“Coming out” can be a complex event in an LGBTQIA+ person’s life. It can be fraught with tension, a source of stress, or, on the flip side, a time of renewed sense of self and identity. Essentially, coming out is incredibly personal and looks different for everyone — something a day of awareness and community like ‘National Coming Out Day’ directs a spotlight toward.
For young people who are part of the greater LGBTQ community, factors like how old they are and the type of environment in which they are coming out can play a big role in shaping their experience.
Nonprofit The Trevor Project released a new research brief that paints a picture of these realities, including the fact that today’s queer youth are coming out at younger ages.
One key finding: Whether or not an LGBTQ youth has access to positive, safe support systems can play a direct role in that young person’s positive or negative mental health outcomes, including suicide risk.
Among the findings, LGBTQ youth are coming out about their sexual orientations at younger ages than in the past. Those in the sample who were ages 13 to 17 came out on average at age 13, compared to peers who were 18 to 24, whose average age of coming out was 16.
The Trevor Project found that 24% of the overall sample of participants came out before 13. To put this in perspective, 35% of LGBTQ youth 13 to 17 years old came out before they were 13, in contrast to only 8% of those young people between 18 and 24 years old.
When asked why LGBTQ youth might be coming out at younger ages now, Myeshia Price, PhD, the Director of Research Science at The Trevor Project, told Healthline that while the nonprofit can’t directly tie this to one specific reason, “young people increasingly have more access to language, education, and representation around LGBTQ people and identities” now more than ever before.
The research brief shows that those who came out earlier than 13 “reported higher rates of victimization due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
They found 31% of those who came out before 13 reported being physically threatened or harmed as a result of their disclosure of their sexual orientation or gender identity, compared to 20% of their older peers who came out after 13 years old.
Read more at Healthline.com.
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