Last week Focus on the Family published an article in which gender issues analyst and “former homosexual” Melissa Fryrear blames “pro-gay advocates” for high suicide rates among lesbian youth:
The survey revealed that nearly four out of 10 lesbian girls say they have attempted suicide in the last year, compared to 8.2 percent of heterosexual girls.
Melissa Fryrear said there’s a reason why the numbers are so high.
“Regrettably, they think they have to embrace homosexuality because pro-gay advocates told them that they were born gay,” she said. “And that is absolutely not true.”
Wayne Besen called and spoke with study’s author, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia who had this to say about Fryrear’s analysis:
“Nothing in the brief results we presented or in our overall study could lead to such conclusions.”
When contacted about Focus on the Family’s claims, [Saewyc] said she was “disturbed” by what “seems to be an attempt to make their opinions more credible by linking them to scientific research–even though the research doesn’t support those beliefs.” She said Focus on the Family draws conclusions well beyond the study results by claiming that lesbians are suicidal because they are “embracing homosexuality,” as well as other inaccuracies in their article.
“Population surveys cannot determine cause and effect,” Saewyc explained, “they can only suggest possible links. Even so, other researchers have not found these sorts of links, and neither have we.”
She added, “What we have found is that sexual, racial, or anti-gay harassment, discrimination, and violence are strongly associated with suicidal attempts among young people — and that includes heterosexual teens too.” She noted her previous study of Seattle high school students, which found 4 out of 5 students experiencing anti-gay harassment identified as heterosexual, and harassed students were significantly more likely to report suicide attempts regardless of their orientation.
This isn’t the first time Fryrear has peddled this bogus idea. She said essentially the same thing last year responding to a Soulforce protest which featured the story of two parents who lost their gay son.
Update: There have been further developments in the story. Please see our updated post here.
Suicide prevention was not on the radar anywhere that I saw when I attended Love Won Out last week. As the survivor of a loved one’s suicide (in 2000, by my middle-aged partner, who felt caught between coming out, rejection by churches he loved, fears of further alienation from family members, and a history of depression), I was looking for references to mental health care.
Joseph Nicolosi didn’t mention reparative therapy as one piece of comprehensive mental health care, he belittled his peers in the therapy field and said mental health professionals are not to be trusted.
Bill Maier, from Focus, cited one suicide statistic which he said was inaccurate and misused by the media, said that suicide is much too complex to ever blame on one external factor, and offered no solace or encouragement to folks in the audience who may have been in difficult places in their struggle.
Mike Haley, in a Q&A session later in the day, was answering a question about how a parent should respond to a 17-year-old who had come out. He described coming-out as an initially uplifting or even euphoric experience and recommended that parents not try to burst that bubble with talk about ex-gay options right away. Absent from his response was any suggestion to the parent that this might be a perilous time in which their child is losing friends and vulnerable to increased bullying, or that the kid may have barely rejected suicide as an alternative to coming out.
It was striking to me that, for all the talk that day of substance abuse and addiction, compulsive sexual behavior, and parental and sexual abuse, that the general emphasis there also seemed to be broad distrust of getting treatment for any of it from experts in those fields. Sure, there was more support if the help was sought from Exodus, Focus, or some other conservative Christian source. But still, as Alan Chambers advised ex-gays during a breakout session (paraphrasing here), “Don’t hope in therapy, Exodus, Love Won Out, or support groups… Place your hope only in the Lord.”
How profoundly heartless of Fryrear and “Focus on the Family” to claim to love on one hand and then blame someone other than themselves for pain gays feel from being coerced into wrongly believing core attractions should be rejected as inherently evil. Is it easy to lie when you’re paid to Melissa? This is a deeply personal insult, hurtful, shameful, contemptuous behavior. You can’t expect LGBTs to judge your actions in any other light than that and the rest of the population is catching on. Its never too late to renounce your sins against same sex attracted individuals Melissa.
