I am not the author the following text. It was originally written and posted on the latterdaysaints page on Reddit by a person using an online handle, not a real name. I know people are suspicious of stuff that just comes off of Internet forums and they should be. I am as well. Nevertheless, I think most every Latter-day Saint should read this and know the information in it in order to be able to counter one of the most common accusations hurled at us by our opponents (and even by a few of our misinformed members)- that the doctrines and policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are homophobic and cause gay teens to harm or kill themselves. To say there is no proof of this is to put it lightly.

The below commentary was written in context of the November 2015 policy (wherein church leadership determined that it would be the policy of the church to consider same-sex marriage a condition of apostasy worthy of excommunication). Yet, this essay also works well as a rebuttal to the general argument of which the furor surrounding the November 2015 policy is just an example- i.e. those that claim the church’s policies about homosexuality cause Latter-day Saints teens to hate and kill themselves. This is because those general arguments suffer from the same problems: they have no evidence and substitute hyper-emotional manipulation for fact based, well-reasoned conclusions. I will say more about this in the afterword.

In terms of reproduction, I have engaged in some editing to make it more readable for the formatting used on this website and included some pictures in the body of the text that were originally only linked. If I’ve added any text it appears specifically in brackets like this: [this is an example.] Otherwise, I have reproduced the original here as it was first written. This deserves to be known and preserved. Hopefully, by reproducing it here I will be aiding in that work.

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There Are No Known Cases of Suicide, or Even A Plausible Claim of Such A Case, As A Result of the November 2015 Policy

You’ve heard it so many times by now that you’re starting to believe it:

Multiple young people literally lost their lives to suicide as a result of the November 2015 policy.

It’s heart-wrenching, bold, and decisive – how could a church possibly be God’s own if their policies are causing children to kill themselves en masse? Who could dare defend such a policy? Who would be so calloused as to deny that these suicides took place in the face of such overwhelming evidence?

It is a fact of common knowledge beyond question which requires no source to prove. Here is an image showing several of the times I’ve seen this specific claim made on Reddit in the last few days.

The only problem is that there’s not a single verified case of suicide, or even a plausible claim of such a case, as a result of the 2015 policy. I’m only addressing specifically that claim in this post, not other related claims. The reason why that is the claim I am addressing is that it is decisive in favor of my position, and also (this is the main reason) it is the claim I have heard most often over the last week.

This isn’t a conversation about the broader context. I don’t have the expertise to address that and also it’s not so decisive so I don’t think there’s a compelling reason for me to give an opinion. I expect that I will get responses here about the broader context, but those are beyond the scope of this post.What sources are there for the claim of suicides as a result of the November 2015 policy?

Every time I have come across someone making this claim in the last several days I’ve asked for a source. Usually I get no response (by far no response is the most common response), but sometimes I get one. Most commonly the sources don’t support the claim. I won’t spend much time on them because they aren’t relevant. An example is this one that simply does not make any attempt to support the claim that people died as a result of the policy. So I’m excluding the links like that which people sent me because they simply don’t provide support at all.

The other sources I’m excluding are links that are vague beyond use, such as this video at 38:40 in which the panelist says:

In the wake of the 2015 policy we did see people die by suicide. And they left messages, documented messages, that talked about why they died by suicide.

What did those documented messages say? Do they say that it was because of the policy? And where were they documented? Was there any change from before the policy? We don’t know. So it’s just too vague to be useful or to back up the specific claim we’re talking about.

Excluding responses in those categories, I’m left with two sources given for the specific claim that people have killed themselves due to the November 2015 policy.

Source #1 – This study about the increasing suicide rate in Utah during the period 2009 – 2014.

