youth
Alcohol and Other Drugs
LGBT youth who experience hostile school and community environments and who witness incivility toward other LGBT people have a greater chance of developing an alcohol use problem. This is true for high school and college students alike.
In Wisconsin, a state remarkable for its already very high alcohol use rates, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth more frequently drink alcohol, more frequently binge drink, and more often drink before sexual activity. In 2007 and 2009, responses from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to youth in Wisconsin high schools also show significantly higher use of cocaine, inhalants, ecstasy, heroine, and methamphetamines among LGB youth in comparison to their sexually-active heterosexual peers.
Since it is unlikely that any biological differences that may exist between LGBT teens and their peers are the source of these different rates of substance use, environmental factors must be at play.
Like other youth, LGBT youth often experience drinking alcohol as a rite of passage into adulthood. For LGBT youth this process may be rather more complex and salient.
• Sexual minority youth may look to adulthood as an even more important point of escape from adolescence than their straight peers because of the rejection, avoidance, and hostility they experience in adolescence.
• Socially sanctioned rites of passage (school events, prom, college visits, etc.) may be unavailable to LGBT youth or fraught with concerns about disclosure and reactions to it.
• Rites of passage exist in social contexts such as schools, churches, communities, and families. While many LGBT youth are increasingly visible and engaged in these social contexts, most still live a “parallel existence” in them. In schools, even those where GSAs thrive, the stakes may still be too high for an LGBT youth to participate. Most cities do not have a dedicated LGBT community-based youth organization or other youth organizations that are culturally competent to serve the needs of LGBT youth.
• This “parallel existence” is less visible or even ignored by mainstream social contexts. When seen at all, these youth are viewed as odd or misfits. Even the most well-meaning adults and peers may seek to coach them into becoming more mainstream, more like everyone else.
• In the current period, LGBT youth are still likely to establish informal, naturally-occurring, sub-communities with their own rites of passage into adulthood, including alcohol and drug use, sexual behaviors, and communication pathways. Some have argued that these sub-communities are less enduring and thus less dependable for the youth who comprise them and rely on them.
It is critical to note, however, that these environmental factors do not alone account for high rates of substance use and abuse. The lack of exposure to quality substance abuse prevention programs that address the needs of LGBT youth certainly contributes to the situation as well. When LGBT youth advocates ask for improved funding to support prevention programs for LGBT youth, they are generally met with a question: “Why are special programs needed for LGBT youth?” Advocates generally fall into this trap and try to respond by describing the special needs of the population. However, an alternative perspective might question: “How do you explain the need to offer special programs clearly intended only for heterosexual youth, and how do you anticipate these will work for youth that were not considered in the validation of these programs?”
Though alcohol use and misuse are common among LGBT teens in Wisconsin, the use of drugs is somewhat different. Drug use rates for cocaine, inhalants, ecstasy, heroine, and methamphetamines are higher for LGBT youth than for their heterosexual peers, but the great majority of LGBT youth still have not used these substances, nor will they.
Strategies to address alcohol and drug abuse among LGBT youth must occur on several fronts.
• Treatment programs and facilities must be culturally competent to address the needs of LGBT youth. Organizational and program policies, staff development, materials, and environments must be sensitive to these youth if the programs are to succeed with them.
• Structural supports to inhibit early use and reduce excessive use must become more widespread. In general, Wisconsin’s taxes on alcohol and regulation of access to alcohol to minors are insufficient deterrents for all youth.
• Specific structural supports must be developed to address the unique needs of LGBT youth. Wisconsin’s adult LGBT communities should examine the centrality that alcohol plays in their communities. The prominence of alcohol advertising in pride events and the hosting of “dry nights” at area gay bars and clubs are examples of practices inconsistent with the healthy development of our youth. Further, LGBT youth must have more and better venues in which to socialize and develop. Excellent examples like Harmony Café exist in Appleton and Green Bay, but this model is neither wide-spread nor possibly sustainable in many communities. Government, foundation, and philanthropic supports are needed to initiate and sustain these types of programs.
• Alcohol and drug prevention programs for LGBT youth must include awareness campaigns, mechanisms to address community norms, attractive alternatives to substance use and abuse, high tolerance for an array of gender expressions and identities, and consistent and clear message of health and well-being. These programs must experience at least the same levels of government financial support that other heterosexual substance abuse prevention programs have.
