The CDC recently released a new set of data on suicides in Utah and it shows a terrible trend. Last year we were alarmed and shocked that the rate for 15-19 year olds had doubled in just 3 years and tripled in 9. This year we are saddened that this high rate persisted through 2015, the most recent year that data is available.
But it is not just our youth. EVERY age group below age 50 saw a substantial increase in suicides in 2015 (except the 15-19 group who maintained their already high level).
And it is worse. Like our 15-19 year olds, EVERY age group below 50 saw a substantial trend upward starting in 2009. Last years worsening numbers are on top of levels that were already dramatically elevated.
This is hitting Utah disproportionately. No other states shows these 2 trends as strongly as Utah:
1) Utah suicides trending upward starting around 2009 to record levels by 2014 in all groups below age 60
2) an alarming increase in 2015 in every age group below age 50
Above and below are graphs illustrating the growth of suicide among adults and youth in Utah (shown twice because this situation desperately needs to be highlighted). The adult figures are very bad, but the youth trajectory is beyond alarming.
Note: Suicide is a complex behavior that is influenced by multiple factors that vary across individuals. We should also be careful to follow proven guidelines about how do discuss suicide without contributing to suicide contagion. See reportingonsuicide.org and lgbtmap.org.
Although Utah is the worst hit, Colorado and Idaho show similar trends that should be raising alarms in those states as well. Other, different trends exist in other states that they should also address. Meanwhile, in Utah the escalation is hitting the younger adults hard, and the youth harder. (New Mexico and Wyoming also had increases in most groups in 2015, but they have much smaller numbers so the data is more difficult to interpret, and neither state showed the trend upward starting in 2009 that Utah shows.)
Why is this happening?
There are surely numerous complex reasons. However those of us who work with LGBT Mormons are convinced that LGBTQ people are making up a disproportionate share of these suicides and most likely make up the entirety of these notable increases. And why do we think that? Because we have talked to people who have attempted suicide, and we all know people who have killed themselves. We have seen it happen in front of our eyes. We have also analyzed the data (here and here). And we have looked at the most dramatic events of the years involved:
—2008 was the year when the anti-gay rhetoric started to explode in our congregations and in our communities, with the church’s open involvement with Proposition 8. This marked the beginning of the trend up in suicides and it is not surprising to anybody involved in the LDS LGBT community that this happened. This anti-gay rhetoric escalated over the following years as the marriage equality debate was prominent.
—In 2014 we saw the fight in our own backyard in Utah with the marriage equality court cases, and we also saw a further escalation of the anti-gay rhetoric in our communities, from our church pulpits and even from General Conference addresses.
—In July of 2015 we saw statements read in every LDS congregation after the Supreme Court case granted marriage equality, and in November the notorious policy was leaked.
(2015 saw record numbers of suicides in Utah. I hate to wonder how 2016 is going to look when those numbers come in. 2016 is the year my dear friend took his life.)
We recently learned that as each state passed marriage equality laws, that state saw a drop in suicide attempts among its LGBTQ teens. Why hasn’t Utah seen that benefit? We know why LGBTQ and others commit suicide. It is because of the rejection they have from their families and their communities AND their religion. In Utah and throughout Mormonism marriage equality ended up marking a deterioration for LGBTQ Mormons due to an increase in the levels of rejection they face. In general they haven’t been able to achieve the improved mental health that LGBTQ people enjoy in more tolerant communities and this is reflected in our high suicides.
Utah’s rank in overall suicide rate went up from #11 in 2014 to #6 in 2015. This is one area where we don’t want to be #1 but we are heading that way. Sorry folks, it’s not the altitude. As far as I can tell the altitude hasn’t changed lately. Altitude might explain our elevated baseline prior to these increases but it in no way explains a tripling of youth suicides nor these alarming trends among other age groups.
Can we please admit there is a problem? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to educate families about the harm that this rejection is having on their LGBTQ children of all ages. I am grateful that the Utah legislature lifted the gag order in our public schools (no promo homo) that was preventing teachers and counselors from offering appropriate help to our LGBTQ students in the schools. This was one important step but we still need a broad solution throughout our communities. The most helpful information on how to prevent suicide among our LGBTQ youth can be found at the Family Acceptance Project. It is time to adopt and promote their recommendations. The LDS community is failing to extend its love to its LGBT children and neighbors, and for many of them the rejection is lethal.
All the data is here at the CDC website.
*An analysis of the suicide problem among LDS LGBTQ people was published February 2016 at Rational Faiths blog and subsequently in Dialogue magazine, entitled: “The LGBTQ Mormon Crisis: Responding to the Empirical Research on Suicide” by Michael Barker, Daniel Parkinson, and Benjamin Knoll. The following is an abbreviated summary of the evidence that suicide is a problem among LDS LGBTQ: (Please see the full article for a full discussion of this assessment.)
