The day after his 14th birthday in November 2019, Ryan Nelson revealed to his parents that he is transgender. Ryan was still trying to come to terms with his identity, but now had to watch his parents struggle with it.
“They said they couldn’t see it,” recalls Ryan. “It felt like they couldn’t see me.”
Four months later, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Ryan, like students across the country, was thrown into a new reality. He constantly struggled with mental health challenges, many of which were intertwined with accepting his identity. But now, away from his friends and classroom, Ryan felt lonelier than ever. He developed an eating disorder. He was hospitalized for a week. Eventually he dropped out of school altogether.
“A lot of my mental health struggles during the pandemic have been kind of a collision,” Ryan said. My mental health just collapsed.”
Students across California are back in the classroom today. However, according to her two recent national studies, the knock-on effects of pandemic isolation, along with hostile political climates, continue to affect young people across the state, with LGBTQ+ youth paying the highest price. increase.
“With all the abhorrent anti-LGBTQ+ laws being enacted, it is very difficult for young people to understand them and imagine a social life that they would be comfortable with,” said 20-year-old Mental Health and Disability. Sophia Trexler on Human Rights says: She is the founder of Fresno.
Nearly 80 percent of bisexual, gay and lesbian middle school students reported depression, stress and anxiety as learning disabilities in 2021-22, after YouthTruth, a San Francisco organization surveyed nearly 223,000 students in 20 states. I understand. straight student.
These disparities skyrocketed when measuring suicidal ideation. Nearly one-third of LGBTQ+ students in both middle and high schools nationwide reportedly have suicidal thoughts. According to data from YouthTruth, 48% of transgender middle school students and 41% of transgender high school students had suicidal thoughts.
Last month, the Trevor Project, a West Hollywood-based LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organization, released survey data showing even more troubling numbers. Even in California, often considered one of the most progressive states in the nation, the Trevor Project found that 44% of LGBTQ+ youth, including 54% of transgender and non-binary youth, had become seriously ill in the past year. I discovered that I had suicidal thoughts. These responses came despite the fact that in California, 75% of her LGBTQ+ youth say their communities accept her LGBTQ+ people.
Ryan, now 17, wasn’t surprised by either dataset. He said he has seen many of his LGBTQ+ friends struggle with mental health. Conservative political backlash against LGBTQ+ rights.
“There’s been a situational aspect of queer kids being stuck at home during the pandemic, many with unacceptable families,” Ryan said. There were also people who lost their lives, and I think that probably affected a lot of people.”
mental health emergency
YouthTruth and the Trevor Project’s findings, created by the makers of the 1994 short film “Trevor,” about a 13-year-old gay boy who attempts to take his own life, address youth mental health issues. was announced at a time of great caution. .
Youth suicide surged 20% across California in 2020, according to the California Department of Health and Human Services. In 2021, public health advisories on youth mental health challenges will be issued nationwide. And in the spring of 2022, standardized test scores mark her six-year setback for state students, creating more stress to catch up on what they’ve lost.
Last summer, Governor Gavin Newsom pledged $4.7 billion to initiate the Children’s Mental Health Master Plan, a statewide program to address rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicide among California’s youth. has been assigned. The far-reaching plan will see him hire, train and deploy 40,000 new mental health workers across the state, while expanding remote access to mental health services and increasing the number of school-based counselors. I’m here.
For Rishaun Francis, director of behavioral health at Children Now, an advocacy group in Oakland, such programming can’t happen fast enough.
Last year, Children Now, along with seven children’s hospitals and organizations, called on Newsom to declare a state of emergency for children’s mental health and expedite any new spending. These demands have since been incorporated into the state master plan, with $50 million allocated to create a youth suicide reporting program and $40 million to support organizations working to prevent youth suicide. . A larger masterplan will roll out over the next three years, but the first of these two of her programs has already started, and his second will begin in early 2023.
