Wear it purple on Friday
This Friday, October 15, is Wear it Purple Day.
Wear it Purple Day is designed to raise awareness about the shocking levels of youth suicide, depression and anxiety specific to sex, sexuality and gender diverse people and encourages as many people as possible to make and wear a purple armband to show support for LGBT teens.
The recent spate of teenage suicides in the US is a stark reminder of the consequences of homophobia. Rates of depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation are estimated by Suicide Prevention Australia to be between 4-14 times higher than in heterosexual demographics.
Australia still lacks comprehensive federal anti-discrimination protection for people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Exemptions to anti-discrimination legislation must also be narrowed, to avoid giving particular groups ‘licences’ to discriminate. This is particularly concerning in relation to faith-based agencies and organisations that receive government funds, but still have broad discretion to not comply with all anti-discrimination laws.
Homophobia, however, is a pervasive problem. Ending homophobia requires a concerted effort to undermine the structures, institutions and social determinants that mark out LGBTI people for vilification, discrimination and/or harassment.
Multi-dimensional approaches to ending homophobia also require policy change. Introducing and funding a peak body on LGBTI issues to promote equality and inclusion, similar to other minority groups, would be an invaluable step. This could include a ministerial portfolio and unit dedicated to concerns of sex, sexuality and gender diverse people.
Education is also essential. As part of the federal Government’s push towards a greater human rights culture, programs to promote awareness and tolerance of the diversity of sexual and gender minorities must be at the core of such initiatives.
Schools must actively work to ensure their bullying policies expressly deal with sexual orientation and gender identity.
While significant improvements are needed, Wear it Purple marks an important step forward. By wearing a purple armband this Friday, and by raising awareness, you can begin to help build an inclusive Australia that will not tolerate homophobia in any form.
By SENTHORUN RAJ
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Hi NSW GLRL and Ash Rehn,
Thank you for your comments on this very pressing issue. Thank you also for talking about queer suicide relating to sex, sexuality and gender diverse people. I noticed though that you didn’t report much on the information about sex and gender diverse identities and their instances of suicide. Could you also give some information about these, and the social issues these are related to, for myself and other readers.
Whilst I am glad that we are talking about the social issues that lead to gay, lesbian and bisesual suicides, and to remember the people of these identities close to us who have sadly taken their lives. By not talking about the experiences that affect intersex, trans*, sex and gender diverse people; who are affected by these, who eventually committ suicide and who have suicidal ideations (myself being one such person); you’re not bringing attention to the social, community and medical issues that cause these (and the seriousness of this discrimination). Many of us do have suicide ideations (I think it is something like 59% of the intersex, sex and/or gender diverse population), and about 90% being affected by atleast one form of discrimination in our lives, 50-60% having a depressive or anxiety disorder, and then including our relationships with medical practitioners, families, our sexualisation, physical and verbal harrassment, sexual assualt, rape and murders. Please don’t forget about our experiences too.
Cheers, chai.
In response to Ultimo167’s remarks:
1. There IS considerable evidence that young gay men are more at risk of taking their lives. The evidence can be located by entering “Pierre Tremblay suicide” into google (Pierre Tremblay is a Canadian academic who has assembled considerable data on the subject).
2.The reasoning that there is no cause and effect between suicidal thoughts and acting on suicidal thoughts is flawed. Competent and experienced mental health clinicians always consider the extent of suicidal thinking when undertaking risk assessments as it is a significant factor.
3. 434 suicides amongst 15-24 year olds (1995 figure) of whatever sexual orientation in Australia is too high. Even 1 is too high.
4. Research indicates some of these young people take their lives before they come out to others or even are clear about their identity with themselves. So it is quite difficult to know how much of a factor sexuality was. We do know that it is a factor and same sex attracted young people are overrepresented in the statistics.
5. Stating that gay & lesbian or same sex attracted young people are more at risk of suicide or self harm does not need to indicate psychopathology. It indicates problems with our communities when we neglect to protect young people from abuse and assault in our schools, when parents try to change their childrens’ sexual orientation, when a government promotes the message that lesbians and gay men do not deserve marriage. It is our institutions which are sick, not our gay and lesbian young people.
Essentially, what is needed is to teach children on a basic level with age-relevant sex education in primary schools, so children can know what a gay man is; what a lesbian is; and so on; that we are basically no different, better or worse than heterosexuals, and that we should not be used as scapegoats for society’s woes. For example, it needs to be noted that we are not paedophiles as uneducated rednecks, bigots and homophobes may suggest to their children.
Additionally, we all need to make sure that the Ethics Classes, being trialled at the moment, end up being included into the curriculum of all schools (and not just Public Schools).
I’ve suggested these things to The Greens (as I’m sure others have too)… let’s hope that The Greens make a move on such concerns, as the main political parties only show concern through useless rhetoric.
A saving grace of a lot of modern television is that there are more TV shows that seem to be taking care of educating the masses where the Education System is sadly lacking and under-performing in regards to teaching Social Skills to children, with TV shows such as ‘Modern Family’, that show us as ‘normal’ too, with our similar cares, quirks and concerns; and that we’re not weird ‘beings’ to be picked on.
Let’s hope that one day politicians will stop:
– wasting time bickering about irrelevant things, pull their collective fingers out and do what we pay them for: to be leaders who can make a change for the better for all of us, including look at real ethical concerns and amending any outstanding inequalities and problems.
– being puppets of homophobic companies, organisations and fundamentalist religious groups, and instead, make good change for everyone.
There is no reliable evidence to suggest that young gay men are any more likely than their straight counterparts to commit suicide. Noting that overall suicide deaths are statistically rare, suicidal ideation is, conversely, quite common. Ergo, you cannot draw any robust cause and effect relationship between thinking about and actually doing suicide. While I can well understand why some people might want to progress the theory that GLBTI people, particularly young gay men, are at high risk of committing suicide, that in fact is simply not true. Further, by touting that dreaded ‘4 to 14 times more likely’ hype, it merely adds to the perception that homosexuality is, of itself, a type of psychopathology.