Nationally:

—  Nearly half of all transgender young people have  seriously thought about taking their lives and one quarter have made a suicide attempt

—  Various studies have found depression and substance abuse strikes LGBT youth four to five times more severely

A unique and concerning challenge for LGBT youth are high levels of family rejection during middle and high school.

—  Approximately eight times more likely to reporting to have attempted suicide.

—  Almost six times more likely to report high levels of depression.

—  Three and a half times more likely to use illegal drugs.

—  Three and a half times more likely to have engaged in unprotected sex.

(Ryan, et al., 2009)

Greatly disturbing is the rate of suicide for LGBTQ youth range from twenty percent to forty-two percent and are consistently found to be significantly greater than the general population of youth.

Also, LGBT youth of color face multiple challenges as they attempt to be safe, learn and thrive in school. In a 2007 national survey:

—  Almost half of LGBT youth of color had been verbally harassed in school because of both their sexual orientation and race/ethnicity during the past year, and more than a third had been verbally harassed based on their sexual orientation alone.

—  About a quarter of students of color had experienced physical harassment based on their sexual orientation alone and over a tenth because of both their sexual orientation and race/ethnicity.  Assault related to sexual orientation was the most commonly reported (15%).

—  Almost half of female students of color reported being verbally harassed in the past school year because of their sexual orientation, gender and/or gender expression, and race/ethnicity, and almost a quarter experienced verbal harassment because of their sexual orientation and gender/gender expression.

Source: 2009 GLSEN School Climate Survey

Finally, a 2011 poll of 80 youth from Broward County Public Schools gay-straight alliance (gsa) clubs found that homophobic remarks were heard most often in their classrooms, with hallway remarks being a close second.