The UCSD School of Medicine and The Center co-sponsored LGBT Health Issues Throughout the Life Cycle, a one-day conference held on April 21 featuring keynote speaker Ritch Savin-Williams, author of The New Gay Teenager, who discussed sexual identity among young people and other mental health issues among the group.

A professor of clinical and developmental psychology and chair of the Department of Human Development at Cornell University, Savin-Williams has authored seven books and numerous professional papers on adolescent sexual development. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and has been an expert witness on same-sex marriage, gay adoption and Boy Scouts of America court cases.

In illustrating the divide in the country among attitudes related to gay and lesbian rights and other issues, Savin-Williams presented a map of North America with a hypothetical new boarder between the U.S. and Canada that featured two sections: one called “United States of Canada,” which included all the blue states and Canada, and the other entitled “Jesusland,” which included all the red states. The illustration originated shortly after the November 2004 presidential election to reflect the divide between Democrats and Republicans.

“There is a tremendous amount of change going on in this country, and it’s not just a bicoastal thing,” he said. “There’s a youth culture that is really flourishing out there that sort of jumps [the] boundaries of these two nations.”

Savin-Williams presented survey data conducted during the last five years on high school students and their support of gay and lesbian issues. The data showed that 88 percent support hate crimes legislation while 85 percent think gays and lesbians should be accepted in society. In terms of same-sex marriage, 67 percent are in favor of it while 78 percent think gays, lesbians and bisexuals should be allowed in the military.

Savin-Williams said the ultimate goal for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth today is to be treated as equals and to have their humanity valued rather than their sexuality.

“This has been very critical because, for all my professional life, the thing I have worked for is that I longed for the time when indeed sexual orientation didn’t matter,” he said. “… Most don’t want to be queer … sexually deviant. They want to be normal, integrated.”

Savin-Williams presented data concerning how many youth identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, and said politically conservative and religious people estimate the figure is around 1 percent.

“Politically, if gay people were only 1 percent of the population, I think a lot of the movement toward rights and liberties and so forth would be washed out,” he said. “However, if on the other hand, gays represented the largest minority group in the United States, then politically you might have a different context that might have some significance.”

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a nationally representative study that explores the causes of health-related behaviors of adolescents in grades seven through 12 and their outcomes in young adulthood. Savin-Williams presented data from this study, which was released in 2001. In the study, approximately 2.4 percent of males identified as gay or bisexual and 3.8 percent of females. The study found that 5.3 percent of males and 12.9 percent of females had a same-sex romantic attraction. The total with identity, behavior and attraction came to 8.5 percent for males and 18 percent for females.

Savin-Williams cited a 2005 study by Ellis, et al. that examined U.S. and Canadian college student’s sexual fantasies and sexual identities. Of those interviewed, 9 percent of females and 9 percent of males said 100 percent of their sexual fantasies involved members of the same-sex, but only 1 percent of males and 1 percent of females were gay identified. The Ellis study reported that 4 percent of females said over 50 percent of their sexual fantasies involved other women while 3 percent of males said over 50 percent of their sexual fantasies involved other men.

“What’s wrong here? Something is really wrong. If you count these individuals as lesbians and bisexuals, we’re up to 13 percent if you look at fantasies,” Savin-Williams said, referring to the female group. “Are women saying, ‘I’m really straight but I really only want to fantasize about women’? I don’t think so. I think maybe guys are the same….”

Savin-Williams said based on the Ellis data, he estimates 13-15 percent have a significant same-sex attraction.

“Is that the largest minority group in the U.S.? I don’t know,” he said. “But should we just ignore them and say they have no rights?”

The percentage of those who identify as “heteroflexible,” individuals who say they are mostly straight but bi-curious, is increasing dramatically and are a significant portion of the population, Savin-Williams said.

“There’s a spectrum of sexuality, and no longer do we think of ‘gay’ or ‘straight.’ It doesn’t exist in the minds of young people,” he said.

Savin-Williams said there are many youth with same-sex attraction, but few identify as gay or engage in same-sex behavior.

On a psychological level, Savin-Williams said young people today are no different than young people who are attracted to the opposite sex. He cited various studies that have found no differences in the age of pubertal onset or its effects, closeness to parents, number of friends, closeness to friends, the number of negative life events, benevolence, personality characteristics, self-esteem and current psychological health.

During the research process for The New Gay Teenager, Savin-Williams determined there is considerable diversity within gay teens, as some are troubled and resilient but most are ordinary and not particularly unique from other adolescents.

Savin-Williams said after the first wave of research on gay youth in the ’70s and ’80s, the concept of the “suffering suicidal script” emerged, which implied that gay youth are “drug abusing, prostituting, body piercing, suicide attempting, HIV-positive, peer harassed runaways doomed to misfit lives who need our sympathy.”

“I think it ignores, quite frankly, the resiliency of most youth, and in a very real way even as we took out of the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] homosexuality, I think in some ways we put gay youth back in,” he said. “And, quite frankly, I think it’s very bad science in the name of good public service.”

The message to gay youth became one of death even though there has been no evidence that sexual orientation, per se, is a risk factor for suicide, Savin-Williams said.

“It’s ‘be prepared to die.’ That is the overwhelming feeling in the clinical, medical and psychological research out there,” he said.

Savin-Williams cited the minority stress hypothesis, which states that as a result of victimization, ridicule, discrimination and a lack of support, gay youth have mental health problems.

“I think what is happening is that in our samples we are drawing the kids who are most at risk. Those who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are indeed most at risk, and do have higher rates of suicide attempts,” he said. “Let’s be very clear. We do know nothing about actual suicides. To say gay youth commit more suicides – that’s a false statement. We have no data about the actual suicide behavior.”