The association between hate crime laws that enumerate sexual orientation and adolescent suicide attempts.

Abstract

Sexual minority youth are at elevated risk for suicide, and previous research supports an association between hate crimes targeting sexual minority youth and suicide attempts. Hate crime laws (HCLs) may reduce bias-motivated victimization or reflect community support for marginalized groups, although not all states with such laws explicitly name sexual minorities as a protected class. We used a quasi-experimental design to examine whether the inclusion of sexual orientation as an explicitly protected group within states' HCLs was associated with decreased suicide attempts among high school aged adolescents using data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Results showed that sexual minority youth attempted suicide at rates 2.9 to 4.3 times higher than heterosexual youth. The enactment of enumerated HCLs was associated with a small but significant 1.2-percentage point (95% confidence interval, CI [À1.8%, À0.6%], p , .001) reduction in suicide attempts among high school aged adolescents, and these reductions were not specific to sexual minority youth. Among sexual minority youth, enumerated HCLs were associated with larger reductions in suicide attempts among questioning and bisexual youth than gay and lesbian peers. By contrast, general HCLs that did not explicitly name sexual minorities as a protected group did not differ from the absence of any HCL in their association with suicide attempts (À.5%, 95% CI [À1.6%, 0.7%], p = .43). We conclude that HCLs may help to decrease rates of adolescent suicide attempt, but this potential appears to be contingent on naming sexual minorities as a protected group.

Policing sexuality: Sexual minority youth, police contact, and health inequity

“…Poverty and homelessness likely then put LGBTQ people at higher risk of police contact, given the criminalization of homelessness ( Dholakia and Jersey, 2022 ; Herring et al, 2019 ; The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and The National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009 ), extralegal survival work (e.g., sex work ( North and Vox, 2019 )), and poverty itself ( Collins, 2007 ; Edelman, 2017 ; Harvard Criminal Justice Policy Program and Human Rights Watch, 2017 ). Meanwhile, daily and life course experiences of discrimination, as well as structural homophobia in the form of second-class legal status under state and federal law, have been shown to drive “minority stress,” poor mental health, and adoption of criminalized coping behaviors, such as underage drinking or illicit drug use ( Cabaj, 2000 ; Chien et al, 2022 ; English et al, 2022 ; Lehavot & Simoni, 2011 ; McCabe et al, 2010 ; Moody et al, 2018 ; Prairie et al, 2022 ; Raifman et al, 2017 ; Weber, 2008 ). This is compounded by alcohol and tobacco companies’ ongoing history of targeting LGBTQ people in their marketing ( Elliott, 2011 ; Glissmeyer et al, 2018 ; Horgos, 2019 ; Spivey et al, 2018 ; Tufft, 2015 ).…”

Delitos e Incidentes de Odio Hacia Personas LGTBI+: Prevalencia, Consecuencias e Impacto

“…Como tiende a ocurrir con las diversas formas que adquiere la violencia interpersonal, la victimización de la juventud LGTBI+ ocurre frecuentemente en entornos íntimos por parte de personas conocidas del entorno de las víctimas (Moran, 2018;Pickles, 2021). En este sentido, la discriminación experimentada por la juventud LGTBI+ se ha relacionado estrechamente con problemas de autoaceptación y aumento de del riesgo de suicidio (Adelson et al, 2016;Pickles, 2021;Prairie et al, 2022) y con bullying (Ybarra et al, 2015). El bullying mina el bienestar psicológico, físico de los jóvenes LGTBI+, y sus consecuencias negativas son múltiples, pues se ha asociado en diversos estudios con un aumento del consumo de drogas como alcohol, tabaco y marihuana, así como con una mayor prevalencia de sintomatología depresiva, ideaciones suicidas y problemas de salud como dolores de cabeza o problemas de apetito y de sueño en comparación con población de jóvenes heterosexuales y cisgénero (Earnshaw et al, 2016).…”

Neglected gaps in improving the health, wellbeing, and care for sexual and gender minority young people living in low- and lower-middle- income countries: a scoping review

“…In general, same-gender and same-sex sexual behavior and gender diverse expression is more aggressively sanctioned in LMICs than high-income countries: it is expressly criminalized in 40 LMICs, and punishable by death in six [10]. In light of recent evidence from high-income countries linking the wellbeing of SGM youth to legislative environments [11], we can therefore speculate that SGM young people in LMICs may be experiencing even more marginalization, which would negatively impact their physical and mental health. However, to what extent and how circumstances could be improved remains unknown due to a dearth of research [12].…”