He was thin then–he didn’t become a gym bunny until a few years later–but it was his handsome face and his unassuming manner that captivated me.  He had piercing blue eyes and a gentle, welcoming voice.  I was in town to look for an apartment, but I remember hoping that we would meet again upon my return and that the “boyfriend” he introduced me to was merely a temporary fling (I was single at the time).

As it turned out, his relationship with the boyfriend grew stronger and I acquired one of my own in the months prior to relocating. But Chad and I became friends, and a year later we decided to buy an old duplex together and move in with our respective partners.

Within 18 months both relationships soured, a development we always jokingly blamed on the house.  Nonetheless, Chad and I kept things platonic.  He seemed to have difficulty being single, and no sooner did he break up with one boyfriend than he would cling to another.

Seldom did his friends approve of the choices.  The bolder ones would tell him what the rest of us were thinking:  “You’re good-looking, you’re an attorney, you’re charming–a total ‘catch.’  Why are you dating this mooch?”

Chad’s good nature sometimes got the better of him; besides, he seemed desperately afraid of being alone.

He was also deeply closeted.  Having grown up with a fundamentalist upbringing, attended school at Hillsdale College, and chosen a fairly conservative profession, he was terrified of people–and in particular, his family–finding out that he was gay.

Once, when we were walking through a suburban downtown with our boyfriends, he suddenly disappeared.  A few minutes later we discovered that he had ducked into a store after spotting some law-school classmates across the street and feared that our presence would somehow “out” him.

While the dual life he led took an emotional toll on him, it also created (or perhaps exacerbated) some unfortunate character traits.  To put it bluntly, Chad was someone too comfortable at lying.

This manifested itself not only in his closetedness, but also in his cheating on his boyfriends, and ultimately, in his gradual spiral into drug use, which he kept largely hidden from those friends (like me) he knew would object.

Of course, it’s hard to keep some things hidden for very long.  I had heard from mutual acquaintances that Chad was using crystal meth, though he denied it (and later, when that became too implausible, falsely claimed that he had since stopped).  Eventually he lost his job, not to mention many of his friends.

I tried to remain close with him, even after I moved out of the duplex, but it became increasingly difficult as his drug use increased.   One day a routine check of my credit report revealed missed payments on our mortgage.  Chad, I discovered, had not paid for months, even though he continued to collect my contribution.

I will never forget the look of shame and despair on my friend’s face when I confronted him:  he had hit rock-bottom, and he could no longer conceal it.

We met for lunch about a month after that.  I urged him (as many times before) to get counseling, and for the first time he seemed somewhat open to it.  He claimed that he was taking several steps to get his life back on track.

I was reminded that day of the reasons I had grown to love him:  his gentle, reassuring manner; his endless well of charm; his fundamental kindness.  Maybe, I thought, he could get treatment for his depression, stop self-medicating, and tap into his enormous potential.  I felt hopeful.

Two weeks later, I stopped by the duplex to pick up a check from my tenants.  Chad was outside, pleading with the electric company not to turn off his power.  I called him later, but he never answered my call or returned my message (it had become a familiar pattern).

That was the last time I saw him.

The following week, on Sept. 29, 2004, Chad committed suicide, hanging himself in the basement of the home we had once shared.  My tenants found him.  He was 32 years old.

At the reception following his memorial service, the boyfriend I had met on my first visit to Detroit turned to me and said, “We failed him.”

“Yes,” I replied, “but he failed us too.”  Five years later, both claims still pierce me.

*************************************

John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.

For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.

I am now a “veteran,”  home after a year in the desert. We have been the guinea pigs for a new attempt by the military to focus on the mental health and well- being of soldiers as we reintegrate back into the civilized world. This “yellow ribbon” program is part in response to the tragic truth of the number of suicides committed by our soldiers – all too often our young men and women.

When I first arrived home, we were corralled into a small room with a circle of chairs. A high ranking officer – a mental health counselor – led the group meeting. We were there to listen to each other’s problems and the problems that we expected to encounter as we began to take up our place as father, mother, child, sibling, employee, employer and sometimes lover.

There was no confidentiality in the setting. The same people I spent the entire year hiding my sexual orientation from sat around me expecting to hear my problems. There is no way I could be honest even now, when the military acknowledges that being honest is the best way to ensure a soldiers well-being.

More recently, I was again forced into a similar group setting. This time the room was set up like a classroom and there were two group leaders – a man and a woman – one of whom was a veteran. The veteran, the man, tried to get us to spew out our feelings and our troubles by commenting on how his experiences affected him.

