Gender Identity Issues Can Harm Kids’ Mental Health: Study [health.com]

By Lisa Esposito / HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) — New studies show that children struggling with their gender identity also face higher risks for abuse and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Children with gender identity disorder show a strong, persistent discomfort with their biological sex. They identify with and display behaviors usually seen in the opposite sex.

One study, from Children’s Hospital Boston, looked at the emotional and behavioral problems of children and teens referred to its specialty clinic for evaluation and possible medical treatment.

“The study only focuses on kids who experience profound distress or [sadness] with their changing bodies, so the psychiatric manifestations of that distress include much higher risks for self-injurious behavior, depression, suicide attempts and anxiety,” said Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a pediatric psychiatrist affiliated with the hospital’s Gender Management Service.

Ninety-seven patients younger than 21 were included, 43 born as males and 54 as females. Forty-three patients already had psychiatric symptoms, 20 reported self-mutilation and nine had attempted suicide.

The studies appear online and in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Dr. Walter Meyer III, author of an accompanying journal editorial, said many problems arise from the reactions these children face at home and in school.

“These kids are really normal — they just want to be the other gender,” said Meyer, a psychiatrist who works with transgender patients at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston. “The ones who are well-adjusted and well-accepted by their families and at school don’t have the psychiatric issues.”

The other study, from the Harvard School of Public Health, looked at long-term data on nearly 10,000 young adults, average age 23. Those who rated high for childhood gender nonconformity were more likely to report physical, psychological and sexual abuse as children. They were almost twice as likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder as young adults.

“Gender conformity” relates to how children express themselves — through their clothes, their interests, their mannerisms — and how these behaviors mesh with what’s typical for their biological sex.

One expert said the study is “important,” and that it helps tease out why these kids have trouble coping.

It “tests one of the key proposed factors — childhood abuse,” said Stephen Russell, a professor of family studies at the University of Arizona. “There has been concern that parents may react to gender nonconformity in harsh ways. This is perhaps the first study to show evidence of that and of the lasting implications for health.”

Fear of the unknown is part of the problem.

“We’ve seen in studies of gender nonconforming LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] youth that what most people think of as abuse comes from a place of concern and fear on the part of parents — that is, they think they can help their kid by ‘toughening them up’ or teaching them to ‘fit in,’ ” Russell said. “Many parents literally have no framework for understanding gender nonconformity in children.”

Meyer, meanwhile, said he sees signs of growing awareness and acceptance, spurred by the media. Once parents are onboard, treatment can begin, sometimes quite early, he said.

“At age 5 or 6, treatment is mainly psychotherapy and working with family to help them [kids] adjust,” Meyer said. “Sometimes that means reassuring them and letting them dress up at home. Some might start school taking on a new gender.”

Pent-up need for treatment appears to exist.

Since Children’s Hospital Boston established a Gender Management Service in 2007, the population of gender nonconformists seeking treatment quadrupled.

“By having clinical services that are specialized and interdisciplinary, you’re providing an avenue for parents to come and present for treatment,” Leibowitz said. “That brings a lot of people out of their closets, so to speak, and shows this is a less stigmatized issue, so that people can get the appropriate assessments and treatments that they deserve.”

Some children receive treatment to delay puberty and buy them time while deciding whether to proceed with a gender change.

Puberty blockers, which are not covered by insurance, are expensive. “Injections can cost upwards of $1,000 a month.” Leibowitz said. Newer implants cost about $3,400 for two years.

Blocking irreversible changes of puberty has advantages for those who eventually opt for full gender transition, through cross-sex hormones or sexual reassignment surgery, Leibowitz said. “In their bodies and appearance, they will be perceived by society as the gender they affirm and thus have healthier outcomes,” he explained.

“We as individuals who do not experience an incongruence between our minds and bodies take for granted how easy life is,” Leibowitz added. “You just need to meet one child and one family to see how this impacts their lives.”

http://news.health.com/2012/02/20/gender-identity-issues-can-harm-kids-mental-health-study/

Mental Health Problems Plague Transgender Kids [livescience.com]

by Stephanie Pappas / livescience.com

Kids who are distressed because they feel their physical body doesn’t match their gender suffer from high rates of psychiatric symptoms, such as depression and suicide attempts, a new study finds.