Naturally, given that the claim in question is about the November 2015 policy, this study can’t comment, as it deals only with data through 2014. The only reason I include it here rather than one of the “do not support the claim” group is that it was by far the second most common link sent to me. I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all except that it was one of the two things I was directed to more than once. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that this study supports the claim. I believe the reason that it was sent so often is because it’s referred to in the first and second Google results for “LGBT suicides mormon 2015”. Maybe people are sending it to me without reading it, I’m not sure. Did people see my request for a source, go to Google, and then send me the first official looking thing they could find without bothering to read it? Regardless, I got a linked to it a bunch of times and it’s not a source.

The authors specifically state:

these data come only from 2009 and 2014 so we cannot say anything definitive from this evidence alone about the effect of the November 2015 handbook policy change on youth suicide rates in Mormon communities.

Source #2 – The Montgomery source. This is the major source for this claim. Any time you hear someone mention a number in the range of 30 to 40 people, they are using this source. In the last week I’ve heard 30, 32, 33, 34, and 40 people (that’s the number Tyler Glenn famously gave). These numbers are used by lots of different outlets, but really it’s one source since they are all using the Montgomery numbers.

In January 2016, Wendy Montgomery spoke at the Knit Together in Love and Unity Conference, a gathering of LGBTQ/SSA Mormons, their families, friends, and church leaders. The policy was leaked online in November 2015, so this was just two months later. Montgomery is a founding member of Mama Dragons, an advocacy group for mothers of LGBTQ children. The group that ran the conference reported that Montgomery said:

there have been at least 32 documented LGBT Mormon suicides since the release of the new policy.

Montgomery and her husband Thomas also posted about this on Facebook in January of 2016. Over the next several days the numbers posted were between 32 and 34 youth suicides. I’m not sure if maybe they got contacted by a couple people during that time or maybe’s it’s a difference in cutoff age (Montgomery’s husband said two of the people he counted were over 20, while Montgomery sometimes called them “teen” suicides). There was a lot of talk about it.

One summary, by Lisa Torcasso Downing, is here:

34 LDS LGBT young people between the ages of 14 and 20 have committed suicide. The numbers are being tallied by Wendy and Thomas Montgomery, leaders in the Mama Dragons and Dragon Dads support groups for LDS LGBT families. That’s 1 suicide every 60 hours, or every 2 ½ days. That number does not include a count of suicide attempts, nor of suicides by any closeted LGBT young people. Twenty-eight of these suicides occurred in Utah.

All the reporting that you see about this is from Montgomery. Here are some examples of these numbers making their way across the internet:

Vox – Montgomery said that in the months after the leak, the damage done was “incalculable.” She estimates that at least 32 youth died by suicide across the state, and every one of the victims’ families that she personally spoke to was Mormon.

Deseret News – Last week in Los Angeles during a conference for Affirmation, a Mormon LGBT support group, Montgomery, who is well-known in that community, reported that 32 families had contacted her directly about the deaths of a child or sibling. She said most were men (27), but three were female and two were transgender. The average age was 17. All were between the ages of 14 and 20. Montgomery said 26 deaths took place in Utah…

Teen Vogue – Why 32 LGBT Youths Have Committed Suicide Since November

HuffPo – At least 32 LGBT teen suicides so far

These aren’t independent sources, they are all descendants of and reliant on a single original source: Montgomery.

One final note before moving on, both the numbers 26 and 28 were given for how many of the total were inside Utah. I’m not sure why the discrepancy, but it’s immaterial to the larger point and could be due to a handful of causes.

Why the Montgomery Numbers Are Wrong

1 – The Utah Department of Health disagrees with Montgomery:

Preliminary figures for November and December show 10 suicides in the Beehive State for people ages 14 to 20, with two more cases “undetermined.”

In fact, the department reports, the overall number of Utah deaths for that age group in those months was 25, including the 10 suicides and two “undetermined” cases, along with 11 in accidents, one by natural causes and one homicide.

“We monitor the numbers [of youth suicides] very closely. We review them every month,” says Teresa Brechlin, who works in the department’s violence- and injury-prevention program. “If we had seen such a huge spike, we would have been investigating it.”

