Cyndi Lauper has been promoting an important anti-homophobia campaign with a new message aimed squarely at parents who harm and discriminate against their own children.

It’s a sad statistic that gay, lesbian, and trans youth are disproportionately represented among all homeless youth in North America, falling between 20 and 40 percent of the total homeless youth population, depending on the region.

The Give a Damn campaign aims to raise awareness about all GLBT youth issues, but after the success of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Residence, New York’s first permanent housing facility for GLBT youth between the ages of 18 and 24, Cyndi has been pushing for resources to build even more shelters. “As a mother,” wrote Lauper, “I could never imagine throwing my kid away for any reason, let alone over something like their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“It would be like ripping out a piece of my very own soul,” she added.

If you want to learn more about the Give a Damn Campaign, I strongly encourage you to check out its website and support it in any way you can. This problem is bigger than any one campaign, though, so it’s important to also support projects for safer schools and training for leaders and role models to give rejected youth somewhere to go other than the streets.

• Cyndi Lauper blasts homophobic parents [Winnipeg Free Press]

One in four GLBT high school students in Massachusetts are classified as homeless, according to a new study from the Children’s Hospital Boston, published in the American Journal of Public Health last week.

Students who identified as GLBT accounted for only five percent of all respondents, but nineteen percent of homelessness. That’s a full 25% of the GLBT-identified sample, and a hugely disproportionate number compared to straight teens. Heartbreakingly, these teens are either found on the streets, or switching between friends’ houses—without any regular place to sleep and call home.

This isn’t an outlier study, either. The results closely match those conducted elsewhere, repeatedly showing a higher incidence of youth who are kicked out of their homes—or who run away from home—in the GLBT community than other groups.

This is really sad, but not very difficult to explain.

When parents discover that their child is gay, some react with extreme negativity in hopes that expressing a zero-tolerance reaction will convince the child to change their sexual orientation. Sexual orientation, however, is innate and unchangeable—a fact accepted by all recognized medical and psychological associations. This means that such youth will either have to endure immense hardships (such as being kicked out of their home, ostracized, or being forced into quack therapy) or run away on their own. It’s a little like demanding that a fourteen year old girl either grow a beard overnight, or face hourly showers of turpentine until she smartens up and pushes some curly bristles worthy of ZZ-Top. The demand is outrageous, and can’t be met.

The solution, of course, is common sense: Ensure that all gay youth have a loving environment where they can feel accepted for who they are and thrive. Ideally this will be their own childhood home with loving parents. If parents decide to withhold such necessities, however, then the only other options are supportive friends/family or a safe shelter, such as those created by the True Colors fund.

It’s about time to end the discriminatory nonsense that is driving GLBT youth to homelessness and suicide, so I have a task for you. The next time you hear or read some homophobic nonsense, challenge it. Call it out. Don’t let homophobia be the dominant message for struggling gay youth. Perhaps someone that overhears your support will really need it.

• 1 in 4 Gay/Lesbian High School Students are Homeless [PR Newswire]

A new study out of Montréal’s Concordia University has linked homophobic bullying to hormonal disruptions that can make youth more prone to memory loss, cardiovascular problems, bone density depletion, and even higher rates of suicide.

The research involved questionnaires and saliva swabs from 63 gay and lesbian youth. Results suggest that participants who endured the most bullying in day-to-day life had a higher rate of cortisol disruptions, which can cause negative health effects.

While I suspect that bullying of any kind would produce such a correlation, GLBT youth are indeed particularly prone to harassment.

Relatively unique to GLBT youth, the study also showed that having supportive family and friends who are responsive to gay issues significantly improved resiliency to homophobic harassment, making support groups a great countermeasure to the hormonal disruptions.

• Study links homophobic bullying to suicide, memory loss [Vancouver Sun]

A professor researching harassment of gay teens is calling high school “the land that time forgot,” a place where aggressive anti-gay sentiment pervades student life.

Catherine Taylor, a professor of education and communications at the University of Winnipeg, regrets to have discovered that virtually all gay teens are verbally harassed, with a startling number even being physically abused. Worse, homophobia so ingrained in school culture that very few students step up to condemn the abuse.

This is the same study, incidentally, that was forbidden from being conducted inside several Catholic school boards in Canada. The study is currently in its second phase, and is seeking funding for its third and final phase to take place early next year.

• Gay teens ‘terrorized’ in Canada’s schools: prof [Ottawa Citizen]

Gay youth are at a greater risk of suicide, depression, and self-destructive behaviours if their family reacts negatively when they come out of the closet, a new study has revealed.

Researchers at San Francisco State University found that even marginally supportive behaviour from parents toward their gay children reduced cases of drug abuse threefold,  severe depression sixfold, and suicide attempts eightfold.

Caitlin Ryan, the lead researcher of the study, said that while the results are intuitive, many parents still respond in very harmful ways.  Parents may have severe, negative reactions to learning about their child’s sexual orientation—such as forcing teens out of their homes, or forbidding them from associating with gay friends—in the hopes that an expression of extreme disapproval will somehow turn their kids straight. Ryan suggested that, while most parents have the very best intentions, greater education is required, and doctors should help spread that message.

Sten Vermund, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University, agreed, saying that while many parents may have difficulty offering the support their gay children need, it’s important to try:

Someone can still be uncomfortable with their child’s sexual orientation, but if they are somewhat more accepting and do the best the can, they will do the youth a lot of good. That, to me, is an important message.

A great message, indeed, and an excellent lesson with which to start off the new year. Hope you all had a fantastic holiday, kids!

• Study: Family behaviour key to health of gay youth [CTV News]

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are at a significantly higher risk of becoming pregnant or causing pregnancy than their straight counterparts.

The study, which was published yesterday in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, suggests that the higher pregnancy rate among gay teens is largely due to overcompensation—an attempt to “camouflage” one’s homosexuality. Another proposed theory suggests that a higher number of gay teens living on the streets may also have contributed to the counter-intuitive results.

Either way, I have a new concern to lose sleep over. All those anti gay marriage people said I couldn’t reproduce—a horrible lie, apparently. I’m not ready to be pregnant, or a father!

• Gay teenagers at higher risk for pregnancy: Study [Canada.com]
• Gay B.C. teens at higher risk for pregnancy [CTV News]