Homosexuality and Suicide Among Adolescents: Cause and Effect

According to research gathered by Garofalo, Wissow, Woods, and Goodman, homosexuality has been suggested as a risk factor for youthsuicide (1999). They indicate that as a result of social stigma, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and not sure (GLBN) youthencounter many of the environmental stresses related to suicide. As the rates of suicide among those age 15-24 has more than tripled over the last fifty years, one has to wonder how large a factor the shame associated with the causes of homosexuality is in adolescent and teen suicide (Garofalo, Wolf, Wissow, Woods & Goodman, 1999). Until recently, Ellis and Ames state in their research, science had virtually no explanation for non-heterosexual orientations. Heterosexuality was ordained as natural and good, and all else were seen as an evil influences and wicked choices (Ellis & Ames, 1987). As a youth is faced with these negative views, often from emotionally important figures, perhaps it becomes easier to see a definite connection between developing sexuality, theories about sexual orientation and suicide. This paper examines some statistics of adolescent suicide, as well as looking at some of the prevailing theories regarding homosexuality and attempt to draw a correlation between the two issues. Can the publicly stated theories actually contribute to the suicides themselves?

According to the results studied by Garofalo and colleagues from a Massachusetts CDC survey of high school students,after compensating for other factors, sexual orientation had thesecond highest odds ratio for predicting a suicide attempt. Review of this study revealed that related issues of gender and sexual orientation (i.e., isolation, socialrejection, or negative parental responses), may adverselyaffect GLBN adolescents (Garofalo et al., 1999). A look at some prevailing theories surrounding sexual orientation can provide some insight into the causes of those very issues.

Psychoanalytic theorists at the turn of the century suggested the idea that homosexuality is an immature stage of psychosexual development resulting from many factors, such as an unhappy and broken home, poor parental and same-sex role models, as well as by overbearing mothers and/or affectionless and weak inadequate fathers (Ellis & Ames, 1987). This obviously suggests shameful faults within the family unit which can lead to internal conflict between those involved. It has been reported that suicides can happen after conflicts regarding sexual orientation, eitherdistress from keeping one's orientation hidden or rejectionafter "coming out"� (Garofalo et al., 1999). Placing the blame on the family of a homosexual is not the only negative theory that has been suggested over time.

Ellis and Ames research found that in the 1940's, homosexuality was thought to be caused by confusion during the time one learns appropriate sex

roles. Researchers had speculated that a person whose appearance or mannerisms resembled those of the opposite sex was an indication of homosexuality (Ellis & Ames, 1987). Similarly, team Ellis found another explanation was proposed in the 60's, stating that male homosexuality was due to demands on males to be "masculine."� Boys who felt unable to meet those demands were believed take on female roles (Ellis & Ames, 1987). During his research, Garofalo and colleagues noted that other studies have shown that attempted suicides inGLBN youth tended to occur as a result ofdistress over gender-atypical behavior (Garofalo et al., 1999). Is it possible that there is a growing connection between the theories and the suicides?

Ellis and Ames found even more recently that theories over homosexuality as a conscious choice or learned behavior have developed. They saw that researchers in the 70's indicated that homosexuality could result from same-sex sexual encounters that happened during childhood and early adolescence, preceding opposite-sex sexual encounters. This suggested that sexual orientation was learned through reinforcement. If these encounters gave gratification, then a homosexual orientation was likely to become the dominant preference as an adult (Ellis & Ames, 1987). These latest negative-seeming theories suddenly began to place the cause squarely on the back of the homosexual individual; a misguided youth and the choices one made resulted in a deviant sexual preference.

The limited nature of the research available to Garofalo and colleagues that I reviewed for this paper leads me to draw no specific conclusion, however it could indicate the possible existence of a negative bias towards homosexuality on the part of the researchers prior to the studies involved. There does seem to be some sort of connection between the stated theories and the known reasons of sexuality-related suicides, but without further research into the subject, this paper cannot conclude whether the stigmas attached to the theories directly contributed to the reasons behind the suicides.

References

Ellis, L., & Ames, M. (1987). Neurohormonal functioning and sexual orientation: A theory of homosexuality-heterosexuality. Psychological Bulletin, 101(2), 233-258.

Garofalo, R., Wolf ,R., Wissow, S., Woods, R. & Goodman, E. (1999) Sexual orientation and risk of suicide attempts among a representative sample of youth. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 153, 487 - 493.