He mentioned how hard it was being a black man in the military many years ago, when others weren’t welcoming. He also shared that this warm welcome was something he thought women must have gone through. I was reminded of what it was like being in the military under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) – but I digress.

Many of the people in the room commented, rather passionately, that they would not be open to speaking in front of their fellow soldiers. They didn’t want to be mocked and ridiculed. I sat quietly in the shadows. How would I begin to discuss my issues? Not only would I be subject to mockery and ridicule – I’d also be fired.

This is another obvious reason to remove DADT. There is not near enough support for the far right to ban all homosexuals from military service. I don’t believe there ever will be. But  the military has the responsibility to take into account the mental health and well-being of all its personnel and it can’t with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in place.

In this push to battle the military’s high suicide rate, no soldier should be left behind.

Michael Duffy was a soldier stationed in Iraq.

The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed Monday that McFarlane died Friday in Truth or Consequences but didn’t immediately release the cause.

A statement released by Tim Sweeney, president of the Denver-based Gill Foundation, where McFarlane once worked, said McFarlane committed suicide. McFarlane left a note citing back and heart problems that limited his ability to work and travel, the statement said.

“We will eternally be in his debt as a result of his many, lasting contributions,” Sweeney said.

McFarlane was executive director of the Gill Foundation from 2004 to 2008. Founded by software entrepreneur Tim Gill, the foundation funds programs advocating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights.

Earlier, McFarlane helped found New York’s Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Bailey House, a housing provider for homeless people with HIV, said Fred Saenz, vice president for communication of the Gill Foundation.

McFarlane wrote “The Complete Bedside Companion: A No Nonsense Guide to Caring for the Seriously Ill.” Saenz said that book grew out of McFarlane’s experience of caring for friends.

Carl Walker-Hoover was found this week hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of the family home.

His mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, said that the New Leadership Charter School did nothing to stop the bullying despite her repeated complaints to the school.

In an interview with the “Republican” newspaper, Walker said that the grade 6 student suffered taunts and threats from other students who made fun of him, insulted the way he dressed and called him gay.

The 11-year-old did not identify as being gay.

A vigil for Carl was held at the school, but Walker said no one from the publicly funded school contacted her. The media was barred from the vigil.

This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network said Friday.

Earlier this month, the parents of a Mentor, Ohio, high school student filed a federal lawsuit in connection with their son’s suicide.

Mohat, 17, went home from school on March 27, 2007, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

In a federal lawsuit, the parents of Eric Mohat allege that he regularly “was called ‘gay,’ ‘fag,’ ‘queer’ and ‘homo’ among other names” and that the school did nothing to prevent it.

The lawsuit names the school district, administrators Jacqueline A. Hoynes and Joseph Spiccia, and math teacher Thomas M. Horvath. All have declined comment in the case.

“You do not have to identify as gay to be attacked with anti-LGBT language,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard.

“From their earliest years on the school playground, students learn to use anti-LGBT language as the ultimate weapon to degrade their peers. In many cases, schools and teachers either ignore the behavior or don’t know how to intervene.”

Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half reported being physically harassed and about a quarter reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.

In a federal lawsuit the parents of Eric Mohat allege that he regularly was called ‘gay,’ ‘fag,’ ‘queer’ and ‘homo’ among other names and that the school did nothing to prevent it. 

“This harassment and bullying took the form of constant name-calling, teasing and verbal intimidation in one particular class and constant pushing, shoving and hitting both in class and in hallways of the high school,” court papers say.

The lawsuit names the school district, administrators Jacqueline A. Hoynes and Joseph Spiccia, and math teacher Thomas M. Horvath. All have declined comment in the case.

Mohat, 17 at the time, went home from school on March 27, 2007, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

“On the day Eric committed suicide, one of the students who had been harassing him said to Eric, in front of other students and, by information and belief, in front of defendant Horvath, ‘Why don’t you go home and shoot yourself? No one would miss you,’” the lawsuit said.

“The defendants knew or should have known about this constant harassment,” the lawsuit claims. “Defendant Horvath knew about the harassment because most of the verbal harassment and some of the physical harassment took place in his classroom during a math class that he taught and because Eric complained to him about the harassment.”

“When you lose a child like this it destroys you in ways you can’t even describe,” Eric Mohat’s father, Willaim Mohat, told ABC News.

