Ohio’s new outing law will force more LGBTQ+ youth into homelessness

(Stock photo via Getty Images)

If more Ohio teens are forced out of the closet to families that reject them, more Ohio teens will be forced into homelessness as a result of the new law passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine.

Advocates told them what would happen if young people were forced out of the closet in unsafe homes. Members of the Ohio School Psychologists Association and the Ohio School Counselor Association submitted testimony in opposition to the bill and warned that it violates the National Association of School Psychologist’s professional ethics standards.

Hundreds of Ohioans submitted testimony in opposition, outnumbering supporters of the bill by a margin of over 100 to 1.

None of that mattered to Ohio Republican lawmakers or DeWine.

They felt compelled to make a political point out of victimizing LGBTQ+ people, and they don’t care who they hurt or how much they hurt them to do it.

In this case, they are hurting vulnerable young people who are already facing open, vicious, relentless hostility in America right now.

It’s no surprise then that crisis hotline calls from LGBTQ+ youth in Ohio have surged.

The Rainbow Youth Project USA Foundation said its crisis hotline received 579 calls from LGBTQ+ young people in Ohio on Jan. 8, the day DeWine signed the bill, WCMH’s David Rees reports. That compares to an average of 284 calls from Ohio per month.

So the per month average was nearly doubled in one day.

For a lot of LGBTQ+ youth, school is relatively safe compared to what they face at home. In fact, a 2022 survey from The Trevor Project found that 51% of trans youth consider school a safe space compared to only 32% who felt safe in their homes.

Although school was already only considered a safe space half the time, even that was intolerable for Ohio Republican lawmakers and DeWine. They have now imposed a culture of fear there too, for young people who often already feel incredibly isolated and alone and misunderstood.

Why do less than a third feel safe at home? Well, a study from Lesley University shows that half of all LGBTQ+ teens get a negative reaction from their parents when they come out to them, and more than 1 in 4 are forced to leave their homes.

The fear of being kicked out of their homes is why many LGBTQ+ teens stay in the closet until they can safely get away from toxic, intolerant, and abusive environments.

Forcing anyone out of the closet for any reason is terrible, but to do it when their safety is at risk is a truly awful thing to do to another person, which is why all the experts speak clearly and united against laws like this.

For many LGBTQ+ teens, forcing them out of the closet eventually forces them into homelessness.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, a Williams Institute School of Law at UCLA study showed that 17% of LGBTQ people in the survey said they had experienced homelessness at some point in their life with 20% of them saying they experienced homelessness before the age of 18. The Williams Institute study also showed that 68% of LGBTQ+ respondents experienced family rejection.

A study from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago showed LGBTQ youth are at more than double the risk of homelessness compared to non-LGBTQ peers, often the product of escalated tension inside the home over time. While the study showed opportunities for intervention, it also showed that LGBTQ+ youth who experience homelessness have twice the rate of early death.

Also, of the LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness, about 64% faced discrimination from their families, 62% were physically harmed by others, 25% committed self-harm, and 38% were forced to have sex. All of those rates were much more — sometimes nearly double — that experienced by non-LGBTQ+ peers.

Do Ohio Republican lawmakers and DeWine know any of this? Do they care?

Clearly not.

The politics of fear-mongering about LGBTQ+ people and using transphobia as a cultural wedge to drive blatant lies, propaganda, paranoia, hatred, and division at election time matters more to them than this human suffering.

When I was a reporter I interviewed LGBTQ+ young people who were kicked out of their homes by intolerant families, so this isn’t theoretical to me. These are Ohioans with hopes and dreams and joy who want to live authentically without constant fear and hurt and pain and insult and intolerance and hate.

Ohio Republican lawmakers and Mike DeWine — no matter any rationalization they try to wrap themselves in — have created law that looks to cause real harm and suffering to real people in real ways that these reckless politicians have never come close to enduring themselves.

This cruelty, to invite such pain on the lives of others, to create more needless suffering in the world, they stain themselves and our state.

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