The New York Times (8/11, Hoffman, Subscription Publication) reports the first national survey to identify lesbian, gay, and bisexual “high school students and track their health risks confirms” they “are indeed at far greater risk for depression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.” The article says this was “the first time the federal government’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold-standard of adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity.”
Data show the 1.3 million high school students who describe themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual “were three times more likely than straight students to have been raped.” They skipped school more often because about one-third of them had been bullied at school, and they were twice more likely than “heterosexual students to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.”
Related Links:
— “Gay and Lesbian High School Students Report ‘Heartbreaking’ Levels of Violence,” Jan Hoffman, New York Times, August 11, 2016.