In a sample of children and adolescents treated at the Endocrine Division at Children’s Hospital Boston, young people who experienced distress about the “mismatch” between their body’s sex and their mental gender had high rates of psychiatric complications (before any gender treatment). Kids who don’t get treatment, whether for financial reasons or because their parents aren’t supportive, likely have higher rates of psychiatric problems, said study researcher Scott Leibowitz, a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital Boston.

“Individuals who are not transgender take for granted what life must be like when our minds and bodies are incongruent with one another,” Leibowitz told LiveScience. “Personally, I’ve seen so many kids who experience such high levels of distress with their changing bodies that it impairs their emotional and social functioning,” he said.

Mind-body mismatch

Transgender people — people who feel that their biological sex does not reflect their true gender — have astonishingly high rates of mental health problems: A 2010 survey found that 41 percent of transgender people in the U.S. have attempted suicide.

Researchers attributed those rates to discrimination and stigma, as well as a lack of laws protecting transgender people from employment discrimination. Poor insurance coverage of hormones and other treatments to help a transgender person transition to their desired gender also account for the rates, the researchers found. [5 Myths About Gay People]

But the mismatch between mind and body alone can be a major source of psychological pain, Leibowitz said. Of 97 patients who came to the Endocrine Division for hormones and other treatments related to gender identity disorder between January 1998 and February 2010, 44.3 percent had significant mental health histories. Twenty percent had self-mutilated, and 9.3 percent had attempted suicide at least once. About 37 percent were taking psychiatric medication.

Treating gender identity

Growing up, many children experiment with cross-gender behaviors, but very few of them will grow up to experience distress about their biological sex. Persistent gender identity disorder is rare: In the Netherlands, where gender-treatment programs are well- established, only about 1 in every 10,000 to 30,000 people seeks treatment.

When young people start puberty and experience serious distress about their bodies developing into a gender they don’t identify with, there are solutions, Leibowitz said. The medical standard established by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Organization for Transgender Health call for treatment with hormones that suppress puberty in teens who have not yet undergone major physical changes. These treatments “buy time,” Leibowitz said, preventing the development of secondary sex characteristics such as breasts or an Adam’s apple while kids mature mentally enough to make decisions about whether they’d like to transition to a new gender. These treatments are reversible.

Older teens, ages 16 or 17, can begin to make decisions about taking estrogen or testosterone to promote the sexual characteristics of the gender they feel they are. Puberty-suppressing treatments are also used at this stage to lessen the doses — and thus side effects — of these hormones. The effects of cross-sex hormone therapy are partially reversible.

At every step of the way, Leibowitz said, families and children are counseled and evaluated to be sure they’re ready for treatment. Doctors counsel young children and their families, but do not treat them with drugs or hormones unless their gender identity distress persists at puberty.

The cost of not treating can be high, as the new study, published today (Feb. 21) in the journal Pediatrics, highlights.

“Without treatment, a lot of these kids are prone to psychiatric disorders, including depression, suicide, self-mutilation, anxiety,” Leibowitz said.

http://www.livescience.com/16110-transgender-teen-mental-health.html

 

Pro-Virginity, Anti-Feminist Folks Make The Purity Myth Trailer Terrifying [jezebel.com]

BY ERIN GLORIA RYAN

Fans of the bestselling book The Purity Myth, rejoice. The film version is now available for your viewing pleasure on DVD, and, from the looks of the trailer, its per-minute truth bomb concentration is unprecedented. Finally, a cinematic alternative to the unstoppable, metastasized Fast & Furious franchise.

Jessica Valenti, author and founder ofFeministing, penned The Purity Myth in response to cultural pressure women face to remain virgins until a handsome prince deflowers them after an elaborate, expensive ceremony.

