How to Bring Your Kids up Gay

In the summer of 1989, the United States Department of Health and Human Services released a study entitled Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide. Written in response to the apparently burgeoning epidemic of suicides and suicide attempts by children and adolescents in the United States, the 110-page report contained a section analyzing the situation of and lesbian youth. It concluded that, because gay youth face a hostile and condemning environment, verbal and physical abuse, and rejection and isolation from families and peers, young gays and lesbians are two to three times more likely than other young people to attempt and to commit suicide. The report recommends, modestly enough, an end to discrimination against youths on the basis of such characteristics as...sexual orientation.