“I don't see a future for someone like me”
Some LGBTQ+ people, young and old, come to feel there is no life ahead that fits them: no acceptance, no partner, no place to grow old. The thought may follow a rejection, a news story or years of hiding. In the Trevor Project's 2024 survey of about 18,000 LGBTQ+ young people in the US aged 13 to 24, 39 percent said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year. In the Family Acceptance Project's research, high family rejection in the teen years went with far higher rates of later suicide attempts. What matters most is whether the person is safe right now, and who they can tell.
What to check first
Before reading this as a pattern, it helps to check for warning signs: a plan, getting hold of means, giving things away, saying goodbye, or a sudden calm after a long low. Any of these calls for a crisis line or emergency services now. Telling one person what is going on may make the weight less private.
What could be going on
Warning signs of suicide risk and self-harm: Check for a plan, means, saying goodbye or a sudden calm, and reach a crisis line or emergency services if any are there.
Major depression: Fits if hopelessness has spread across your days, with sleep, appetite and interest gone for two weeks or more.
Minority stress (Meyer): Check how much of the weight comes from rejection, hostility or hiding around you.
Internalized homophobia (internalized stigma): Could be part of it if you've come to believe a good life isn't meant for people like you.
Telling them apart
Warning signs of suicide risk and self-harm: The thoughts may go beyond hopelessness to dying: a plan, a date, searching for means, saying goodbye. These point toward real risk, whatever else is going on. They call for urgent outside help.
Major depression: The hopelessness may reach into everything: sleep, food, work and friends lose their color for two weeks or more. Guilt and a sense of being a burden may come with it. It may feel permanent while it lasts.
Minority stress (Meyer): Much of the weight may come from the world around the person: rejection at home, hostility at school or work, laws and headlines. Meyer described how these stresses add up and help explain higher rates of depression. The future may look different from a safer place.
Internalized homophobia (internalized stigma): The person may have absorbed the idea that people like them don't get good lives: love, a family, old age. That belief may feel like fact. It may have been learned from people and places that told them so.
Questions to carry
- The last time my future felt closed, what had happened that day?
- Who is one person I could tell how heavy this has got?
Also said as
- no future for gay people like me
- i'm trans and i can't picture growing old
- what's the point of living as a lesbian here
- i feel hopeless about being lgbtq
- i don't think i'll ever be accepted
- can't imagine a life where i'm happy and gay
If you're thinking about ending your life, please talk to someone today. In the US, call or text 988, and the Trevor Project talks with LGBTQ+ young people any time on 1-866-488-7386, or text START to 678-678. Trans Lifeline, for trans people, is on 877-565-8860. In the UK, Samaritans are on 116 123 and Switchboard LGBT+ is on 0800 0119 100. If it's happening now, call 911 or 999. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country.