Okay, I still think shes kinda cute. it’s her ideas that are ugly
This is very dishonest of Fryrear. While she may have her own (wrong) opinion on the matter, she also claims to have support from a study that says the direct opposite.As Saewyc is quoted by Besen:
In other words – and directly contradicting both Fryrear’s and Thomas’ wrong-headed views – it has nothing to do with “they think they have to embrace homosexuality because pro-gay advocates told them that they were born gay” or “People who are conflicted about their sexual identity should be given education on what it means to deal with same-sex attraction.”Plainly ridiculous claims, given that the Seattle study found the same sort of negative impact on heterosexual teens as well as GLBT teens. Obviously heterosexual youths who are subjected to anti-gay abuse don’t need any such “exgay educating”.What they do need is the elimination of anti-gay abuse. That is: a reduction in the type of haranguing abuse that Focus, Exodus, Fryrear and Thomas directly contribute toward.But what of GLBT teens themselves?GLBT teens “should” show – on average – an elevated risk. As would any minority group, particularly if negatively stigmatized and isolated from counteracting support. This is the simple effect of knowing one is part of a discounted minority, and the stressors this alone introduces.But even this is changing. The activities of people like Fryrear and Thomas, and the abuse that this causes, are being counteracted.Perhaps the clearest illustration comes from Bontempo and D’Augelli (2002).They studied not only the effect of anti-gay abuse on both gay and straight youth, but also studied the difference between high abuse and low abuse environments. That is, they did the type of study that can begin to pinpoint the cause.GLBT teens in high abuse environments reported higher levels of suicide idealation than straight peers who also reported high levels of victimization at school.Those GLBT teens who reported low levels of school-based victimization reported similar levels of suicide idealation to straight peers who also reported low victimization.The results from all this should be quite clear: as a whole, elevated suicidality in GLBT teens is caused by victimization. It is not caused by internal negativity about their own sexuality.GBLT teens do not need to be told they can “change”. All they need is to be protected from anti-gay people.
If Fryrear wasn’t an ex-gay-for-pay shill, I’d at least attempt to give her the benefit of the doubt by asserting she likely isn’t skilled enough to understand an academic study.
But since part of her job appears to be creating truthiness in the name of God, I can’t even consider willful ignorance an honest as an excuse for this nonsense.
Statements like that of hers and ilk are AT LEAST responsible for influencing those suicides.
My original thought was that she is a sick SICK woman. That goes without saying, but it’s the people who are paying her to promote such depravity that are even sicker. What’s their “excuse?”
In May, Melissa responded to Dan’s questioning of her use of statistics. I’m wondering if she would be willing to comment on her recently quoted statements about teen suicide, in light of the study author’s response.
Melissa’s analysis of the study is the moral equivalent a veterinarian telling a dog owner that their dog isn’t well because it isn’t getting enough chocolate in its diet.
Its true that the study did not give a reason for the high rates of suicide. Saewyc states “Population surveys cannot determine cause and effect . . .”
That means none of us can state conclusively based on this study one way or another all the individual reasons for suicide rates. The people on this board are doing the exact same thing as Fryrear– drawing personal ancedotal conclusions.
The reality is that reasons are complex and not so easily pigeon holed–not so black and white as we would like them to be. In some ways Melissa is right–there are those who are suicidal because they feel they have no way out except to live in homosexual relationships. This causes tremendous despair because this is not what they want for their lives. I have encountered more than one person who fits this bill.
On the other hand I have also encountered more than one person who was suicidal because they really wanted to embrace homosexuality and felt condemned or harassed for doing so.
So I would agree with Fryrear and I would also agree with the folks on this board. We all are speaking, not from science, but from personal experience and those we have encountered.
I really wish these kinds of boards were a little more reasonable. Most folks just seem to be venting rather than thoughtfully reflecting and seeing the truth in the various perspectives.
I’m sorry, Karen, but I believe that you are mistaken.
This site did not criticize Fryrear’s personal interpretation of her personal experiences. We criticize her for claiming a conclusion to a scientific study that was not supported by the study. In fact, the author suggests that Fryrear’s interpretation is not found in any study and that quite the opposite seems to have been observed.
Further, there are two problems with your comparisons of the two groups of “more than one”.
First, the two contrasting cases that you mention leave out the most valuable factor, the factor that Fryrear was deliberately ignoring, personal and societal reponse.