Had there been any mention of the LDS Church’s policy on gays, her department “would have noted that,” Brechlin adds. “We have not seen that at all.”

And further:

Despite a general perception that many of Utah’s youth suicides arise from intolerance toward LGBT people promulgated (though not necessarily intentionally) by teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the state’s suicide prevention research coordinator says that may not be the case.

“There’s no data to show that, period,” says Michael Staley, who works in the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner and is the first person who would know, since he leads an effort to collect, compile and analyze suicide information from around the state.

That was in 2018, so plenty of time to collect the 2015/2016 data.

2 – Montgomery has a history of making unsourced and unverified claims (including those which would be impossible for her or anybody else to know) about LDS teen suicide:

Ms. Montgomery’s assertion that Mormons have the highest gay teen suicide rate in the country is unsourced in the original interview, and other blogs and outlets making similar claims are also missing sources. I surveyed all the government and health data I could find on youth suicide in the United States, and was unable to find any agency that collects public data by religion or sexual orientation (data so specific would be very difficult to collect). In fact, the American Association of Suicidology’s LGBT Resource Sheet notes, “to date, there is no empirical data regarding the number of completed suicides within the LGBT community.” The claim appears to be fabricated.

Other claims to the effect that Mormons, or Utahns, have a unique or unusually acute problem with gay teen suicide, or even teen suicide, cannot be supported by any data I can find.

Michael Staley who I quoted above from the Utah Office of the medical Examiner adds:

Staley presented information from the CDC that illustrated one of his obstacles: “If you told me to do a [suicide] study of LGBT people, I have no idea who those people are.”

The CDC in Atlanta reviewed investigations for 150 youth suicides in Utah. Last year, it reported its findings. Sexual orientation could be determined by actual or even circumstantial evidence for 40 of those individuals. Of those, only six — or 4 percent of the total 150 — could be identified as non-heterosexual; seventy-three percent could not be confidently identified one way or the other.

3 – A week after the claim went viral, Montgomery issued a correction to the reporting

I never wanted to be the one with these numbers. I never solicited these stories. I wasn’t prepared for the number to be out there publicly, but I don’t fault or blame John for talking about it. It’s an important conversation to have, as long as it is addressed in the right/safe way and doesn’t add to the problem. I can’t control the many reposts and everything others are saying. So the claim of me “being irresponsible with the numbers” should be laid at the feet of those who have posted inflammatory offshoot articles, comments, memes or posts.

I have only spoken to the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune about this. They sought me out, not the other way around. I was VERY clear with both Tad Walch (DN) and Peggy Fletcher Stack (SLTrib) that my numbers were unverified, that I didn’t have death dates, or all the victim’s names. Sometimes I only had the name of the loved one who reached out to me. I only had their word that what they were saying was true. I only told them in what time frame the emails, FB messages and phone calls came. I was not acting as a record keeper or statistician. These family members were reaching out to me in their pain and I was trying to help in whatever way I could, despite not having any training in grief counseling or even knowing what to say to help them. I feel like both news articles made it clear that my numbers were unverified. I never claimed they were. I just relayed to them what had come to me.

…Because a loved one messaged me during November, December and January doesn’t mean that is when their loved one died. It could have been much earlier. I didn’t ask for death dates. I actually didn’t ask them anything, other than what I could do to help them.