What is the direct empirical evidence?
1 National studies show that LGBTQ teens are at a much higher risk of suicide attempts.
2 Family Acceptance Project (FAP) has done some excellent research showing that there is an exponential risk of suicide for LGBTQ teens who come from families that show rejecting behaviors. They even studied what those rejecting behaviors are, and anyone familiar with the Mormon community would recognize those rejecting behaviors as being very common in our communities. Rejecting behaviors by parents are even reinforced by local church leaders and Mormon culture (refer to FAP info). It is also important to note that the risk of suicide remains higher well into adulthood. These youth also have exponentially higher rates of drug/alcohol use, depression, and HIV infection compared to youth raised in homes that don’t show these rejecting behaviors.
3 Schools with explicit anti-homophobia interventions such as gay-straight alliances (GSAs) may reduce the odds of suicidal thoughts and attempts among LGBTQ students.
4 Suicide is the number one cause of death of all Utah youth; this is not the case nationally. More alarming, the teen suicide rate in Utah has doubled since 2011.
5 Teen suicide is lower when there is an LGBTQ supportive environment.5 Unfortunately, isolation (a risk factor for suicide) is more prevalent among LGBTQ people.
What is the indirect evidence?
1 Studies show that in cities/regions where homosexuality is tolerated, mental health outcomes for LGBTQ are the same as non-LGBTQ people. We can infer from this that an elevated risk of suicide would correlate with the elevated risk of mental illness that is prevalent among LGBT people living in communities that are hostile to LGBTQ.8 In general, Utah communities are hostile to LGBTQ people.
2 Another statistic that goes hand in hand with suicide is youth homelessness; the two are highly correlated. National studies show an exponentially higher risk of homelessness among LGBTQ teens. Providers and outreach workers in Utah have noticed that this also applies to Utah, and they have noted a high rate of LGBTQ teens from LDS families among the homeless teens they serve.
3 The CDC data about youth suicide rates in Utah compared to other states.
4 A study of Mormon men in Utah shows that leaving the Church puts one at a much higher risk of suicide. It appears that LGBTQ people leave the church or are kicked out at very high rates. We can, from these studies, infer that these LGBTQ men are among those who have a substantially higher risk of suicide when they lose the protection that membership in a religion provides against suicide risk.
What is the anecdotal evidence?
1 Anybody who knows a substantial number of LGBTQ people from LDS backgrounds will be astounded by how many have had suicidal attempts. (Dr. Parkinson has personally observed it among those that he knows). Those who are in a particular position of outreach such as the leadership of Affirmation, Wendy and Thomas Montgomery, or Carol Lynn Pearson are also very overwhelmed by the consistent pattern of suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts and suicides among LGBTQ people from Mormon backgrounds particularly youth and young adults.
2 Clinicians who have worked with teens in Utah including clinicians from LDS Family Services have noticed the high rate of despair and suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ teens (as well as adults). Several clinicians have discussed this trend in their practices in media interviews.
3 Polling of USGA (a support organization for LGBTQ BYU students) showed a very high rate of suicide attempts among its members. Informal polling of LGBTQ youth on a Facebook group for LDS LGBTQ youth has also revealed the ubiquitous nature of suicidal thoughts among our LGBTQ Mormon youth.
What conclusions can we draw?
When we put this data together we can’t know exactly how many suicides there are among Mormon youth and how many of these are related to LGBTQ issues. However, we have some extremely compelling evidence that allows us to conclude that there is a significant problem. The direct empirical evidence alone is enough to merit a public health response.
The indirect evidence is also very compelling, because there are such close correlations between suicide and mental illness/mood disorders, as well as homelessness in general, and LGBTQ people have a higher prevalence of these, at least in homophobic communities. This truly suggests that LGBTQ suicides are higher in these communities.
Presently, a public health action is even more compelling because we have identified preventive measures that are low cost, low risk, and have already been shown to be effective. Currently the problem is not a lack of evidence, but a lack of will. We have sufficient direct evidence that is strengthened by indirect evidence, and reinforced by anecdotal evidence. The case is extremely strong. Denial and misinformation are our biggest barriers to implementing effective public health measures that have already been recommended by experts.
Homelessness, despair, depression, suicide attempts, social isolation, bullying—these all call out for an active response from the Church, the State, and our communities. There is a wealth of direct evidence showing that these problems have a huge impact on LGBTQ people including LGBTQ Mormons. Those issues on their own and the human suffering that accompanies them also warrant a public health response, even before suicide is taken into account. We shouldn’t need to prove the suicides in order to address these issues that so greatly impact the lives of so many among us.