The film visits the places the book visited, but since the antics of pro-virginity culture were captured on camera this time around, it’s now infinitely more gif-able. From the creepy father-daughter “purity balls” where young women promise their dads that they won’t let anyone’s penis inside of them until God says it’s okay to the fearmongering but charismatic pro-virginity speakers who claim a link between female sexual activity and sterility, parts of the film (like parts of the book) would be hilarious if they weren’t so scary.

Of particular interest was the scene where a riled up preacher whips himself into a terrified frenzy by saying,

It is pressed that a man marry a virgin! Young men, if you’re dating a woman who boasts of being a feminist, who uses every four-letter word in the Marine Corps manual, who wants no children, who wants to drag you around like a dog on the end of a rope, RUN!

If you could see my crest right now, you’d see that it has fallen. I do all of these things minus the no children and dog dragging part, even though I didn’t know until right this second that there was a Marine Corps manual that contained fancy government tested swearing techniques. I’m going to be a terrible wife. All the men are going to run away from me.

Valenti explains,

The purity myth is the lie that women’s sexuality has some bearing on who we are and how good we are, because really I think we all know that young women are so much more than whether or not they have sex. We really should be teaching our daughters that their ability to be good people should be based on their intelligence, on their compassion, their kindness, not what they do with their bodies.

The film’s available for purchasing, or if you prefer to watch movies in a big group so that you can yell at the screen, the film will be shown in New York and Boston in upcoming months. Stay tuned.

The Purity Myth, The Documentary [Feministing]

http://jezebel.com/5866297/purity-myth-trailer-will-make-you-want-to-cheer

Bill to expand access to HPV vaccine for Calif. minors reaches Gov. Brown’s desk [sacbee.com]

By TOREY VAN OOT / McClatchy Newspapers

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Days before Republican candidates began sparring over a vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer, a bill aimed at expanding access to the shot for California minors made its way to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk with little fanfare.

Assembly Bill 499, by Democratic Assemblywoman Toni Atkins would allow those 12 and older to seek medical care to prevent sexually transmitted infections without parental consent.

A coalition of parental rights advocates, vaccination opponents and conservative and religious groups is now rallying against the bill, characterizing it as an affront to parents’ rights.

The presidential debates have called new attention to the issue, providing new ammunition for supporters and opponents of the shot.

They’ve flooded Brown’s office with phone calls – so many that Californians calling the governor’s public line can select a voicemail box reserved just for feedback on this one measure.

The California bill differs substantially from the executive order signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is now under fire for the action from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.

Perry’s order, ultimately overturned by the Texas Legislature, mandated the shot for sixth grade girls, offering an “opt out” provision for parents who objected.

The California measure now awaiting action from Brown doesn’t make prevention measures mandatory. It allows minors 12 and older to receive prevention services for sexually transmitted diseases without parental consent.

Such prevention services would include two vaccinations approved to protect against strains of Human papillomavirus, a virus that can cause cervical cancer. Hepatitis vaccinations and medication to reduce risk of HIV infection after exposure would also be covered.

Supporters cast the bill as a logical, and potentially life-saving, step to promote public health, pointing out that those as young as 12 have for decades been able to consent on their own to be diagnosed and treated for sexually transmitted diseases.

“What this adds is them being able to receive prevention … which is obviously a very important part of health care,” said Dr. Dorothy Furgerson, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. “If you can prevent a cancer with a vaccine, shouldn’t you do that?”

The bill sets the minimum age for the preventative services at 12 to align with existing law on treatment and conform with federal recommendations that the shot be administered around that age to maximize effectiveness and ensure protection prior to exposure.

But supporters say they don’t expect many young teens to take advantage of the change if signed into law, in part due to the high cost of the shot, more than $300, and need for multiple injections over several months.

“There probably is a little bit of an overblown fear that suddenly there will be a lot of younger teens coming in, when in reality it will probably be some of the older teens who are more aware of these issues, aware of these prevention measures,” said Dr. Susan Philip, president of the California STD Controllers Association, the group of public health officials that sponsored the bill.

The possibility that middle school students could obtain the vaccine on their own has riled critics who worry youth will be pressured to get the shots without fully understanding the reason or potential side effects.

