30% of LGBTQ Students Diagnosed With Disability, Twice the Rate as Kids Overall

Three in 10 LGBTQ youth have at least one formal disability diagnosis, according to a new report from the Human Rights Campaign. This dual identity makes them uniquely vulnerable to in-school victimization and exclusion from activities and physical spaces, according to data compiled by the organization.

LGBTQ teens are twice as likely as the overall student population to have a medically documented disability. Three-fourths of the disabled LGBTQ students researchers surveyed have a mental health diagnosis, such as depression or anxiety, and nearly 60% have a neurodevelopmental disability such as autism. One-fourth have a physical disability. More than half have more than one diagnosis.

Nearly two thirds — 62.5% — reported physical or verbal harassment in the month before the survey. Half were made fun of, while 1 in 10 were hit or pushed by other students, according to the report.

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More than 80% of disabled LGBTQ students surveyed are transgender or nonbinary, posing challenges ranging from the availability of suitable restrooms to barriers to participation in school sports. They are more likely to be bullied than their straight, cisgender disabled peers. Only a third say they have reported harassment to school staff.

“Gender-inclusive restrooms, locker rooms and other spaces are a rarity,” the report notes. “As a result, disabled trans and gender-expansive youth face heightened access barriers to bathrooms and facilities that both match their gender identity and which accommodate their disability.”

Separate research by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that two-thirds of school buildings are not physically accessible to many people with disabilities. Restrooms were one of the top settings the agency found that children with impaired mobility and other physical disabilities could not use.

One-fourth of LGBTQ children with disabilities surveyed by the Human Rights Campaign have physical disabilities.

Paradoxically, the high number of barriers disabled LGBTQ youth face may partially account for the fact that they are more likely to be out to the adults in their lives than their non-disabled peers, the campaign found. Three-fourths say they have disclosed their gender identity or sexual orientation to a school staff member, versus 64% of all LGBTQ youth. Nearly 90% are out to at least one member of their immediate family, versus 83%.

Over the last four years, right-wing lawmakers throughout the country have introduced hundreds of bills in state legislatures and Congress seeking to curtail LGBTQ student protections. In-school victimization has skyrocketed during that time, along with reports by young people that bathrooms, locker rooms and other settings specifically targeted by many of the resulting new laws are increasingly unsafe.

In February a nonbinary teen in Oklahoma died by suicide the day after being jumped by three students who had been bullying them. A new state law forced Nex Benedict , who was disabled and Native American, to use the girls’ bathroom where her head was smashed into the floor. Calls to mental health crisis lines soared after the incident, which is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.

A February Washington Post analysis of FBI records found that anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in schools have quadrupled in states where the laws have passed. A 2023 investigation by The 74 Million found rates of in-school victimization rising in places where queer students still enjoy strong protections, something researchers attribute to a “spillover effect.”

The new report draws on a subset of data gathered in a 2022 survey by the Human Rights Campaign and researchers at the University of Connecticut. Of the LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 18 surveyed, 30% reported having been diagnosed with one or more disabilities by a health care provider. This is twice as high as the rate at which disabilities are diagnosed among all students .

The actual number of LGBTQ children with disabilities is likely higher, since many families lack the resources to get formal diagnoses. Although their experiences are not included in the report’s data analysis, a higher number of LGBTQ youth overall — some 35% — reported a self-diagnosed disability. The disparity was higher among gender non-conforming youth, with one-third reporting a medical diagnosis and 41% saying they considered themselves disabled.

In general, children from marginalized demographics and those with inadequate insurance are most likely unable to get a medical diagnosis, which is often necessary to access disability services.

In schools, the specific accommodations a special education student needs are spelled out in a legal document known as an individualized education program. Involving a team of caregivers and educators, the creation of this plan may account at least in part for the greater likelihood that disabled LGBTQ students are out to school staff, says Human Rights Campaign Public Education and Research Director Shoshana Goldberg.

“This IEP process could establish the teacher as a trusted adult, which would increase the student’s desire to [or] comfort with disclosing LGBTQ+ identity,” she said in an email. “In addition, within the IEP, trans and gender-expansive students may also need to outline specific accommodations that address their gender identity — e.g. access to single-gender restrooms [or] locker rooms — necessitating being out to teachers.”

Separate research has documented dramatically higher rates of transgender individuals diagnosed as autistic. In one study, 5% of cisgender people were autistic, versus 24% of gender non-conforming people.

Other surveys of queer youth well-being have found escalating mental health issues as hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in statehouses in recent years. In a 2023 report, The Trevor Project found that almost half of LGBTQ 13- to 17-year-olds had considered suicide in the prior year, compared with 19% of high school students overall. Seventy percent reported anxiety and 57% experienced depression.

Advocates are careful to note that LGBTQ youth and children with disabilities have high rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions in part because of the discrimination and barriers to inclusion they often face. Nonetheless, the disproven idea that mental illnesses can cause people to become gay or transgender persists in political debates.

The Human Rights Campaign report adds to a growing body of documentation linking unsafe school environments to poor mental health — often a particular physical space such as a locker room or restroom. In a 2021 school climate survey, GLSEN found nearly half of LGBTQ students avoid school bathrooms because they feel unsafe. About 4 in 10 avoid locker rooms and gym classes.

LGBTQ students in general are half as likely to participate in school athletics than straight, cisgender children: 22% versus 49%. While two-thirds of disabled queer youth engage in some sort of extracurricular activity, only 18% play sports.

Some 1.5 million students of all ages are excluded from athletics because of a physical disability, while 37% of transgender and nonbinary youth ages 13 to 17 are now banned from participation on teams that align with their gender identity. Estimates of how many U.S. teens are gender nonconforming vary because more young people now identify as something other than trans or cis gender, but the one authoritative source suggests 300,000 are transgender.

Data on LGBTQ youth that can be analyzed by demographic subgroup, like the Human Rights Campaign’s surveys, is rare. Sexual and gender minority status is rarely noted in data collected by census, education and public health officials.