QWELL’s first research partner at Dell Medical School, Dr. Phillip Schnarrs, cites our work in a poignant article for HuffPo about the causes of LGBTQIA+ mental health challenges:
I was 10 years old when I first attempted suicide. Thankfully, I did not succeed. But over the years that followed, I would try to end my life at least a half dozen more times.
I wasn’t alone. Recent findings from the Trevor Project show that 42% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
It does not get much better for adults. In a 2018 community assessment I conducted at UT Austin’s Dell Medical School in collaboration with Qwell Community Foundation, we found that 26% of LGBTQ+ adults had thought about suicide during the previous week.
For a long time, I thought I was the problem. I now know the problem was never me. The problem was my environment.
