LGBTQ+ Youth Continue to Face High Levels of Suicidal Thoughts, and Increasingly Report Anxiety and Depression: Study

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The Trevor Project also offers support for LGBTQ+ young people.

LGBTQ+ youth in the United States are continuing to face mental health challenges, and new research from the Trevor Project shows that many are reporting an increase in anxiety and depression while suicidal thoughts remain high.

“Project SPARK” is a two-year longitudinal study of about 1,700 queer young people (ages 13-24) in the U.S., with researchers surveying respondents every six months.

Reports of anxiety rose from 54% at baseline to 63% at the two-year follow-up, and depression from 43% to 51%, according to the study. About 40% reported suicidal thoughts, with no significant change.

“LGBTQ+ youth are facing a very serious and very persistent mental health crisis. Distress remained really high throughout that two-year period,” said Ronita Nath, vice president of research at the Trevor Project, who worked on the study.

“We did this study because LGBTQ+ youth are at significantly higher suicide risk than their cisgender, heterosexual peers, but most of the research only captures their experiences at one point in time, which really limits our understanding of how certain risk and protective factors play out over months or years,” she tells GO.

Self-harm fell from 39% to 34%, and suicide attempts from 9% to 7%, the Trevor Project found. Nath said that pattern fits earlier research showing that different factors drive suicidal thoughts and the move from thoughts to behavior.

“The factors that drive suicidal thoughts can be different from those that influence that jump from suicidal thoughts to attempts and self-harm. In the gap between suicidal thoughts and self-harm and attempts, that’s where protective factors might actually be doing some of the work,” Nath explained.

Higher family support was linked to 45% lower odds of suicidal ideation, the study found.

Nath told GO: “[Protective factors] may help young people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts … manage that acute risk more safely, but underlying distress can still remain very, very high.”

Those risks include everything from discrimination to economic uncertainty. Among transgender, nonbinary, and questioning participants, respondents reported an increase in discrimination based on gender identity, which rose from 57% to 67%. Those experiencing houselessness rose from 7% to 13%.

Conversion therapy also emerged as a risk factor in the study. The share of all participants who said they had ever been threatened with conversion therapy rose from 12% to 22%, and those subjected to it from 9% to 16%.

“Many people believe that conversion therapy practices are a relic of the past,” Nath said. “The data indicates that these dangerous practices are still happening.”

Nath and her team found that young people who had been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy had significantly higher chances of having suicidal thoughts.

Many respondents told the Trevor Project researchers that while they had suicidal thoughts, around a third said they didn’t seek help. Almost 50% said they didn’t want to get a parent’s permission to access mental health care.

Helpline support rose from 22% to 30%, according to the study.

While many states continue to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, access to hormones among trans, nonbinary, and questioning participants who wanted them rose from 34% to 62%, the researchers found — 73% of those 18 and older had access, compared with 33% of those under 18. Researchers said in the report that aging and the restrictive legal landscape for minors help explain that gap.

Respondents are also facing issues with bathroom use, which has impacted them. Forty percent reported being prevented or discouraged from using a bathroom matching their gender identity in the past year, and about half of those who wanted to change their ID documents had been able to, with no significant improvement.

Nath said she hopes the study, which is a first of its kind, according to the organization, will provide evidence policymakers and others need to create programs and laws to support queer youth. She also said she hopes it helps chip away at the stigma queer young people continue to face.

“We hope these findings can really help lawmakers and public health leaders act on this clear longitudinal evidence that social and structural conditions are driving mental health outcomes,” Nath said. “There’s nothing inherent about LGBTQ+ youth that makes them at higher risk for suicide. It is how they’re mistreated and stigmatized in society that is really driving these increased rates of suicide risk that we are seeing among them.”

Jaymes Black, the CEO of the Trevor Project, said in a statement that each respondent was a queer youth “navigating a deeply difficult climate in this country.”

“This two-year study makes it undeniably clear that we cannot let them weather this storm alone. The decline in self-harm and suicide attempts amid rising anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a testament to the life-saving power of community and connection. We must continue to fiercely protect young people’s access to care, support them exactly as they are, and ensure that LGBTQ+ young people know they are never, ever, alone,” Black said.