Montgomery says:

• the numbers are unverified
• she didn’t have dates or names and didn’t ask any questions
• she only meant that she had been contacted by 32 different people during the period, not that the suicides occurred during the period – she has no idea when they happened

In the comments of Montgomery’s correction, there’s an interesting one by Lisa Torcasso Downing. You might remember her from the top of this post. She’s the one who reported:

34 LDS LGBT young people between the ages of 14 and 20 have committed suicide. The numbers are being tallied by Wendy and Thomas Montgomery, leaders in the Mama Dragons and Dragon Dads support groups for LDS LGBT families. That’s 1 suicide every 60 hours, or every 2 ½ days. That number does not include a count of suicide attempts, nor of suicides by any closeted LGBT young people. Twenty-eight of these suicides occurred in Utah

In her comment [responding to Wendy Montgomery’s above post] Downing says this:

I don’t question your integrity either. In fact, I relied on it. I confirmed these numbers with you in a closed group and made it clear I wanted that clarification because I intended to publish about them. I hope you aren’t throwing me under the bus here. I specifically asked about suicides since Nov 5, not about reports since Nov 5. And you answered 34.

She says she specifically and personally asked Montgomery to clarify what she was reporting and that Montgomery told her it was suicides since the policy was announced, not times she had been contacted since it was announced.

Note also that the original organization whose conference was the site of the public release of the numbers said they were documented.

Either Montgomery is wrong or the people who quoted her are wrong; both cannot be correct. Montgomery blames the media for the misunderstanding, but a member of that media blames Montgomery. Either way, the point is: the numbers given are bunk, even Montgomery herself says so. Both the way people approach asking for a source and the way they respond when asked indicate eager acceptance of this claim among a certain population and make me wonder if acceptance of the claim is a watchword among this group on Reddit.

The thing I find most interesting about this all is what happens when someone asks for sources for the “people are dying as a result of the 2015 policy” claim on Reddit. Try it out and see what I mean. Next time you see it, ask for a source.

Let me show you what I mean about the way people ask. These links span across quite a bit of time so it’s not a single one-off event here.

Not to be insensitive, but do we really know that the November policy was a big causal effect of anyone’s suicide? I’d love to point to evidence. Understand the hurdles to that: suicide is very private, poorly-documented, and complex. I have zero doubts whatsoever that it contributed to suicide

“I have zero doubt and wholly accept this claim for which I currently have no evidence, but can someone please show me evidence?”

I’m in NO way disputing that people/kids have died due to the church’s anti-gay agenda and policies. I’m honestly just looking for sources that I can use to back up the claim—preferably more specific than just a reference to the high LGBTQ suicide rate in Utah

“I’m not at all disputing this, but does anybody know if there is an actual source?”

Can anyone point me to documentation of suicides? I want to show my wife the church is doing harm, and all I can say is that young people are killing themselves because of this religion. I would love to be able to show her numbers/stories . . . something.

Are you starting to see the pattern?

I need evidence the church is contributing to the youth suicides in Utah. All I have is my own experience and anecdotal evidence that the church has contributed to self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide for some of the Utah youth. I’m hoping one of you beautiful heathens has come across a study or a piece of research or anything other than speculation or anecdote that shows the church is a contributor. My experience and other’s isn’t enough for people (and to be fair that’s how debates works. I need to have hard evidence to back up my claim.)

Continuing…

Hi everyone. I am new here and have a question. Can someone provide a source on teen suicides in Utah. Someone asked me for proof that LDS kids kill themselves in response to how the LDS Church acts about the LGBT community. Any help would be great.

Do you see how this is exactly backward? In all cases these people are announcing their acceptance of the the claim and then asking for proof to back up what they already accept. You won’t find many people in antagonistic forums actually challenging the narrative (well, you will, but it will be mostly me).

(Note: as I was editing this post I came across a very recent post by someone strongly challenging this claim among the group I’m talking about. It was posted after I wrote the above)

Here is a selection of responses I’ve received when asking for a source:

Response #1 – Heads up for anybody reading this. I’m blunt and some of what I may say could be a trigger. That’s not my intention. This is such a bulls**t request. It feels like you are dismissing the anecdotal reports in your search for a smoking gun.

