Grace & Peace!
If social pressure were the chief reason for suicides among homosexuals, a reasonable person would expect the response to partial acceptance of homosexuality to be** partial** relief from pressures leading to suicide. The fact that suicide rates have not dropped supports Prodigal’s point. The fact that acceptance of homosexuality has not become universal is not a sufficient reason to ignore the failure of suicide rates to come down.
This isn’t necessarily the case. Homosexuality is much more public these days, and both public vocal approval and disapproval are commensurately increased. This means that young gay folks coming to terms with their sexuality are experiencing a lot more pressure from both sides to define themselves in particular ways that can be incredibly confusing.
On the one hand, the “approval” camp insists on a vision of what it means to be gay that places a heavy value on unquestionably accepting your “self” and being publically out in a way that resonates with a lot of images of homosexuality on television, which images are often: white, male, affluent. If you’re not white, male and affluent, but you are gay, you’re going to have some issues fitting into the image of homosexuality that’s offered by many approving folks (including the often culutrally-reinforced suspicion that only white folks are gay and that, should you be Latino, for instance, you’ll be inauthentically Latino if you’re authentically gay). Moreover if you’re not sure of the drift of your affections, you’re still going to be pressured to publicly and definitively define yourself in ways that might not be helpful in the long run. The message “trust your feelings” has a limited value generally, though the approval camp sees it as having more of an absolute value. But when everything’s in flux (as it tends to be when you’re young), “trust your feelings” isn’t as universally helpful as some might blithely think and isn’t always indicative of or conducive towards the self-knowledge required to actually be comfortable with your homosexuality, either in public or in private. So living up to all of that pressure to be out and open and to live into a white-washed image of what it means to be gay can be a lot to handle.
On the other hand, the “disapproval” camp will let you know in no uncertain terms that being attracted to folks of the same sex represents varying degrees of physical, mental, or moral illness/disorder. If this is the perspective of your home OR of your peer group OR of your larger community OR of anyone you love, respect or admire (and from whom you might seek approval), to suspect that you might in fact be gay means living into a vision of yourself that is overwhelmingly negative: you cannot help but be fundamentally wrong. You’ll find yourself blamed for the dissolution of the moral fabric of your community; you’ll find that your capacity to be attracted to others of the same sex is seen as an endless source of evils; you’ll find that people tend to believe they know a lot more about the drift of your affections or even your true “nature” than you do and will encourage you to take on their understanding as your own (this is actually true of the “approval” camp as well); you’ll find yourself accused of desiring (and even performing) sexual acts or ways of expressing your sexuality that would have never occurred to you to desire, let alone perform; you’ll find yourself and/or people like you understood as
de facto disappointments, failures or betrayers by people you love. You’ll begin to see your capacity to give and receive love as fundamentally diseased or worthless, and you’ll be encouraged to believe that none of your feelings are actually trustworthy. Your self-knowledge will begin and end with a consciousness of other people’s perception of your own wrongness. This is poisonous.
So with both sides being so much more vocal these days, it’s no surprise to me that LGBT folks (especially LGBT youth) are caught in the crossfire and suffer for it. I don’t imagine that the suicide rate will decline significantly any time soon. Even if we were to reach “full acceptance” (whatever that might mean, for either good or ill), the increased visibility that gay folks will experience will continue to cause some of them increased stress and distress. At any rate, a couple more generations are needed, I think, for these suicide numbers to noticeably decline.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
