Betydningen av seksuell erfaring, tiltrekning og identitet for ...

compared to the others, by mother’s/father’s initial reaction and
mother’s/father’s present reaction. The degree to which respondents had
told their friends and colleagues/co--students was also recorded. For the two
questions about being out to heterosexual friends and being out to
colleagues/co--students, possible answers were ‘all/most know’, ‘some of
them know’ and ‘no one knows’. Finally, we asked all respondents to assess
their public visibility as gay/lesbian by asking if they in any way believed
that they could be recognized as gay/lesbian by strangers in public, by way
of dress, body language, buttons/badges or by caressing boyfriend/girlfriend.
A scale of shame and self--acceptance as gay/lesbian was constructed as an
additive index of three statements (I sometimes feel ashamed of being
gay/lesbian, I accept myself fully as gay/lesbian, Most of the time I want
others to know that I am gay/lesbian) (Cronbach’s α=0.65).
Results
Twenty--six percent of the adolescents and young adults in the sample had
tried to take their own life at least once during their lifetime, 17.1% had one
attempt and 8.9% had several attempts behind them. There was no difference
between male (25.8%) and female (26.3%) respondents. The mean age for
the first attempt was 17.1 years for males and 16.2 years for females (t=--
1.44 (DF=103), ns), and 37.1% were younger than 16 years when the first
attempt took place. The sample covers an age span of 10 years, but there was
no difference in prevalence of suicide attempt(s) between adolescents (15--
21 years) and young adults (22--25 years) (chi--square=0.01 (DF=1), ns).
Most of the respondents reported at least one same--sex sexual experience
(90.9%).
The majority (54.1%) of attempts had been made after or during the
year of homosexual debut, and an additional 12.2% had been made during
the year before the sexual debut. The mean number of years between
homosexual debut and first suicide attempt was +1.18 years for males
(SD=3.65) and --1.39 years for females (SD=3.77), which implies that more
girls than boys had attempted suicide prior to their sexual debut (t=--3.39,
p