You talk about having encountered “those who are suicidal because they feel they have no way out except to live in homosexual relationships”. What you do not discuss, yet is present in every single instance, is an underlying societal and/or religious disapproval of homosexuality.
You do not address (and Fryrear consitently dismisses) what seems to me to be obvious. If there were not societal pressures against homosexuality, there would not be as dramatically increased levels of suicidal thoughts.
Now perhaps there would be some unhappiness about being outside the norm (for example as a left-handed person may wish they were right handed). But I find it difficult to believe that ANY person that you’ve experienced that was distraught over being gay and not being able to be straight did not also have strong family and/or church pressure to accept that being gay was intrinsicly evil.
Now I’m making assumptions. Yet my assumptions seem fairly observable and are certainly more rational that Fryrear’s assumption that increases in suicidal attemsts are resulting from sexual abuse of lesbians. Her postulating is based on nothing whatsoever other than her desire to reaffirm her baseless claim that all (or 90% or 85% or whatever today’s claim is) gay men and women were sexually abused.
Second, we are not discussing this issue in the abstract. We have the input of the author of the study:
“Nothing in the brief results we presented or in our overall study could lead to such conclusions.”
In other words, Fryrear is wrong.
Also, you distort Saewyc’s words by truncating them as you did. You left out the following:
“Even so, other researchers have not found these sorts of links, and neither have we.”
She added, “What we have found is that sexual, racial, or anti-gay harassment, discrimination, and violence are strongly associated with suicidal attempts among young people — and that includes heterosexual teens too.””
In other words (again), Fryrear is wrong.
And by quoting the author of the study and applying her opinions to her study we are not guilty of behaving in a manner similar to Fryrear.
You may choose to “agree with” Fryrear and also with us. But that choice is not based on the study quoted but rather is based on a desire to believe what supports your preconceptions.
We have no desire here to be “reasonable”, if by reasonable you mean that we accept as truth the claims that are made by people who have demonstrated no use for the truth. Fryrear has a long history of creating “facts” and twisting the conclusions of studies.
We believe it is reasonable to expect that ex-gay leaders not lie. Or spin. Or twist the conclusions of a study to be the opposite of the observation.
Also, Karen (I pressed “post” too quickly)
Your phrase “person who was suicidal because they really wanted to embrace homosexuality and felt condemned or harassed for doing so” is interesting.
I’ve never met anyone in my life, nor have I heard of anyone, who “wanted to embrace homosexuality”. I’ve met many who want to live consistently with the orientation that they have. I’ve met many who recognized that they are attracted to the same sex and wished for external factors to not condemn or harass them.
But I’ve never heard of anyone who just sort of randomly decided to “embrace homosexuality”.
The suicidal pressures gay people have nothing whatsoever to do with being condemned or harassed for “embracing homosexuality” but rather from the pressures that were being exerted on them to be something that they are not. It was harassment against who they were, not what they “embraced”.
Using the terminology you selected suggests to me that you either come from a political/religious position that denies the existence of sexual orientation, or that you are remarkably unaware of the real issues surrounding the people you are discussing.
Karen,
If you check back you’ll find that we not only commented on the misuse of the study by Fryrear but also provided some info about background studies used by Saewyc and other legitiate (and real) researchers.
Those are not “personal opinions”, but directly point to anti-gay rhetoric as the cause of elevated levels of distress.
Within groups of GLBT or straight teens particular individuals may have their own issues. Of course. But the reason for the difference seen between the groups seems clear and completely at odds with what Fryrear or Thomas have claimed, or the way they behave.
Karen said:
I really wish these kinds of boards were a little more reasonable.
Wow, if you don’t find this one reasonable, lots of luck with the others out there!
David Roberts
Timothy said:
Your phrase “person who was suicidal because they really wanted to embrace homosexuality and felt condemned or harassed for doing so” is interesting.
I can tell you where she got it, it’s in the article, 4th paragraph. I would agree with your speculation on the perspective from which she is speaking.
David Roberts
I am closing comments here due to breaking news regarding this topic.
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