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"...
my suicide attempt had a lot to do with the fact that I felt
hopeless and alone in regards to my gender identity." - Survey
respondent
"[I
was] harassed in public during high school, rocks thrown at me in
the parking lot of high school, harassed in restaurants,
drug-seeking behavior, suicide attempt, nothing about my gender
identity is a conscious choice - this is the way I came out." -
Survey respondent
WASHINGTON,
Oct. 7 - More
than half of transgender and gender non-conforming people who were
bullied, harassed or assaulted in school because of their gender
identity have attempted suicide, according to just-released
findings from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,
conducted by the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
National
Center for Transgender Equality.
"From
our experience working with transgender people, we had prepared
ourselves for high rates of suicide attempts, but we didn't expect
anything like this," says Mara Keisling, executive director
of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "Our
study participants reported attempting suicide at a rate
more than 25 times the national average." Forty-one
percent of all respondents reported that they had attempted
suicide, compared with a national estimated rate of 1.6
percent.
"These
shocking and disheartening numbers speak to the urgency of ending
bullying in our nation's schools and ending discrimination in our
nation's workplaces. We know from the recent rash of suicides among
young people who have been bullied just how critical it is that we
act now and act decisively to save lives," says Rea Carey,
executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force.
Among
those who had been bullied, harassed or assaulted while they were
in school, half reported having attempted suicide. Most notably, suicide attempt
rates rise dramatically when teachers were the reported
perpetrators: 59 percent for those harassed or bullied by teachers,
76 percent among those who were physically assaulted by teachers
and 69 percent among those who were sexually assaulted by
teachers.
Of
those who reported that they had to "leave school because the
harassment was so bad," 68 percent said they attempted
suicide.Fully
61 percent of respondents who expressed a transgender identity or
gender non-conformity while in school reported significant abuses
in educational settings. From elementary through graduate school,
the survey showed high levels of harassment and bullying (59
percent), physical assault (23 percent), sexual assault (8
percent), and expulsion from school (5 percent), all on the basis
of gender identity or expression.
Other
findings include:
- Thirty-five
percent of the participants who had been bullied, harassed,
assaulted or expelled because of their gender identity or
expression while in school said that they used drugs or alcohol to
cope with the effects of discrimination, compared to 21 percent of
those who had not had similar experiences in school.
- Twenty-five percent reported that they were currently or
formerly homeless, compared to 14 percent of those who did not
report mistreatment in schools.
- Those who reported they had to "leave school because the
harassment was so bad," had an HIV infection rate of more than 5
percent, which is more than eight times the HIV infection rate for
the general U.S. population.
These
suicide statistics are part of broader findings related to health
care and health for transgender and gender non-conforming people
that will be released next week. Preliminary findings related to
employment and economic insecurity, which describes employment
discrimination and unemployment rates, were previously released
late last year and are available here.
The National Transgender Discrimination Survey is the most
extensive survey of transgender discrimination ever done. It
includes responses from more than 6,400 people from all 50 states,
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
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