GAY AND LESBIAN SUICIDE (including youth suicide)

The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society has published a report "Don't ask, don't tell - Hidden in the crowd: the need for documenting links between sexuality and suicidal behavious among young people" in May 2003

(Dyson,S., Mitchell,A., Smith,A., Dowsett,G., Pitts,M. and Hillier,L. [2003] Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Hidden in the crowd: The Need for Documenting Links between Sexuality and Suicidal Behaviours Among Young People, Monograph Series No.45, The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne)

During August 2003 The Age newspaper in Melbourne carried a series of articles on men who commit suicide and possible reasons, and the series prompted many letters in response. None of the letters referfed to gays and lesbians who suicide and explanations of why they may be driven to such desperation that they find they can not go on living any longer.
Research has been done in Australia and other countries as the Bibliography at the end of the Report don't ask don't tellshows, and so it is timely for this work to be published. Because the statistics for gay and lesbian suicides of young people are so high, it seems necessary for the issue to be given much more publicity in the mainstream media than has currently been the case.
The report states that suicide is one of the leading causes of death among 15-24 year olds in Australia, and informs us that research has identified that same-sex attracted young people may be up to six times more likely to attempt suicide than the population in general, with those in rural areas being particularly at risk. (P.13)

Lesbian and Gay Solidarity Melbourne (LGS) sent the following letter to The Age newspaper in response to the series of articles mentioned above. The letter was published on 26 August with the exception of the last sentence (which we have placed in italics to emphasise what was omitted). There was no response in the paper after that publication.

Mannie De Saxe
2/12 Murphy Grove Preston Vic 3072
Phone:(03)9471 4878
email:josken_at_zipworld_com_au
The series on male suicides and the letters following their publication (The Age, August 2003) all seem to have ignored one of the main at-risk groups - gay males, particularly in the 15-24 year- old age group. Is this because our society continues to be so homophobic or is it because the mainstream media continue to ignore the issue? The recently issued report: "Don't Ask Don't Tell - Hidden in the Crowd: Documenting the links between sexuality and suicidal behaviours among young people" (Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, 2003) states that suicide is one of the leading causes of death among 15-24 year olds in Australia. The report further states that research in Australia has identified that same-sex attracted young people may be up to six times more likely to attempt suicide than the population in general, with those in rural areas being particularly at risk. Nowhere in your reports or letters were these matters raised. Maybe you should now spend some time on asking questions about these at-risk young people in our communities - or are we now a society that no longer worries about our younger people, particularly if they are gay or lesbian? Mannie De Saxe, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne.

Ryan Heath, Communications student at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) wrote an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) on 12 August 2003. The article was titled:

YOUTH POLICY CRYING OUT FOR SUBSTANCE, NOT BELLS AND WHISTLES

Heath quotes the SMH as stating the week before (early August 2003) that "almost one-quarter of young Australian adults do not have a full-time job or study."
Heath states that "The Federal Government has to bear most of the responsibility for fixing the issue because it controls most of the money. But sometimes funding can be idealogically driven. Take, for example, youth suicide programs. There are now several hundred, thanks to a taskforce John Howard launched in his first term, but not one is dedicated to dealing with homophobia as a cause of suicide. That's quite alarming when you consider that more than a decade of international research places young gays and lesbians as 300 per cent more likely to commit suicide than their peers."

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE SYDNEY STAR OBSERVER 29 AUGUST 1996

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