New Task Forces to Focus on LGBT Youth

As anyone not living under a stone must know, suicide is a major problem for LGBT teens and youth who all too often are targeted for bullying by peers and who often witness the endless denigration of LGBT individuals by Christianist hate merchants and professional Christians. The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention announced yesterday that it is creating a new task force to handle suicide prevention efforts among LGBT youths. Additional task forces are also being created to work with American Indians/Alaska Natives and military service members and veterans since these two groups also experience increased levels of suicide. As I have advocated before, besides helping gay teens and youths, more must be done to stigmatize and marginalize the disseminators of religious based hatred that lends respectability to gay bashing and anti-gay bullying. These false Christians need to be held accountable for the blood on their hands. Here are highlights from the The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention's press release:
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The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention today added three new task forces to address suicide prevention efforts within high-risk populations: American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN); youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT); and military service members and veterans.
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Studies from organizations such as the Suicide Prevention Resource Center report that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are from 1.5 to seven times more likely to report having attempted suicide than their non-LGBT peers, while transgender youth are believed to have higher rates of suicidal behavior as well. Co-leading the LGBT Youth Task Force are Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, U.S. Department of Education, and Charles Robbins, Executive Director of The Trevor Project, the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among LGBT youth.
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"This task force will bring together the best minds in the country to combat suicide and make sure that every LGBT youth has the opportunity to grow up in a supportive, accepting community and to enter adulthood safely," Robbins said.
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The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, a public-private partnership, provides an operating structure to catalyze planning, execution and accountability for advancing the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP). From this alliance will grow advancements for practitioners, policymakers, service providers, communities, families, agencies, and other partners that play a vital role in reducing suicides in America.
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No one should ever feel that suicide is their best option. I've been there myself twice and there truly needs to be more accountability and repercussions placed on judges, politicians, religious leaders and others that use anti-gay bigotry to aggrandize their own egos or for political and/or financial gain.