“Young people are still suffering and the impact of the pandemic is still looming large in their minds,” Francis said. , and may have suffered financially.…They did come back, but many of the stressors they experienced didn’t just go away.
According to the California Health Interview Survey, an annual statewide survey led by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, one-third of California middle and high school students will experience severe emotional distress between 2019 and 2021. I experienced. Experts say these risks are higher for LGBTQ+ students, many of whom seek help from school-based gay alliance clubs and LGBTQ+-focused nonprofits to support their mental health. relied on spaces such as sessions led by
This is what Sasha Boucheri, another Concord teenager, experienced in the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown. She was 14 at the time and was in a relationship with another girl, but she felt she couldn’t tell her parents that she was more than her best friend. Sasha feared that her religious family would think she was someone else.
As a result, she remained silent and struggled to feel herself while away from the school-based LGBTQ+ community she had become dependent on.
“I felt like I couldn’t talk about myself or tell my family about me because they wouldn’t accept me,” Sasha said. “It really took a toll on me.”
come out on the battlefield
When Ryan’s school fully reopened in August 2021, he set up a booth at an all-girls Catholic high school. Pinned to his chest was a series of pronoun (he, they) buttons he felt most comfortable using. Ahead of him was a stack of other buttons, each with its own color and font. He stood by the button presser with markers and paper for students to make their own.
“I was very surprised by how many people pressed the button,” recalls Ryan. “People grabbed it and then brought their friends home and got their own.”
Ryan handed out 60 to 100 buttons that day. Almost immediately after the event, however, Ryan noticed that the conservative media had picked it up, citing parents who were upset about the school’s support. He wanted to be representative, but in the process his work fell prey to politics.
“Students are right in the middle of what’s going on in our country regarding the culture war we’re going through. And it’s the students who are suffering,” said YouthTruth. Executive Director Jen Vorse Wilka said.
Five people were killed in a shooting at club Q, a gay nightclub in Colorado, days before Ryan spoke to The Chronicle. Last year, anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, banned LGBTQ+ instruction in elementary schools, and multiple laws in both Tennessee and Utah banning the participation of transgender students. He has seen LGBTQ+ laws spread across the country. sports. A record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed in 2022, he surpassed 228 in 39 states, according to Casey Pick, who is a Senior Fellow for Advocacy and Government Affairs at the Trevor Project.
“As we anticipate another record wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2023, these findings will inspire LGBTQ youth and how to advocate for change that protects and supports LGBTQ youth in every state. We emphasize that it is very important to find
The Bay Area has historically been known to welcome the LGBTQ+ community. However, young people do not grow up in isolation. According to the Trevor Project, in California, 85% of LGBTQ+ youth report that recent politics are having a negative impact on their well-being.
“Weirdly enough, in a way, I feel like our generation is pushing us forward. It makes me really depressed, really anxious, and really self-conscious.”
Ryan, Sasha, and Maren rely on each other to keep moving forward, with communities like Concord’s LGBTQ+ nonprofit Rainbow Center. Each youth highlighted the influence of their school’s gay-her-straight-her-alliance club and how meaningful it was to have a sheltered space to be themselves.
“Having a safe space like this is so empowering because you can talk to other people who understand how you feel,” Sasha said. I want that for everyone who is part of the LGBTQ+ community.”
A few months after Button Booth, Ryan had a similar session at the school’s all-staff meeting. Teachers began approaching Ryan if they had questions about people’s pronouns, or if they wanted to learn more about topics related to gender identity.A few months after that, Ryan was at Rainbow’s Center for the first Pride of his I helped organize the prom. This was done in partnership with PFLAG — his PFLAG — a lesbian and gay parent and friend, whose mother is Ryan’s treasurer.
Over 100 students participated.
The LGBTQ+ community is “one of the happiest places ever,” Ryan said. “I made the best friends and met the best people. It’s one of the best things.”
Elissa Miolene graduated from Stanford University’s School of Journalism and was a former intern on the San Francisco Chronicle’s multimedia team. twitter: @Elisa Mio
