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Written by Gary Hollander
Mar 11, 2010
Wisconsin’s sexual minority youth remain vulnerable to many negative health outcomes according to the results of the 2009 Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
The YRBS is part of a national effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor health risks of high school students in the United States. These risks result in the most significant causes of disease and death during youth and adulthood, according to the CDC.
In a report just released by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, significant differences in health risks are apparent for Wisconsin’s sexual minority youth in physical safety, emotional support, mental health and suicide, tobacco use, substance abuse and sexual behavior.
Together, these health disparities present personal crises for many LGBT youth and their families in Wisconsin. They also represent a potentially staggering public cost in terms of lost contributions, loss of life and health care costs.
As in 2007, the 2009 YRBS shows significant disparities in physical safety between sexual minority youth and their heterosexual peers. Youth who report same-sex experiences reported five times the rates of missing school one or more times in the preceding 30 days because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school. They were also more than five times as likely to report they were in a physical fight that resulted in injury that had to be treated by a medical provider in the past year.
Emotional supports for sexual minority youth are also significantly different. On the YRBS, they were less likely to endorse statements that their families loved and supported them when they needed help and that their teachers really cared about them and encouraged them.
On the other hand, their heterosexual peers were significantly more likely to endorse statements that they felt like they belonged at their schools and they would be comfortable talking with at least one teacher in their schools if they had a problem.
These differences in safety and support take a toll on LGBT youth. Too often they feel isolated and vulnerable, cut off from honest, candid communications with peers, family members and educators. At times they experience daily challenges in environments that are hostile and devoid of help. For some, this situation is buffered by self-esteem that sees them through hardship. For others, it may result in depression and the risk of suicide.
The 2009 Wisconsin YRBS found significant differences between sexual minority youth and their heterosexual peers in depression. Sexual minority youth were twice as likely to report that they felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities. They were also nearly three times as likely to consider suicide in the past year and actually plan how they would attempt suicide.
Sexual minority youth in Wisconsin were four and one half times more likely to report that they had attempted suicide in the past year and more than six times as likely to have attempted suicide resulting in injuries that had to be treated by a medical professional.
Depression and self-injury are serious health disparities for sexual minority youth. But the potentially catastrophic health differences to do not end there. The 2009 YRBS also shows significant differences with substance use. Sexual minority youth are significantly more likely to report having had their first drink of alcohol before the age of 13 and to be regular cigarette smokers of more than one-half pack per day.
While the Wisconsin YRBS affords policy makers sufficient information to evidence the need for resource allocations for prevention interventions, it does not go far enough. In 2007, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction agreed to add one question to the YRBS regarding the sex of a teen’s sex partner(s), male, female or both. Analysis of the responses allows researchers to identify sexual minority youth (any youth reporting same sex experiences) in contrast their sexually active heterosexual peers.
However, we have no clear idea about how the sexually active youth – either heterosexual or sexual minority – actually identify. In other words, youth who are heterosexually active are assumed to be heterosexually (or straight) identified, and youth who are same-sex or bisexually active are assumed to identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Neither assumption is likely correct.
Further, youth who are not sexually active are excluded from the analysis, yet some may identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. They may or may not experience the same disparities as other sexual minority youth.
Also of great concern is the invisibility in YRBS results of youth who do not identify as male or female. Despite a decade of advocacy, the Wisconsin YRBS does not include an option for youth to identify as transgender. Wisconsin pubic health administrator Seth Foldy joined Diverse and Resilient in 2009 to propose an expanded question set to the CDC in hopes that more questions on gender identity and sexual identity might be added to the YRBS nationally.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has also advocated for these in Wisconsin, but the Department of Public Instruction remains unmoved at this time.
In 2009, sexual minority youth constituted 10 percent of the YRBS respondents who were sexually active.
