Portland Pride parade attendees march under a large rainbow flag in June 2024. Sofia Aldinio/Portland Press Herald

More than a third of LGBTQ+ young people in Maine seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 50% experienced depression, according to the results of a 2024 national survey on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth.

Maine advocates say those results aren’t surprising, considering ongoing struggles with access to care and the political rhetoric around transgender rights.

“They are afraid. They don’t know where it’s safe to be who they are, or if it’s safe to be who they are,” said Susan Campbell, executive director director of the Maine LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group OUT Maine.

The Trevor Project, a national nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth, conducts the annual study to assess the mental wellbeing of the community.

The report is based on a survey of more than 18,000 LGBTQ+ people ages 13 to 24 nationwide, including 117 Mainers.

The survey was taken between September and December of 2023, before President Donald Trump took office and began targeting transgender individuals, and shows the vast majority of LGBTQ+ youth across the country, including 87% of those in Maine, said their well-being was already negatively impacted by politics.

However, only 18% of young LGBTQ+ Mainers reported considering leaving Maine for another state because of state politics and laws, compared to nearly 40% nationally.

DIRE NUMBERS

Nationally, almost 40% of LGBTQ+ youth considered suicide in the last year, and 1 in 10 attempted suicide, according to the survey results. Sixty-six percent reported symptoms of anxiety, and 53% said they’d had symptoms of depression.

In a statement this week, the Trevor Project said that those in the LGBTQ+ community are not inherently more likely to have mental health issues, but rather are placed at higher risk because of social factors.

“Similar to previous research, these data reinforce that LGBTQ+ youth are not disproportionately impacted by suicide because of who they are, but rather, because of how they are mistreated, stigmatized and discriminated against,” Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, said in the statement.

And for almost every risk factor, transgender and nonbinary youth are worse off than the broader LGBTQ+ population. In Maine, 42% of trans and nonbinary respondents said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 18% said they had attempted it.

When it comes to accessing care, 45% of young LGBTQ+ people in the state said they did not receive the mental health care they desired. The top reported reasons for not getting that care were a lack of affordability and being afraid they wouldn’t be taken seriously by providers.

POLITICAL RHETORIC

In early February, Trump signed an executive order threatening to pull federal funding from schools that allowed transgender student-athletes to compete in women’s sports. Maine officials said they would still allow student-athletes to play sports aligned with their gender identity, a decision that received national attention during a public confrontation between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills in which he vowed to investigate Maine schools.

Trump learned about the policy when Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, posted a photo of a high school athlete she identified as transgender on Facebook, a decision for which she was censured by the Maine House of Representatives. This week a dozen state Republican lawmakers said they would continue fighting to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports.

The Trevor Project’s survey predates all of that, but Campbell, with OUT Maine said anti-LGBTQ legislation isn’t anything new.

“We’re talking about a small group of young people that this impacts,” she said. “And yet, it’s the thing that they want to set our world on fire about.”

A large rainbow flag is carried at the Portland Pride parade in downtown Portland in June. Sofia Aldinio/Staff Photographer

In Maine, 81% of young LGBTQ+ people said they felt the community they lived in was accepting, including 78% of trans or nonbinary Mainers. That’s compared to just 64% nationally.

Campbell said that’s a sign that the majority of Mainers generally support LGBTQ+ people — and that recent political rhetoric represents a vocal minority in the state.

“So this is about political power, all of this legislation. This is about people picking a topic that feels scary,” she said.

Campbell understands why some people, especially if they don’t know anyone who is transgender, can feel daunted by the idea. But she’s worried about the impact of the rhetoric on trans students, who are concerned they might be the next one to end up in a politician’s social media post.

She said school is already beginning to feel like a scary place for many LGBTQ+ students, and that might result in them shying away from education.

“We need to be helping them be excited and happy about their lives, and learning all the skills that they need to be learning about community-building and team-building, and all the other resiliency skills and tools that they’re going to need in order to become a successful adult,” Campbell said. “And if they spend their entire childhood being afraid, they’re missing out on a whole lot of opportunities and a whole lot of education.”

IF YOU NEED HELP 

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, dial 911.

For assistance during a mental health crisis, call or text 888-568-1112. To call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org.

For other support or referrals, call the NAMI Maine Help Line at 800-464-5767 or email helpline@namimaine.org.

Other Maine resources for mental health, substance use disorder and other issues can be found by calling 211.