“It’s just a matter of how can a 12-year-old possibly assess risk-versus-benefit information and make a medical decision for themselves without the knowledge or consent of their parent,” said anti-vaccine activist Dawn Winkler. “As a parent myself, I would want my child to have to have my consent and I would want the knowledge of any medical procedure.”

Supporters counter that parental involvement isn’t always an option, arguing that ensuring greater access to preventive care is necessary to combat rising STD rates in teens.

“I don’t disagree with how they would like the world to be,” said Atkins, who previously worked at community reproductive health clinics. “I think it would be a wonderful thing if our kids talked to us and we were able to do these things together, but that’s not always the reality.”

Other critics say STD prevention is best addressed through abstinence-based education that starts with the parents. They take issue with the idea that the state could help pick up the tab for teens eligible for state-aided health care coverage.

“You don’t give tax-funded, bullet-proof vests to gang members and say, ‘Hey this will protect you.’ You deal with the behavior,” said Randy Thomasson, founder of SaveCalifornia.com. “A young girl is not a female dog in heat. A young girl is influenced by what she is taught.”

Federal regulators have approved two shots, Gardasil and Cervarix, intended to prevent HPV, which is the country’s most widespread sexually transmitted infection. Supporters have praised the shots as an important tool in combating cervical cancer, which affects roughly 12,000 women a year.

While claims that the shots are unsafe have been disputed by experts in the medical community, GOP candidate Michele Bachmann’s recent attacks on Perry put the debate back in the headlines.

The Minnesota congresswoman went after Perry for the 2007 executive order, saying “little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan.”

In later interviews, Bachmann cited a conversation with a woman who said her daughter “suffered from mental retardation” after receiving the shot.

Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have denounced that claim as false, saying there is no evidence to suggest that the vaccine causes such developmental issues.

Dr. Gary Leiserowitz, professor and chief at the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center, said while legitimate questions of whether the shots are necessary exist due to HPV’s life cycle, evidence shows the vaccine is safe and has “remarkably few side effects.”

“It is unfortunate that this vaccine has become mired in deeply moral and ethical values related to sexual behavior, although I suppose that it was inevitable because of the nature of the transmission,” he said. “If you look at it strictly from the standpoint of trying to prevent diseases, it seems like it’s actually a pretty remarkable breakthrough.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/23/3933728/bill-to-expand-access-to-hpv-vaccine.html#ixzz1Z5msF4EI

Los Angeles Unified School District Passes Resolution to Make Schools Safer for Gay Students [patch.com]

by James F. Mills / Patch.com

The Los Angeles Unified School District is aiming to make schools safer for gay students.

At its biweekly meeting held Tuesday afternoon, the seven-member LAUSD school board unanimously passed the “LGBT and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Anti-Bullying Resolution,” which takes specific steps to ensure a safe environment for LGBT students.

The resolution sponsored by Steve Zimmer, who represents the LAUSD 4th district that includes West Hollywood and much of Hollywood, will ensure an LGBT-inclusive curriculum.

“As a teacher, I know how important it is for students and families to be included and recognized in school,” Zimmer said. “We’ve seen the cost of invisibility and rejection. Last year there was a spate of suicides across the country attributed to anti-gay bullying.”

Zimmer added that LAUSD has an ongoing commitment to creating safe environments for LGBT students. “We want our youth to feel that school is a protective factor, not a risk factor,” he said. “And we won’t rest until all students are safe.”

Click here to read more of the story…

‘Primetime Nightline’ Explores Transgender Childhood Issues [news.gather.com]

by Shula Asher Silberstein

A new special about transgender childhood issues is set to air on August 31, 2011. The special, which is an episode of the Primetime Live news series, interviews three transgender children and adolescents, their families and experts on transgender issues.

Stories like this are important not just for the mainstream population, which may not be aware of the issues transgender individuals face in childhood and beyond, but also for transgender kids and teens. 33 percent of transgender adolescents attempt suicide, many after being kicked out or otherwise rejected by their families. Hopefully, the special will help show these kids and their parents that there is nothing wrong with them and that they deserve the same happiness as everyone else.

