HRC Study Finds Gay Youth Mostly Unhappy

The Human Rights Campaign has released findings from an extensive survey of more than 10,000 LGBT-identified youth ages 13-17.

The survey "Growing Up LGBT in America" prominently found that LGBT youth are much less happy than their straight classmates, with 67% of straight kids claiming to be happy, but only 37% of LGBT kids saying they are happy. However, gay youth do seem to believe that "It Gets Better" — the survey found 83% of LGBT youth believe they will be happy some time in the future.

When the HRC asked LGBT youth to name the top concerns in their lives right now, the list was vastly different from straight youth — who named things you might expect like grades and college worries. The number one concern for LGBT youth was non-accepting families. Number two was school bullying, and number three was a fear of being out.

Other key findings from the HRC study:

• 56% of kids said they are out to their families, but a third of respondents said their family is not accepting.
• More than half of LGBT youth said they'd been verbally harassed.
• 47% feel they don't "fit in" with their peers.
• 92% hear negative messages about being LGBT.

Read the complete Growing Up LGBT in America report from HRC.