(Please see full article for a more complete discussion)
*Benjamin Knoll also published an analysis of the CDC data at Rational Faith’s blog and at Dialogue magazine entitled “Youth Suicide Rates and Mormon Religious Context: An Additional Empirical Analysis” in March 2016. He observed that there was a correlation between the suicide growth rate since 2009 and the proportion of LDS people living in that state. It will be interesting to see if that correlation persists, especially considering the worsening situation in Utah as well as Idaho and Colorado.
Thanks to Michael Barker and Benjamin Knoll for their extensive insights provided last year in the above cited articles.
Thanks to Kathy Carlston for her assistance in preparing the graphs.
Thanks to Thomas and Wendy Montgomery for their insights and help in highlighting the situation. Thomas’s important perspectives can be seen here.
Daniel Parkinson
DANIEL PARKINSON was born and raised in Utah to a Mormon family with a thick Mormon Heritage. He comes to this issue as a psychiatrist, with a strong sense of activism, and a desire to help the two communities that he inherited as his birthright: the Mormon community, and the gay community. He administrates the GayMormonStories.org podcast and the NoMoreStrangers.org blog.
All posts by Daniel Parkinson
Excellent , wonderful, amazing information!!!! I am going to share it big and ASAP that whoever reads this takes personal “responsability” by “knowledge of the real facts” about this critical situation. “As more knowledge more responsability”. Thank you!!!!!
“A study of Mormon men in Utah shows that leaving the Church puts one at a much higher risk of suicide”
I had not heard that before. Do you have a link to the study?
The full article published last year has citations but you will have to scan over the footnotes. The study is very interesting and compelling.
http://rationalfaiths.com/the-lgbtq-mormon-crisis-responding-to-the-empirical-research-on-suicide/
As a side note, this trend is noted among those leaving other religions as well.
“A study of Mormon men in Utah shows that leaving the Church puts one at a much higher risk of suicide”
Makes sense, given the correlation of alcohol use with suicide, and given the prevention of suicide by having a strong social group.
However, that’s not quite what the study is saying.
The study compares suicide rates between members, less active members, and nonmembers. It doesn’t have a specific classification for those who have left the church.
Still, it makes sense, but now to get to what for me is the most important part. The study doesn’t have different categories for LGBT and non-LGBT. So, if the 95% of the population that’s non-LGBT becomes more suicidal upon leaving the church, it will totally erase the evidence that LGBT ppl become less suicidal when leaving the LDS church, as long as you’re grouping them together like that.
See, for me and my friends, who like me are gay exmormons, leaving the LDS Church did wonders in getting rid of our suicidalness. I’m actually enjoying life now. I actually want to live. I want the same for all gay Mormons, and I worry about what kind of messages that study will send them and their families.
Part II
It all came down to being allowed to persue romantic love, instead of facing a life of loneliness.
I was almost one of those statistics. Just trying to share some advice based on what prevented that from happening.
The data we reviewed showed advantages to leaving the church in helping with suicidal thoughts, but it also pointed to a disadvantage, that is felt to be the lack of community support compared to active LDS participation.
In an ideal world LGBT people (and anybody) can make a decision about the church based on other issues, rather than feeling forced out. It is clear that leaving a highly structured religion like Mormonism is very difficult most people, and it is probably even harder for people who feel forced out but don’t fundamentally want to leave. It is also harder if it isolates you from your family and your surrounding community, which is most likely to happen in communities where LDS is the majority (such as Utah).
I still consider it a Mormon problem if ex-Mormons and Utah non-Mormons have a higher suicide rate. I don’t’ think Mormons want to be toxic to their non-Mormon neighbors and family members, but that often happens in a number of ways. This obviously impacts LGBTQ people more intensely, but is a problem impacting virtually all LDS families.
The reason it has gone up is because the world at large is no longer helping these people. Instead they are passing laws stating that it is normal and everything is fine, demanding that those of us who love them no longer help them but accept their deviant behavior and tell them it is good. They really need the psychological aid not to be neglected. Of course suicide rates have increased!
This is a good example of the problem I am referring to. LDS people often aren’t aware that they are part of the problem. In communities that are more tolerant and accepting of LGBT people their suicide rates have gone down and are much lower than places like Utah where homophobia is much stronger.
What people need is love and acceptance, not the rejection of being othered. They certainly don’t need to be called ‘deviant’ as that has never helped any suicidal person. This sort of rhetoric is what makes people feel marginalized and hopeless.
Believing Mormons will never understand what it means to be loving and accepting.
They cannot hide the fact that in the back of their minds they’re thinking “I’m right and you’re wrong. If only you did it my way you would be better off and everything would be fine. You’re doing this to yourself.”