The special explores the lives of three transgender youth: two trans girls and one trans boy. One of the trans girls is pre-pubescent and will soon be taking medication to stop her body from developing male secondary sex characteristics, while the other is a young adult who is traveling to Mexico to have feminizing surgery. The trans boy is an adolescent who is taking testosterone to help his body match his gender identity.

These topics may make some parents uncomfortable. If the special explores them appropriately, however, it may help parents to understand why allowing children as young as ten to express their gender identity is not only proper parenting, but is psychologically and medically necessary for these children.

The special also profiles Charles Kane, a confused rich person who was able to bypass normal medical channels to have a sex-change operation without exploring his actual gender identity and then had a second procedure to change back to male. It’s unfortunate that Kane, who had more money than common sense, is profiled at all. Bigots love to hold him up as an example of how all transsexuals are unhappy, confused people who should not be allowed to change sexes. The truth is that Kane was never transsexual to begin with and didn’t take the time to explore his gender identity before rushing into surgery. Conversely, transsexual people often spend years working with therapists to clarify their gender identities and must save up for their operations. Hopefully the special will neither spend much time on Kane nor suggest that these children will have experiences anything like his.

The special airs on August 31, 2011 at 10 p.m. Although some parents may feel the material is inappropriate for children, any parent who has questions about his child’s gender identity should watch it with the child and discuss the child’s feelings about gender.

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474980105941

 

More Risky Behaviors Among Gay, Bisexual High School Students [usnews.com]

MONDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) — One of the first and largest national studies of the behaviors of American high school students finds that those who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are more likely than their heterosexual peers to take unhealthy risks.

The study was conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and used national survey data from 2001-2009. It found that rates of smoking, drinking or other drug use, risky sexual behaviors, suicidal behaviors and violence were higher among gay or bisexual teens than among their straight peers.

“This report should be a wake-up call for families, schools and communities that we need to do a much better job of supporting these young people. Any effort to promote adolescent health and safety must take into account the additional stressors these youth experience because of their sexual orientation, such as stigma, discrimination and victimization,” Howell Wechsler, director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), said in an agency news release. “We are very concerned that these students face such dramatic disparities for so many different health risks.”

The data comes from the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveys conducted over the past decade in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin and in six large urban school districts — Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, San Diego and San Francisco.

Besides gathering data on smoking, drinking and drug abuse, the study also examined rates of school absenteeism due to “fear of violence,” condom use, physical fitness, good/poor diet or problems with weight management, such as extended fasting to lose weight.

The CDC found that gay or lesbian students’ had higher prevalence rates for seven of the 10 health risk categories — violence, attempted suicide, smoking, drinking, other drug use, risky sexual behaviors and weight management issues. Findings were similar for bisexual students, the agency said.

“For youth to thrive in their schools and communities, they need to feel socially, emotionally and physically safe and supported,” Laura Kann, chief of the Surveillance and Evaluation Research Branch at DASH, added in the news release. “Schools and communities should take concrete steps to promote healthy environments for all students, such as prohibiting violence and bullying, creating safe spaces where young people can receive support from caring adults, and improving health education and health services to meet the needs of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth.”

The findings were published June 6 in the CDC’s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information

There’s more on the well-being of gay and bisexual youth at the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2011/06/06/more-risky-behaviors-among-gay-bisexual-high-school-students-cdc

Suicide Rates for Gay (and Straight) Teens Higher in Conservative Areas [Associated Press]

by Lindsey Tanner, AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) — Suicide attempts by gay teens – and even straight kids – are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don’t have programs supporting gay rights, a study involving nearly 32,000 high school students found.

Those factors raised the odds and were a substantial influence on suicide attempts even when known risk contributors like depression and being bullied were considered, said study author Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Columbia University psychologist and researcher.

His study found a higher rate of suicide attempts even among kids who weren’t bullied or depressed when they lived in counties less supportive of gays and with relatively few Democrats. A high proportion of Democrats was a measure used as a proxy for a more liberal environment.

The research focused only on the state of Oregon and created a social index to assess which outside factors might contribute to suicidal tendencies. Other teen health experts called it a powerful, novel way to evaluate a tragic social problem.

