Many of us have strong feelings following the election. I’ve seen numerous news stories (this one, as an example) claiming that 8 or more trans youth have died or attempted suicide since election results were announced. I cannot find any confirmation of that, but I do know that people in minority communities are scared.
As a woman and a member of the LGBTQ community who is married to a woman of color, I fear for my civil rights, I fear for my safety, and I fear for the safety of the family I am building. Many of my friends who are people of color, who are transgender, who are Muslim, have expressed similar fears.
Hotlines across the nation (the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Trans Lifeline, The Trevor Project, Crisis Text Line) have reported spikes in call volumes since Tuesday night. Many of those calls came from folks in the LGBTQ community who were afraid both for their rights and the potential for violence targeted at them with the advent of the Trump Administration. These fears are real and valid and should be addressed in the media, but reporters also need to be checking facts, and we, as experts and leaders in the suicide prevention community, need to be educating those who are perpetuating potentially dangerous rumors.
Unsubstantiated claims that people are taking their lives as a direct response to election results are dangerous to those of us who are, or may be, at risk. Suicide is never that simple. The goal of journalism should be to report facts, along with resources, warning signs, risk factors, and suggestions for what to do in a crisis; it should not be to perpetuate sensationalism. A good resource for journalists who are reporting on suicide (or plan to) can be found here. TIME and The Washington Post both did good jobs of productive reporting on the situation at hand.
It may very well be true that election results were a final catalyst for some of the recent suicide deaths of trans youth in America. Greta Martela, founder of Trans Lifeline, says, “Trans people's lives were hard under Obama and a lot of people can't stomach things getting any worse.” We know that 41% of trans folks who participated in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey reported a suicide attempt in their past. 117 Americans take their lives in a day, but we still have no true knowledge of how many trans lives are taken by suicide.
We have a lot to learn in the coming months. I fear we could see overall suicide rates spike as they did during the Great Depression. In the meantime, it is our responsibility in the suicide prevention community to do our best to validate and quell the fears of those around us. We need to put a stop to the fear mongering. We need to educate our communities. We need to let people know that there are resources available to them.
In 2010, I created Live Through This, a series of portraits and stories of suicide attempt survivors across the United States. As a practical example, one way I've been proactive is to include the following text with every interview and portrait I publish on the Live Through This website:
If you're hurting, afraid, or need someone to talk to, please reach out to one of the resources below. Someone will reach back. Please stay. You are so deeply valued, so incomprehensibly loved—even when you can't feel it—and you are worth your life. You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada), or The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. If you’d like to talk to a peer, warmline.org contains links to warmlines in every state. If you don't like the phone, check out Lifeline Crisis Chat or you can reach Crisis Text Line by texting START to 741741. If you're not in the U.S., click here for a link to crisis centers around the world.
Thanks to inspiration from Jen James at Crisis Text Line, I made a post with similar text on the Live Through This Facebook page on election night. It reached over 17k Facebook users and had 255 shares. A subsequent post reached 6k users with 50 shares.
Dr. Michael Anestis, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern Mississippi also did a beautiful job of turning his fear into action with this video on guns and suicide:
Again, as leaders and experts in the suicide prevention community in the U.S., regardless of our position on election outcomes, we need to come together in this time of high emotions and split opinions in our country. We need to redouble our efforts to do what needs to be done to keep people alive. We have the power. Let's use it. Our silence is dangerous.