According to a study published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Gibson, 1989), gay and lesbian youths are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other youths, and 30 percent of all completed youth suicides are related to issues of sexual identity. Proctor & Groze's article in Social Work continues to pile on grim statistics such as the above, as study after study indicates the severity of the problem of gay and lesbian suicide.
Youth suicide as a social problem has continued to mount in the past several decades, and there is no indication that the trend will diminish. Proctor & Groze cite Holinger's 1978 study to note that the suicide rate among young people rose 300 percent over the two decades before 1980. Gay and lesbian youths are at an increased risk for suicide because of the particular discrimination they suffer as homosexuals; in addition to the added stress they face as a result of their orientation, they may have to conceal their sexuality from peers and adults. Thus, they are damned if they "come out," or, make their orientation public knowledge, and they are damned if they conceal, or repress, their sexual feelings from a hostile society. They are indeed in a double-bind situation from which a staggering number never do extricate themselves.
The reasons that some gay and lesbian youths are psychically better off than their suicidal counterparts are purely conjectural, but common sense and a meager number of studies have shown that there are several discriminate variables that can influence one's decision whether or not to engage in suicide. Family acceptance is at the crux of the matter. Gays whose families are accepting of their orientation are significantly better off than those whose families respond with ostracism, or in many cases, with violence. Proctor & Groze (1994) state, "Parental acceptance of a child's sexual orientation may lead to greater self-esteem (p. 506); ...