“Is it surprising? No. Is it important? Yes,” said Dr. Robert Blum of Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study “takes our relatively superficial knowledge and provides a bit more depth. Clearly, we need lots more understanding, but this is very much a step in the right direction,” he said.

Blum serves on an Institute of Medicine committee that recently released a report urging more research on gay health issues. Blum said the new study is the kind of research the institute believes has been lacking. The independent group advises the government on health matters.

The new study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Previous research has found disproportionately high suicide rates in gay teens. One highly publicized case involved a Rutgers University freshman who jumped off a bridge last year after classmates recorded and broadcast the 18-year-old having sex with a man.

The study relied on teens’ self-reporting suicide attempts within the previous year. Roughly 20 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had made an attempt, versus 4 percent of straight kids.

The study’s social index rated counties on five measures: prevalence of same-sex couples; registered Democratic voters; liberal views; schools with gay-straight alliances; schools with policies against bullying gay students; and schools with antidiscrimination policies that included sexual orientation.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual teens living in counties with the lowest social index scores were 20 percent more likely to have attempted suicide than gays in counties with the highest index scores. Overall, about 25 percent of gay teens in low-scoring counties had attempted suicide, versus 20 percent of gay teens in high-scoring counties.

Among straight teens, suicide attempts were 9 percent more common in low-scoring counties. There were 1,584 total suicide attempts – 304 of those among gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Hatzenbuehler said the results show that “environments that are good for gay youth are also healthy for heterosexual youth.”

Click to read the rest of the story

The Lonely Road: Why School is Hell for Transgender Pupils

When ‘Lauren’ decided she wanted to be recognised as a girl, life at school became a nightmare. Should teachers be doing more for transgender pupils?

via the UK Independent by Rachel Pugh

The day that Lauren Quick, 11, started at the mixed comprehensive in her Yorkshire home town, an older lad stormed into her classroom at break, shouting, “Oi, there’s a tranny in here – show me where it is!”

Suddenly, Lauren, who had been insisting from the age of three that she had “a girl brain in a boy’s body”, was surrounded. She was distraught and, weeks later, made her first attempt to kill herself. Two further attempts followed in the next five months – the last in the school lavatories.

Her life, says mother Jan, had become a living nightmare. Every day, she faced shouts of “man beast” and “tranny” from pupils, as well as calls to “get your dick out” – even, on one occasion, when she was being escorted by a teacher. Lauren’s response was to self-harm on a regular basis.

The town’s police hate crimes unit became involved three times after several incidents, including one pupil spitting in her face and a mother who was picking up offspring shouting, “You fucking tranny”, through the car window as Lauren walked home from school. Lauren was more often absent than in school.

Although the school supported Lauren’s desire to be accepted as a girl, and made determined efforts to stamp out the bullying – taking the perpetrator of each incident aside to explain Lauren’s circumstances – one day, everything came to a head. Lauren was ambushed on the way home by older boys, who tried to remove her skirt in an attempt to see her genitals.

Lauren refused point-blank to return to school. Jan obtained a transfer for her to a nearby high school, which had already successfully dealt with a transgender pupil. Lauren lasted only a few weeks. Now 14, she is being educated three days a week in a unit for long-term ill and severely bullied pupils. She would like to go back to school, but she and her mother doubt that it will ever be possible.

“There are no easy answers, but the school was just handling it on the hoof,” says Jan. “There was no attempt to plan anything. The school was totally unprepared for dealing with a kid like Lauren.”

Click to read the rest of the article at the UK Independent

LGBT Teens Face Harsher Punishments

By TARA PARKER-POPE of the NY Times

Gay teens in the United States are far more likely to be harshly punished by schools and courts than their straight peers, according to a new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics.

The findings, based on a national sample of more than 15,000 middle and high school students, come at a time of heightened attention to the plight of gay teens. While several high-profile bullying and suicide cases around the country have revealed the harassment of gay teens by their peers, the new data suggest gay teens also suffer a hidden bias when judged by school and legal authorities.

Click to read the rest of the article