By Anthony Green
My niece recently screamed out loud. The volume was so high because the shout-out was an attempt to kill herself. This is called by some a “gesture attempt,” because she knew it wouldn’t work but is instead yelling for help at the top of her lungs. I don’t like the term “gesture attempt” because it minimizes the importance of the act. Statistics show that those who attempt suicide are much more likely to die of suicide.
They also show that this phenomenon is more prevalent among the young, dramatically more common among adolescent females and even more serious among LGBT youth (at least 2.3 times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual adolescents).
The Internet can be used for good (most of the time) and sometimes bad. For someone like my niece information and sharing can be a lifesaver. Better to seek help from an anonymous source—if that’s what she wants—than screaming out through a suicide attempt or the real thing. But in some places, a young person seeking help about sexual identity or school bullying can be blocked on the Internet.
It is an unconscionable irony that it is easy — and utterly obtainable — to get recipes on the Internet on how to kill yourself, but some places bar an LGBT youth from sites that could help prevent you from needing to use such a guide. In fact, enter the words “how to commit suicide” and Google turns up 9,350,000 hits. Some of them are, in fact, message boards for people to discuss their problems. Probably most of them are useless but there’s surely enough there to commit more than the “gesture” of suicide.
Getting help if you are an LGBT youth is another story. One organization that’s helping troubled kids is the Trevor Project. It offers a 24/7 telephone hotline (866-488-7386), message boards, advice and inspiration. But some kids can’t access it. By blocking access to the Trevor Project, schools and libraries are not always acting maliciously or intentionally. But because the terms “gay” or “lesbian” are used, restrictive filters assume the site may be harmful, provocative or even pornographic. While not deliberate, it is discriminatory since straight help sites are not blocked in this way.
It is hard enough to have to hide your identity in the closet. It is even harder when doors are shut to the places where a young person can get help, which is why the ACLU started a new project, “Don’t Filter Me.” It encourages blockers to free kids from using the Trevor Project and other useful places that offer help. That includes the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which along with Trevor was named a Champion of Change by the White House, as well as the organization of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
In some cases, a Trevor Project spokesperson told me, institutions unblocked the organizations when asked to by the ACLU, but it had to sue a Missouri school district because of its Internet filtering policy. The ACLU argues that the filtering policy practice violates a 1982 Supreme Court decision that says a school cannot remove controversial books from their libraries. Referred to as the Pico case, the school district had banned, among others, “Go Ask Alice,” the inspirational book about a teenager hooked on drugs.
Even with technology making change so rapidly in the way we get information and help, the more things stay the same. In 1982, it was asking Alice. Today, they are kids like my niece needing refuges of information and solace. We must keep the help doors open.
Opinions are solely those of the authors who write them and not of The Gay Report.
Originally posted at The Washington Blade. All rights reserved to the author.
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