Affirming Communities and Care May Protect Against Still-High LGBTQ+ Youth Suicide Risk: Study

More than a third of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, per a new report from The Trevor Project, which attributed their high suicide risk to mistreatment and stigmatization. It also identified protective factors, including accepting communities and spaces and access to gender-affirming clothing and care.

Content warning: Discussion of considering and attempting suicide.

The Survey

The 2025 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People surveyed a sample of 16,667 LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 to 24 in the U.S. It found, among other things, that:

• 36% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including 40% of transgender and nonbinary young people.
• 1 in 10 LGBTQ+ young people attempted suicide in the past year.
• 62% of LGBTQ+ young people reported experiencing recent symptoms of anxiety; this included 65% of transgender and nonbinary ones and over half of cisgender ones (52%).

While these numbers show marginal improvements from Trevor’s 2023 and 2024 surveys, they are still far too high.

The Trevor report did not offer direct comparisons to results for cisgender, heterosexual youth, but a separate 2024 study that used data from the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) found that LGBQ+ youth were more than three times as likely to consider or attempt suicide than heterosexual youth (41% versus 13% and 20% versus 6%, respectively). Another 2024 study using YRBS data found that 26% of transgender and questioning students attempted suicide in the past year compared with 5% of cisgender male and 11% of cisgender female students. (It did not break out the gender of trans respondents. See also the Trevor report’s methodology section for some differences between its results and those of the YRBS, none of which seem to contradict the general conclusion that rates are higher for LGBTQ+ youth versus cisgender, heterosexual ones.)

What Hurts

The Trevor report stressed, however, that “LGBTQ+ young people are not inherently prone to higher suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Rather, they are placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.”

Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, explained in a statement, “Given the current climate in our country, it comes as no surprise that many LGBTQ+ youth are reporting high rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality,” adding, “These young people report they are being bullied, discriminated against, and debated about by politicians simply for being themselves.”

Indeed, the study found that:

• 90% of LGBTQ+ young people said recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies and debates caused them stress or anxiety.
• LGBTQ+ young people of color attempted suicide at higher rates than their White peers, and nearly a third (32%) also experienced racial or ethnic discrimination, in addition to anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
• Over half (59%) of LGBTQ+ young people ages 13-17 experienced bullying in the past year, and those who did reported significantly higher rates of attempting suicide in the past year than their peers.

(See the full report for more about how the data breaks down for specific LGBTQ+ identities, racial/ethnic identities, geographic regions, urbanicity, and more.)

All of this has an impact on LGBTQ+ young people’s sense of themselves and their future. As one 16-year-old respondent from Texas said about being transgender, “I’m just a person. I want to live like the rest of humanity. I want to one day be able to be a husband and father, but my hope for that diminishes when I’m not even allowed to be a son.”

Given the above stresses, it is not surprising that 84% of all LGBTQ+ young people wanted mental health care in the past year. Of those, however, 44% were not able to get it, because of the cost of care, lack of transportation, or fears such as not having the provider understand their sexual orientation or gender identity, having to get a parent/caregiver’s permission, worries about being involuntarily hospitalized or having the police called, or previous negative experiences. But as a 16-year-old respondent from Tennessee shared, “I think having professionals equipped to navigate my identity has helped a lot. It helped a lot having that one person who I felt really did understand my identity on a fundamental level.”

What Helps

Several other factors also reduced LGBTQ+ youths’ risk of suicide attempts:

• LGBTQ+ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than a third of the rate of those in very unaccepting communities. Those who had access to LGBTQ-supportive spaces (including online) also reported lower rates than those who did not.
• Transgender and nonbinary young people also reported lower rates of attempting suicide when the people they live with respected their pronouns, when they had access to a gender neutral bathroom at school, and when they had access to binders, shapewear, and other gender-supportive clothing.
• Transgender and nonbinary youth currently taking hormones to support their gender transitions were half as likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year (8% vs. 15%). To my mind, however, there’s an open question of whether it’s the hormones per se that made the difference, or the fact that taking hormones implies that there are at least some supportive people around who presumably have made taking those hormones even possible. I’m guessing that a combination of factors may be at work here.
  • At the same time, though, 75% of those who had access to hormones and/or puberty blockers reported difficulties in accessing them, including insurance coverage issues, long wait times for appointments, and lack of knowledgeable, nearby healthcare providers. A whopping 87% of those taking hormones were somewhat or very concerned about losing access to this care.

Suggestions from LGBTQ+ Youth

Importantly, the young people themselves offered specific suggestions for how we can best support them, including:

• Trusting that I know who I am (88%)
• Not supporting politicians that advocate for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation (85%)
• Standing up for me (80%)
• Respecting my pronouns (72%)
• Showing support for how I express my gender (69%)r
• Looking up things about LGBTQ+ identities on their own to better understand (67%)
• Accepting my partner(s) (60%)
• Asking questions about LGBTQ+ identities to better understand (60%)
• Having or displaying pride flags (41%)
• Showing support on social media (41%)

A 21-year-old respondent from Texas observed that support should start early, saying, “More discussions of LGBTQ+ topics earlier in school and support for those kids—that’s what I wish I’d had.”

And an 18-year-old respondent from Maine offered this advice when asked what they’d say to someone who doesn’t understand what it means to be transgender or nonbinary: “I would say it’s a matter of acceptance, not understanding. I don’t understand physics and its laws but that doesn’t mean that physics doesn’t exist, or that it exists in a way I want it to. So you may not ‘understand’ it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t accept it.”

Moving Forward

Despite the sobering findings, Trevor CEO Black found reasons to hope—but also a mandate for us all:

While many of these results are difficult to read, this year’s data point to a hopeful reality for LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S., too: When LGBTQ+ young people report they have welcoming and supportive communities, spaces, and people in their lives, their risk for attempting suicide lowers significantly. As adults and allies, this is our call to action: we must continue to vocally and visibly show the LGBTQ+ young people in our lives that they belong, exactly as they are.

On a Related Note