Response #2 – I understand your question but it is and has always been difficult to get the full scoop on suicides. So often they are hushed up and even if it is common knowledge the family typically will never reveal if the person was LGBT. You know, how embarrassing. That being said, I did attend the funeral of an LGBT person last Spring. It was a suicide. It appeared to be a cumulative result of everything to do with LGBT and LDS of which I am sure the November 2015 policy had an impact.

Response #3 – I have a question, why do you want/need something that is not going to be easily verifiable due to the nature of suicide and the stigma (doubly so for TBM gay youths) surrounding it? Is there a purpose for your question? If so, what purpose?

Couple problems with these responses:

1 – If numbers are so hard to come by simply by nature, how is everybody so confident in the claim? How is it that when people make a definite and concrete claim, then get asked for a source, the response is that getting definite and concrete data is difficult or impossible? Isn’t that kind of making my point?

2 – I’m now the jerk for asking for a source from people who are trying to pin the blame for suicides on others without having solid evidence.

3 – The claim mustn’t be questioned! “Why do you want sources for something that is not easily verifiable?” Who would dare ask for a source on such a topic as this?

One note –

“I did attend the funeral of an LGBT person last Spring. It was a suicide. It appeared to be a cumulative result of everything to do with LGBT and LDS of which I am sure the November 2015 policy had an impact.”

The phrases “appeared to be” and “I am sure” are ways of distancing from an actual strong source. Maybe not intentional. If there was some reason other than the speaker’s own bias against the church to think that, such would probably have been included. Without something like a personal conversation, a suicide note, or something like that it’s just impossible to know. Maybe it was so, maybe it wasn’t. We can’t know, really. What does it mean for people to reduce suicide to a single factor without evidence?

A coalition of suicide-prevention organizations including The Trevor Project, a LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organization, says the following about how to safely discuss suicide publicly in a way that minimizes risk:

Don’t attribute a suicide death to a single factor (such as bullying or discrimination) or say that a specific anti-LGBT law or policy will “cause” suicide. Suicide deaths are almost always the result of multiple overlapping causes, including mental health issues that might not have been recognized or treated. Linking suicide directly to external factors like bullying, discrimination or anti-LGBT laws can normalize suicide by suggesting that it is a natural reaction to such experiences or laws. It can also increase suicide risk by leading at-risk individuals to identify with the experiences of those who have died by suicide.

Don’t risk spreading false information by repeating unsubstantiated rumors or speculation about suicide deaths or why they occurred. Accurate information about the reasons for a suicide death can take days and even weeks to surface. Speculation about those reasons, even based on initial statements from friends or family, can fuel false narratives about suicide (for example, claims that multiple suicide deaths occurred because of the results of the 2016 elections) and contribute to the risk of suicide contagion. Organizations and advocates have a duty to rigorously confirm such incidents with medical authorities (or rely on credible media reporting) before commenting on them in public.

Don’t talk about suicide “epidemics” or suicide rates for LGBT people. Remember that sexual orientation and gender identity are not recorded at the time of death, so we do not have data on suicide rates or deaths among LGBT people. In addition, presenting suicide as a trend or a widespread occurrence (for example, tallying suicide deaths that occur in proximity to an external event) can encourage vulnerable individuals to see themselves as part of a larger story, which may elevate their suicide risk.

Don’t use social media or e-blasts to announce news of suicide deaths, speculate about reasons for a suicide death, focus on personal details about the person who died, or describe the means of death. Research shows that detailed descriptions of a person’s suicide death can be a factor in leading vulnerable individuals to imitate the act. Also, avoid re-posting news, headlines or social media content with this kind of information.

Those statements need no elaboration; they stand on their own as expert statements on talking about suicide in a way that reduces risk to vulnerable populations.

What does it look like to compare all this information in an integrated whole to posts like this one (the swear-editing is mine):

I have never been so f***ing angry.

