A reader has placed the following deeply personal and moving testimony in a comments thread, relating to the Church’s need to listen, and pastoral sensitivity.
1 and 1/2 years ago I decided to kill myself, but I felt compelled to go to church just after I had prepared for it. I was sobbing in a back pew so hard that I could not even see straight and I was literally choking on my own snot, when a priest found me and refused to leave or let me go until I told him what was the matter. I tried to lie several times but he saw through it and persisted until I just blurted out that I was gay and I didn’t want to be. That was the first time I had told anyone my secret, and then I was even more terrified. But that priest was so kind, caring, and supportive that he was able to convince me (against everything i KNEW to be true) that God loved me just as I was. “When I went home I decided not to end my life. He never knew that I was fully committed to killing myself that night, but that priest saved my life.”,
I shall refer to my reader as “A’dam” (which my women readers should note, is gender neutral in the Genesis Hebrew text). The crisis that he faced is one that is encountered by countless young people of all genders who are beginning to face up to their orientation or gender identity issues, many of whom contemplate suicide – and far too many of those go beyond contemplation, to completion of it.
A tiny fraction of the total:
The problems faced by queer youth are not confined to suicide alone. Others feel compelled to leave home, either because they have experienced direct rejection by their families, or because they fear rejection and cannot face the prospect of coming out, to live in honesty. Those who end up on the street, and also some of those who attempt to struggle through the problems at home, also end up more likely to develop problems with substance abuse and irresponsible sexual behaviour. Those on the street may have few alternatives to prostitution just to survive.
The problem is not a small one: the figures for attempted suicide alone are frightening: the Suicide Prevention Resource Center has estimated that between 30 and 40% of LGBT youth, depending on age and sex groups, have attempted suicide. A U.S. government study, found that LGBT youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds. This is a major crisis public mental health crisis, which really needs as many resources mobilised against it as possible.
To do so, we need to understand the causes of the problem, and these are clear. This Wikipedia neatly sums up the clear and irrefutable verdict.
Institutionalized and internalized homophobia may also lead LGBT youth to not accept themselves and have deep internal conflicts about their sexual orientation. Parents may force children out of home after the child’s coming out.
Homophobia arrived at by any means can be a gateway to bullying. As seen in the ten LGBTQ youth suicides reported by news media in September 2010, severe bullying can lead to extremities such as suicide. It does not always have to be physical, but it can be emotional, viral, sexual, and racial, too. Physical bullying is kicking, punching, while emotional bullying is name calling, spreading rumors and other verbal abuse. Viral, or cyber bullying, involves abusive text messages or messages of the same nature on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. Sexual bullying is inappropriate touching, lewd gestures or jokes, and racial bullying has to do with stereotypes and discrimination.
Bullying can be seen as a “rite of passage”, but studies have shown it has negative physical and psychological effects. “Sexual minority youth, or teens that identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, are bullied two to three times more than heterosexuals”, and “almost all transgender students have been verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened in the past year at school because of their sexual orientation (89%) and gender expression (89%)”) according to GLSEN’s Harsh Realities, The Experiences of Transgender Youth In Our Nation’s School
“As many resources mobilised against it as possible” surely should include, for a crisis of this scale, the resources of the Catholic Church. Suicide, in Catholic doctrine, is possibly the gravest of all sins (much worse than mere sexual sin). Church doctrine on homosexuality specifically is clear: we should oppose all forms of unjust discrimination, and all forms of violence or malice, in action or in words. We should reasonably expect, then, that leaders of the Catholic Church should be at the forefront of any public efforts to combat bullying, and external and internalized homophobia. Instead, some of these leaders are more vocal, intentionally or otherwise, in strengthening this homophobia, and resisting initiatives against bullying.
“A’dam” placed his comment to demonstrate that there are very many kind, caring priests in the Church, and of course he is right. I have no doubt that there are indeed many good and compassionate priests, quite possibly the majority, who faced with someone in extremis as A’dam was, would likewise have the good sense to ignore the teaching of the Catechism, and similarly reassure the person in crisis of the obvious truth that God loves us just the way we are. The problem for LGBT Catholic youth, is that far too often they don’t get to talk to the priests in their hour of need.
Adolescence is a confusing time for all, as we begin to grapple with changing bodily presentation, emotions, and hormonal surges. It is particularly confusing for those who begin to see that their emotional responses and awakening sexual interests are just not the same as their peers. It is not a time when we easily talk to adults about our feelings and confusions, and certainly not about sexual matters. For young people grappling alone with sexual attractions to others of the same sex, or with gender identity, I imagine that just about the last class of people young teens would voluntarily approach to discuss these sexual issues, would be priests, the representatives of the Church that labels them (more accurately, their condition, but the perception will be the same) as “disordered”, and which is clear in its Catechism that they cannot look forward to any hope of what for them will be a loving sexual relationship with another, and which by its public pronouncements, appears to be far more concerned with the supposed evils of same – sex marriage, than with the very real and demonstrable dangers of bullying and violence directed at LGBT young people, or with the eye-wateringly high rates of suicide, homelessness, substance abuse and irresponsible sexual behaviours that result from it.
If young people are not able to approach caring and compassionate priests, and do happen to meet them just at the point of crisis, as A’dam did, who are they to turn to? Some may have sufficient confidence in their families to talk frankly with them, and may find suitable comfort, support and wisdom – but they will be the lucky few. (Personally, I always had great confidence in the love and support of my family, and when I came out to myself, I had every confidence that I could do so to them, with absolutely no fear of rejection. But that was only after I had been through a failed marriage, and distanced myself from the Catholic Church by suspending all religious practice and belief. I could not have done it while young – instead, I took route of denying my reality, and entering an inappropriate and ultimately destructive marriage).
In practice, the people most likely to offer meaningful help to gay lesbian or trans young people, are the same people who help and support them in every other part of their lives – their friends and classmates. This is why the modern emergence of Gay/Straight Alliances on school and college campuses is so important. I have no doubt at all that if I had had the benefit of such a group with whom I could socialize, let alone really discuss the issues, I would have faced adulthood with far more confidence that in fact I did, and my life would certainly have avoided many of the pitfalls that beset me. Our young people need to know, as Dan Savage’s campaign correctly tells us, that “It gets better”, as we leave our childhood behind. But they also need to know that it can get better right now, too, “with a little help from my friends”, in the words of the song from my schooldays.
Some recent news reports and opinion pieces at Catholic sites have noted that 40% of Catholic colleges and universities now have some form of gay straight or rainbow alliance. A group called TFP sees this as cause for hand-wringing, and have launched a petition to oppose the formation of such groups. They are wrong. These groups should be celebrated, not opposed.
If suicide, as I noted above, is an exceptionally grave sin, just how grave a sin is it to promote the conditions that lead to suicide? The hysterical rhetoric of the Catholic right simply encourages and foments the internalized and external homophobia that leads to the evils I have described. Gay straight alliances reduce homophobia, and with it suicide, homelessness, prostitution and substance abuse. Support them.
Related articles
- “Equally Blessed” Petition to US bishops on Bullying (queeringthechurch.com)
- Dan Savage, Bullying, and the Catholic Church. (queeringthechurch.com)
- In the Eye of the Storm (queeringthechurch.com)
- Resource for Gay Youth and Those Supporting Gay Youth: Speaking Out! (Bilgrimage)
- More on Gay Teen Suicide (Bilgrimage)
Pingback: More Snot-Nosed Catholic Whining | Philosopher's Haze