The lawsuit does not seek punitive damages.  Instead it wants the school district to recognize the suicide as the result of homophobia and for the district to implement an anti-bullying program to prevent other similar tragedies.

The Mohats claim that three other students at the school committed suicide in 2007.

A study by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, found that 47 percent of junior/middle high school students identified bullying, name-calling or harassment as somewhat serious or very serious problems at their school.

Additionally, 69 percent of junior/middle high school students reported being assaulted or harassed in the previous year and only 41 percent said they felt very safe at school.

It also found widespread physical attacks and rampant school bullying toward the LGBT population.

The report, Supporting LGBT Lives: A Study of the Mental Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People, is the largest study into LGBT mental health ever carried out in Ireland.

The report’s authors said that the study clearly shows “the negative effects of stigmatization, harassment and discrimination – what is termed ‘minority stress’ – on LGBT people.”

Twenty-five percent of respondents said they had been physically attacked because of their sexuality and 40 percent had been threatened with violence.

The study found that almost 80 percent had been verbally abused because of their sexual identity and 58 per cent had been bullied in school. More than 30 percent said that they had been bullied by teachers or staff.

Twenty percent of those surveyed said that the bullying in school was so bad they frequently skipped classes out of fear for their safety.

The study, released by Health Minister Mary Harney, was conducted by the Children’s Research Center at Trinity College and the School of Education at University College Dublin.

In the early 1980s, when AIDS was first identified, Ryan was doing her clinical internships in Atlanta. At the request of a public health worker, she helped start AID Atlanta, the first AIDS organization in the Southeast, and became the organization’s first director.

Caitlin Ryan

By 1985, she had lost 100 clients to AIDS, many of them young gay people who had left their homes and families.

“I met their families when their son was in intensive care and the parents found out within the first few minutes that their son was gay and was dying of AIDS,” she recalled. “The parents were devastated. Their world was falling apart. They realized that they were about to lose their child and there was often no time to reconcile; no time to tell their son that they loved him.

“Those experiences stayed with me and I think especially motivated me to develop the family interventions, based on our research, to help families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children,” she said.

When she first began looking for resources to help LGBT youth, however, almost all of the professional literature discussing “homosexual” patients was about risk for suicide and the isolation and pain of being gay, with little focus on the positive.

“Gay youth were really seen just as walking risk factors,” she said.

“No one was looking then at what it took to be part of a very stigmatized social minority, to survive living in the closet and come out of that, to be able to be a successful adult and have a good life and a family and career. . . . As an adolescent, people were told, ‘You can’t be like that because those people live on the fringes of society.’ The concept of resiliency and inner strength and coping capacities were never attributed to young gay people who had to struggle with all of these issues, and yet largely as a community, did very well as adults.”

In the early 1990’s, therefore, Ryan joined forces with Donna Futterman, a lesbian pediatrician in New York, and other experts across the country to develop the first appropriate, supportive clinical care guidelines for working with lesbian and gay adolescents.

Ryan and Futterman then wrote the first book on health and mental health care for this population, Lesbian and Gay Youth, in 1998.

She noted that at the time, “People weren’t quite sure what bisexual identity meant during adolescence, and there were very few transgender youth.” After days of searching at the Library of Congress and the National Institutes of Health, she said, “I couldn’t find anything written about transgender youth that wasn’t pejorative, that was in any way seeing that as a normative adolescent identity.”

She and Futterman nonetheless included a chapter in the book on transgender adolescents, taking a more supportive approach.

Ryan came to realize, though, that still, “there was a critical gap in our understanding of how LGBT young people were evolving and developing. . . . We didn’t know how their families were adjusting and adapting.”

Although the general healthcare literature talked about families as “a very important protective factor against major health and mental health risks,” providers knew nothing about families’ role in contributing to well being and increasing or decreasing risk for LGBT young people.

Even though children were coming out at younger and younger ages, there were no resources to help families understand their LGBT children’s developmental needs, to find appropriate health care providers, or to address peer victimization and school-related problems.

She therefore decided to develop a family-based project that would include research, education, intervention, and public policy in culturally and socioeconomically diverse ways.

“The research,” she said, “would be a basis for developing interventions that would change the way that we were working with LGBT young people.” In 2001, she received a grant from the California Endowment to begin the work.

Publishing the first paper to come out of the FAP and getting ready to release the first of the resources they have developed is “incredibly exciting,” she said.

