This year’s Utah Pride (Photo: Utah Pride | Facebook)
An openly gay Republican leader in Utah has said that too much casual sex is partially responsible for high LGBTI suicide rates.
Dave Robinson, the Republican Party’s communications director for Salt Lake County, made this claim during an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Robinson said that too much sex can cause people to feel ‘self-loathing’. This can, in turn, drive many LGBTI people to suicide, he said.
During the interview, he began recounting a conversation he had with his neighbors, telling them the Republican Party is not homophobic.
‘I said you can own your own business, you can run for office — I don’t think there’s a better time on this planet in history to be gay than right now,’ he said.
When his neighbors then asked about the high suicide rates in the LGBTI community, Robinson replied: ‘So then I walked through and I said, “I actually think it has more to do with the lifestyle that the gays are leading that they refuse to have any scrutiny with”.’
He claimed he knows some men who have had over 2,000 sexual partners.
‘You talk to some of these people that have had grundles of sex partners and the self-loathing and basically, the unhappiness and the self-hatred level is tremendously high,’ he said.
‘The gay community really needs to start having some conversations within their community, saying how is our lifestyle [is] affecting our mental health.’
Robinson also said that some LGBTI people use sex as a way to numb the pain of not feeling like they are socially accepted.
Alarming figures of youth suicide
The rate of youth suicide in Utah has been alarming in recent years.
A recent study found that Utah’s suicide rate for youths aged 10 to 17 more than doubled between 2011 and 2015. 150 youths died over the five-year period, with LGBTI youths being especially at risk.
This is one of the highest youth suicide rates in the US.
Some activists and mental health professionals say this is partially because of the homophobia and transphobia of the Mormon Church, which is based in Utah. More than 60% of the state’s residents are Mormons, says the Advocate.
LGBTI youths are also at high risk of sexual violence.
A study carried out in 2016 found that 45.5% of bisexual people and 33.6% of lesbian/gay respondents living in Utah reported having experienced some form of sexual violence. This compares with just 8.7% for straight people.
Utah’s Brigham Young University also featured on Campus Pride’s 2017 ‘shame list‘.
The list highlighted US universities and colleges which are ‘the worst for LGBTQ youth,’, and which ‘openly discriminate against LGBTQ youth in policies, program, and practices.’
