Sir, – Carl O'Brien reports on a study that has found that gay and lesbian teens continue to experience alarmingly high levels of bullying at school and a high risk of suicide, despite the passing of last year's same-sex marriage referendum ("LGBT teenagers 'twice as likely' to self-harm", Front Page, March 22nd). The report finds, however, that once over the age of 25, the majority of LGBT young adults are proud of who they are.
The findings of this study should come as no surprise to anyone.
With the vast majority of our primary schools still under religious patronage, mostly that of the Catholic Church, and a significant number of secondary schools also controlled by Catholic religious orders, how can young LGBT students acquire a positive attitude to their sexual orientation?
It is before, during and immediately after puberty that young people need to be given a positive affirmation of their sexual orientation. A Catholic or Protestant primary or secondary school cannot give this to young gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students. It is against their ethos.
Parents (who I believe often detect the sexual orientation of a child at an early age) might consider the serious risk they take in sending an LGBT child to one of these schools. It is not necessarily what the schools may say about same-sex relationships, but rather what they don’t say, which is, I suggest, the problem. It is the affirmation that these schools deny the LGBT student, but which they give to the heterosexual student, which does the harm.– Yours, etc,
DECLAN KELLY,
Dingle, Co Kerry.