simply no good national statistics on how serious the problem really is.

The shortage of facts hasn't stopped gay and lesbian groups from making a series of sensational claims based on limited studies.

Recent press accounts frequently recite the claim that homosexual youth are three times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to "attempt" suicide, and that the suicide rate among males is seven times as great for homosexual youth as for heterosexuals in the same age group.

There are several reasons why these claims should either be greatly discounted or rejected outright:

• They rely, for the most part, on limited, random surveys in Massachusetts and Minnesota, arguably the two most politically liberal states in the nation. Whatever else one can say about these surveys, they cannot serve as a valid basis for making claims about national suicide rates for anyone.
• No major national study has ever been done on successful teen suicides and, therefore, there are no reliable statistics on what percentage of these suicides involved gays or lesbians. Such a study would be difficult, if not impossible, to complete. What has been studied is no more than "teen attitudes toward suicide." In Massachusetts, for example, the state department of education reported in 1997 that there had been 26 teen suicides in 1996. It made no attempt to determine which of those may have involved gay and lesbian youth. Instead, it surveyed students in randomly selected high schools and asked a variety of questions about sexual orientation and about thoughts of suicide, among other topics.

A Minnesota study based on interviews with a couple hundred self-identified gay and lesbian teenagers found that about twice as many gay teens as heterosexuals "attempted" suicide. Among lesbians, the rate was slightly more than 20 percent compared to 15 percent for heterosexual females. These relatively small statistical differences caused researchers to be quite cautious, concluding only that "there is evidence of a strong association between suicide and bisexuality or homosexuality in males.

The widespread misuse of these limited studies by the news media is clearly part of an exercise in political victimization. If it can be shown that this particular group, based on sexual orientation, suffers stress disproportionately, then it follows that this group is in need of special attention. It is noteworthy that something like this rationale has now been used in a variety of school districts to justify formation of special gay and lesbian school clubs intended to serve as support groups for "at-risk youth."

What should no longer be in dispute is that the claims of elevated suicide rates among gay and lesbian youth have been wildly exaggerated and should finally be questioned by responsible public officials.

Al Knight is a Denver Post columnist and editorial writer.

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