Eli… I am a believing,temple-recommend-carrying Mormon with what some would call a high leadership position in my Utah ward. I know many active Mormons that are loving and accepting of LGBTQ people and I aspire to that same virtue. I personally disagree with church’s stance on LGBTQ issues and I have shared that with my Stake leaders and with senior LDS leadership in Salt Lake City. So I would ask you reconsider your judgement that “Believing Mormons will never understand what it means to be loving and accepting.” It may be a minority today and I know we can do better, but I see a great deal of love and acceptance. I also agree that there is far to much bigotry and ignorance.
Being gay is not a new phenomenon. The LDS position on homosexuality has not changed. So, what has caused the data to spike up so much in the last decade or so? We have to analyze the variables that have changed. The biggest change that I can see is that society has openly accepted and encouraged gay behavior. Previously, gay behavior was something that occurred but it occurred in the shadows, behind the facade of a normal life. As society’s acceptance of the behavior changed, the church’s position seems more and more out of the norm. This, sadly, is what has been prophesied by the leaders of the church, when they said that the world continues to drift further and further from the doctrines of Christ. It’s not the church that has moved, it’s the world that has drifted away.
However, this does not change the fact that this is causing a high level of stress and anxiety among the LGBT youth in Utah. LDS families need to become better educated about this topic and help their family members who suffer with this condition to feel loved and included in all family and church related activities. This should not be a fake love out of obligation but a true love for the individual, because they are a child of God, no matter what their sexual orientation is. We are commanded to love all. Any rejection of any individual for any reason is not Christ-like.
As Daniel Parkinson said, “In communities that are more tolerant and accepting of LGBT people their suicide rates have gone down and are much lower than places like Utah where homophobia is much stronger.”
What saved me from suicidal ideation was the realization that church leaders are often wrong (study church history – see the Kirtland bank, Deseret alphabet, statements on slavery, statements condemning monogamy, etc), that love is love, and that God won’t condemn me for living my life with a loving, loyal spouse who means the world to me, which is something I’m only able to feel with my own gender. Being a gay Mormon in the church and constantly hearing the teachings regarding LGBT people made me want to die everyday. Now, I want to live. I want to love.
The LDS church’s position on homosexuality has most certainly changed on a number of issues related to it. For instance, where the LDS church used to allow kids ages 8-18 of parents who were in a romantic same-sex relationship to get baptized, it no longer does.
But to answer the question of why the spike, it appears that as general acceptance of LGBTQs in the US has increased, so have expectations of acceptance among LGBTQs in LDS communities. While the LDS church appeared to be slightly more accepting of LGBTQs in the early 2000s, it has undoubtedly retrenched beginning with Prop 8. There appears to be a direct correlation between the LDS church’s recent efforts to double down and the spike in Utah suicide rates.
I must be an outlier. I’m gay and I’m Mormon and I live in Utah. Yet I’ve never even contemplated suicide. I’ve also never hated myself for being gay. Why would I hate myself for being gay? It makes as much sense as hating myself for having brown hair. My parents are loving and tried to never belittle anyone for anything. Perhaps that made the difference? If I can figure out why it never bothered me maybe I can help others feel good about themselves as well.
Part II
A common respins to my post would be that gay marriage runs counter to central teachings, while the Deseret Alphabet doesn’t.
There’s an easy solution though. We let widows remarry to someone they aren’t sealed to and probably won’t be with in the next life, and God sorts it out. We do this so they don’t have to be alone.
SimiLarly, we can let a gay guy be with someone he loves, so that he doesn’t have to be alone. God sorts it out in the next life, as his chance in this life was skewed (remember that the church now admits that gay people don’t choose these feelings).
So, no need for celibacy. No need for marrying someone he doesn’t love. I always felt so horrible and guilty dating women. They’d develop feelings which I couldn’t return. It felt wrong. In contrast, being in love with another guy and him being in love with me back – it felt beautiful and holy. I know it did and God, if he exists, knows it did.
Daniel,
I attempted to follow the address provided in the graph and it did not link to data. Could you provide a full link to the data?
To get to the data you have to use that app, and enter the parameters that interest you. It takes a few minutes to learn how to optimize it. You can choose any age range you want, region you want, and you can add other parameters such as gender and race.
Not all states demographics are equal. This chart tells a false story. If State A has 100 people but no kids, and has no teen suicides, and State B (Utah) has 100 people but 50 of them are teens, and there were say 5 suicides, you would ignorantly blame Utah. You would say it was religion that did this. Look at the detailed DEMOGRAPHICS before passing judgment. Many states are small families, few kids and these are being compared to Utah which has higher numbers of kids and this particular demographic