“We’re able now to write about promoting positive coping among LGBT young people to foster well being in adulthood . . . all of the kinds of positive things that are absent from the literature. We also can write about the health benefits of coming out during adolescence as well as the impact of reparative therapy on health and mental health outcomes, the long-term impact of anti-LGBT school victimization, and how do we use school environments to promote well being for these young people in adulthood?

“There are many, many research papers as well as a lot of tools. There are all kinds of things I want to do.”

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents.

The way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth’s sexual orientation profoundly influences the child’s mental health as an adult, say researchers at San Francisco State University, whose findings appear in Monday’s journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Parents love their children and want the best for them,” said lead researcher Caitlin Ryan, a social worker who directs the university’s Family Acceptance Project. “Now that we have measured all these behaviors, we can see that some of them put youth at extremely high risk and others are wellness-promoting.”

Among other findings, the study showed that teens who experienced negative feedback were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.

More significantly, Ryan said, ongoing work at San Francisco State suggests that parents who take even baby steps to respond with equanimity instead of rejection can dramatically improve a gay youth’s mental health outlook.

One of the most startling findings was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents in terms of negative feedback, Ryan said.

In the two-part study, Ryan and her colleagues first interviewed 53 families with gay teenagers to identify 106 specific behaviors that could be considered “accepting” or “rejecting.” For example, blaming a youth for being bullied at school, shielding him from other relatives or belittling her appearance for not conforming to social expectations fell into the rejecting category.

Next, they surveyed 224 white and Latino gay people between ages 21 and 25 to see which of the behaviors they had experienced growing up. The responses then were matched against the participants’ recent histories of severe depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and unsafe sexual behavior.

While the results might seem intuitive, Ryan said the study, funded by the California Endowment, was the first to establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.

She has used the information in workshops with parents and other caregivers who have strained relationships with their gay teenagers, and said many were alarmed enough to make immediate changes in their interactions.

Ryan recalled a teenage girl whose mother forced her to date a boy and sent her to live with her grandmother when she learned her daughter was a lesbian. After hearing about the connection between parental attitudes and suicide, the mother stopped arranging the dates with the boy and instead inquired about her daughter’s girlfriend.

“She was really concerned,” Ryan said. “She saw that her daughter had become increasingly withdrawn and that she was contributing to these feelings of isolation and sadness.”

In her paper for the journal Pediatrics, Ryan recommends that medical professionals ask young patients how their families have reacted to their sexual orientations and tell parents that negative reactions may prove harmful even if well-intentioned.

Such conversations are necessary because young people have been coming out at younger ages. Consistent with other studies, the youths in Ryan’s study were on average under 11 years old when they first experienced a same-sex attraction, were just over 14 when they realized they were gay and came out to their families before they had turned 16.

Doctors, in a misguided attempt to comfort parents, may tell them a child who isn’t sexually active couldn’t know if he were gay or not, Ryan said.

“When providers and adults and family members think of gay people, they think of sex. They don’t think of emotional attraction or social interaction or spiritual connectedness or deep-rooted psychological feelings,” she said.

Sten Vermund, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician who became interested in Ryan’s work this summer when she presented her research at the international AIDS conference in Mexico City, agrees that doctors should be encouraged to talk with parents about responding to a child’s sexual orientation in a supportive way.

“So many families of children who are gay, bisexual or transgender, particularly families of gay male youth, think that if they are tough on the kid and tell him how unsatisfactory his gay lifestyle is to the family, he will have it knocked out of him,” Vermund said.

Vermund said he also was impressed by Ryan’s finding that a little bit of familial acceptance could go a long way in increasing a child’s chances for future happiness.

“The Southern Baptist doesn’t have to become a Unitarian,” he said. “Someone can still be uncomfortable with their child’s sexual orientation, but if they are somewhat more accepting and do the best the can, they will do the youth a lot of good. That to me is an important message.”

Family rejection is one of the top five issues that our 18,000 plus callers per year talk about on The Trevor Helpline. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth already face unique social challenges with their peers. When lacking supportive home environments as well, they often report feeling isolated, depressed, helpless and hopeless.

These feelings can lead to thoughts of suicide, which is why it is vital that organizations such as The Trevor Project exist.

The Trevor Project operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. The helpline is free and confidential, and young people can speak with trained, volunteer counselors about anything at any time. Counselors can also connect callers with local community resources in order to help them find long-term support options and LGBTQ-oriented organizations.

Just this month, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) released a new publication funded by Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that addresses the special concerns related to suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth.