…People died. Kids died. Kids like me and my friends and all the people who have shown me love and acceptance when that f***ing church did not. They died. And now I am absolutely f***ing livid that they just went right back on it without so much of an apology or acknowledgment that maybe that wasn’t right. Because they don’t have to. Because people will unquestioningly accept whatever they say, will follow them to the ends of the Earth, no matter how wrong and hurtful and un-Christlike they are.

And I want to say I’m so f***ing sorry to every person who was hurt by the fact that I was too afraid to fight back. God, I’m crying now.

I’m angry. I’m angry that there’s no accountability. I’m angry that so many people don’t give a s*** and will continue to explain it away with whatever reasons they can come up with to soothe the cognitive dissonance. They don’t care. They don’t care that children killed themselves because they thought they were wrong for who they were attracted to, something completely out of their control.

Compare that to what the professional suicide prevention organizations have to say, and think about the differences.

One thing also I want to point out here: sometimes when I’ve asked for a source, I get something which is not a source back, and an explanation like this, “Well in general there’s a correlation between Mormonism and LGBTQ+ suicide, and therefore we can conclude that this contributed to at least some suicides.”

To that I ask, does the general link between sensationally attributing suicides directly to a single factor or event shortly before the suicide (doing exactly what the experts say increases the risk for suicide) mean that I get to accuse the person doing that very thing (by making the accusation that this policy killed people) of causing people to kill themselves?

I’m going to go with no on that, but turnabout is fair play, so I’m going to go with yes.

Seriously though, that’s not really what people are saying when they make this accusation, right? Up there in my collection of posts you see things like “kids have died from this” – that’s not a claim that there’s a general uptick in risk factors broadly, it’s a specific claim that multiple people under 18 have died by suicide due to the implementation of the policy. You can’t pull all that out from a general actuarial curve any more than you can pull out “kids have died from this” in response to the reductionist accusations that go against the recommendations from suicide prevention experts.

People seeking to defend this type of claim on the grounds of a general statistical indication in a broader context are not defending this claim, they’re defending another claim – that there’s an increased risk. That’s a different claim than what is being made – that there are actual cases, “many” according to some people, and they fall in a certain demographic, etc, etc.

Recall also that I’m not the one who defined the claim here, I’m simply responding to the claim that is repeatedly being made. I’m only pointing out that there’s not support for it. I’m not saying there isn’t support for other claims.

Whenever you hear this claim, call it out for what it is; remember that real suicide prevention requires this of you. Remember what the experts said above.

The last thing I’ll say is that if someone didn’t know better, they would accept the claim because it’s so widely repeated. It sounds true, and surely anybody who would literally fabricate a claim like that is a monster: no civilized person would ever consider it.

And yet it’s false.

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Afterword

The proof makes the conclusion clear. There is no evidence that the November 2015 policy caused anyone to hurt or kill themselves. Likewise, there is no evidence that the church’s doctrine and policies concerning same-sex attraction or homosexual activity cause people to harm or kill themselves. The only supports that proponents of either argument have are confirmation bias (they believe the church’s positions should cause people with same-sex attraction to hate, harm, and kill themselves so they’ll automatically accept anything that seems to confirm that bias) and an irrational hyper-emotionalism that get used as a weapon against anyone who would even question their narrative (“How could you even demand more proof when kids are dying?!?!?! We have to do something now!!!!”). For those who want an excuse to justify hating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this is enough, but for those of us who want to actually better understand what is happening, what the real effect of the doctrines of the Gospel are upon with same-sex attraction, such arguments are emotional manipulative, obfuscative, poisonous nonsense that does nothing but distract and deceive. In truth, the facts of the issue suggest the exact opposite- that LDS teens with same-sex attraction are far less likely to engage in suicidal ideation, engage in self-harm, or kill his or her self (an issue that will be the subject of its own extensive article in the hear future.) Hopefully, this essay will help Latter-day Saints, and members of other religious communities who are accused of the same crimes with the same lies, the evidence they need to counter those lies with truth and to better defend the and bear testimony of the truths of God to a violent, hateful world.