Queer Youth, Suicide and Self-Harm

Book excerpt: Offering a new way of understanding the high self-harm and suicide rates among sexual and gender minority youth, this book prioritises the perspectives and experiences of queer young people, including those who have experience of self-harming and/or feeling suicidal. Presenting analysis based on research carried out with young people both online and face-to-face, the authors offer a critical perspective on the role of norms, namely developmental norms, gender and sexuality norms, and neoliberal norms, in the production of self-harming and suicidal youth. Queer Youth, Suicide and Self-Harm is unique in the way it works at the intersection of class and sexuality, and in its specific focus on transgender youth and the concept of embodied distress. It also examines the implications of this research for self-harm reduction and suicide prevention.