It remains disheartening that LGBTQ youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, and as evidenced by Ms. Ryan’s study, those who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to do so. This is a preventable epidemic and the key to ensuring all young people are healthy and happy is to foster safe, accepting and inclusive environments for them, at home and at school.

This can be achieved at home when parents communicate with their children, love them unconditionally and embrace them regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. At school, educators can turn to The Trevor Project for essential tools to identify and help youth in crisis, and guidance on how to encourage students to create accepting environments for their peers.

Life is so valuable; yet in America alone, 32,000 people die by suicide each year.

Our young people today are the leaders of tomorrow; yet suicide is one of the top three causes of death among 15 to 24-year-olds and the second leading cause of death among college campuses. Thankfully, The Trevor Project offers young people hope and someone to talk to, 24/7.

We can all do our part to help combat suicide by recognizing warning signs, reaching out to people who might be at risk and helping them find resources.

Some warning signs of suicide include a tendency toward isolation and social withdrawal, substance abuse, expression of negative attitude toward self, expression of hopelessness or helplessness, loss of interest in usual activities, giving away valued possessions and expression of a lack of future orientation.

If a young person you know is exhibiting these signs, they can call The Trevor Helpline at 866-4-U-TREVOR.

To learn more about suicide warning signs and how you can help, visit our Web site at TheTrevorProject.org. Together, we can all create positive change and save young lives.

Charles Robbins is executive director and CEO of The Trevor Project.

The B.C. Coroners Service report makes 17 recommendations that all hinge on preventing youth suicide and making parents, teachers, families, coaches and governments more aware of suicide signs among children.

The report, released Tuesday, said the B.C. government should establish a focused and dedicated suicide prevention program after 81 children killed themselves between 2003 and 2007.

“We want to get the message out to kids and families to start talking about child safety and well-being, and encourage families to talk,” said Kellie Kilpatrick, a spokeswoman for the Coroners Service’s Child Death Review Unit.

“If this report today results in one family or one youth making a phone call for help, then that’s a really good thing,” she said.

B.C.’s Children’s Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond called the coroners service report valuable and thorough.

She is currently reviewing nine youth suicides and 45 attempted suicides in British Columbia since last June.

“We have a cluster,” she said. “That’s a sufficient group that we’ve started an aggregate suicide review, looking at primarily mental health supports to adolescents,” Turpel-Lafond said.

The coroners service report found the highest young people at risk for suicide were males, aboriginal children and youth, and gay, lesbian and bisexual youth who were questioning their sexuality.

It also found among those groups three main risk profiles: children with chronic mental health problems; children who experience ongoing family or relationship problems; and children who experienced a stressful event.

Challenges at school and a history of drug or alcohol use were also identified as suicide risk factors.

The report, `Looking for Something to Look Forward To,’ showed that suicide prevention is an issue that must spread far beyond families, Kilpatrick said.

Suicide prevention must encompass the expertise of social and clinical groups, including doctors, psychologists and social workers, she said.

Kilpatrick wants the signs that a young person is at risk of suicide spread in schools, in playgrounds and in the meeting rooms of the legislature.

“That’s what the deaths of these kids have shown us is that it’s a shared responsibility,” said Kilpatrick.

She said British Columbia has good resources to respond to the complex issue of youth suicide, but the report calls for a more consolidated approach to suicide prevention to allow families and youth to seek help.

“One place where families and kids and caregivers can go to access the resources, because right now they are spread out in different places and in different locations,” Kilpatrick said.

About 200 children commit suicide in Canada every year, 14 of those in B.C.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among B.C. children aged 12 to 18 years.

The report enlisted 23 panel members who included mental health experts, injury prevention specialists, physicians, educators, law enforcement personnel, parents, researchers and First Nations representatives.

The Child Death Review Unit looks at all child deaths in the province, to better understand how and why children die, and to use findings to take action to prevent other deaths.

The panel recommended the government devote as much attention to a suicide awareness program as it does to programs promoting physical fitness among children.

The panel also called on the government to modify five B.C. bridges responsible for 50 per cent of suicide deaths by people who jumped between 1991 and 2007.

Kilpatrick said the Transportation Ministry has been reviewing making bridges suicide safe.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon said the government is examining erecting suicide prevention barriers on Vancouver’s Lions Gate and Ironworkers Memorial bridges, but a consultant’s report won’t be ready until 2009.

He said six crisis line telephones will be installed on the Lions Gate Bridge in January.

The panel said the province needs to start a training program so teachers, coaches, police officers and others who deal with children know how to recognize kids who could commit suicide.