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Growing Up Gay Is A Little Easier In California, Survey Says
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It isn't easy growing up gay in America, but gay teens in California are a little better off than the rest of the country, according to a new survey.About 40 percent of gay teens in California reported being happy up from 37 percent nationwide. 62 percent of LGBT teens in California said their communities were accepting of gays compared to 49 percent nationwide. And 39 percent of gay teens in California said they don't fit in with their community compared to 47 percent of gay teens nationwide.
(And we'd bet that if you broke the survey down by region, you'd find that life for gay teens was even better on the coast than, say, the Central Valley, even just based on this map alone.)
The survey conducted by the Human Rights Campaign wasn't completely random, but it did manage to reach out to 10,030 LGBT teens, which is quite a feat. It compared those answers to those of 510 straight teens around the country.
The survey shows that the US and California has its work cut out for it. LGBT teens said they were less likely to describe themselves as happy (37 percent vs. 67 percent), more likely to experiment with alcohol and drugs (52 percent vs. 22 percent), more likely to say they don't fit in in their communities (47 percent vs. 16 percent) and more likely to have been verbally harassed (51 percent vs. 25 percent) or even physically attacked (17 percent vs. 10 percent) at school.
For the rest of the study visit the Human Rights Campaign website, and for more discussion on the results for California teens check out the Los Angeles Times' story.
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