Of the many, many ways Trump’s election will harm this country and its people, one consequence of his rancid, bigotry-churning campaign has already made itself clear:
American teens have experienced a steep surge in abusive and hateful behavior since the dawn of the divisive 2016 presidential race, a national survey has found.
The hatred ginned up by Trump has also poisoned the lives of many American teens well beyond the November election:
The 2016 presidential election had a "troubling" impact on America's youth, according to a new survey of more than 50,000 young people ages 13-18. The survey, conducted by LGBTQ-rights organization Human Rights Campaign, included respondents representing a diversity in gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and religious background.
Seventy percent of those surveyed reported witnessing bullying, hate messages or harassment during or since the November election. Of those who witnessed such behavior, 79 percent said it occurred more frequently following the start of the campaign.
The groundbreaking study drew upon contacts through HRC’s social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, using a technique called “convenience sampling." The authors acknowledge that the survey would likely draw in teens who either had experienced abuse or were supportive of LGBT equality. While it does not represent a statistical segment of the entire teen population, it does represent what is happening to teens who are among the most vulnerable to bias and hate in an era where Trump’s rhetoric and that of his supporters has given new sanction, even encouragement, to the abuse of children deemed to be “different" from others:
More than a quarter of LGBTQ youth said they have been personally bullied or harassed since Election Day -- compared to 14 percent of non-LGBTQ youth -- with transgender young people most frequently targeted. Additionally, Hispanic and Latinx respondents were 20 percent more likely than other youth to report having been personally bullied, with harassment targeting both immigrant and nonimmigrant communities.
The average age of those who responded to the survey was 16. Many have reported that since Trump was elected, they have felt forced to hide their identities and alter their behavior to avoid becoming targets of bullying and abuse:
Vast numbers of young people also reported feeling nervous and hopeless post-election, with almost half of LGBTQ youth saying they have taken steps to hide who they are by delaying coming out, dressing differently or questioning their plans for the future. Hispanic and African American young people also reported changing their appearances and routines out of fear of harassment, and Muslim, Jewish and Hindu youth all described concealing symbols of their faith to avoid being targeted.
The survey also solicited personal accounts from the participants, leaving little doubt as to the ultimate source for these behaviors:
Wrote one Hispanic 18-year-old from Illinois, “My family and I go shopping and wash clothes at 2 a.m. to avoid seeing and hearing people’s comments.” A transgender youth from Idaho wrote that they and a Latinx friend were confronted at school by a fellow student who said, “Donald Trump is gonna deport wastes of space like you, and hopefully he does something about freaks like you too.”
It’s hard to imagine a more cynical and mean-spirited way to win an election than to encourage American children to prey upon each other, but that is exactly Trump did in his campaign. The psychological impact of bullying lasts well into adulthood and can manifest itself in ways that can cascade into the lives of not only those bullied, but their families and their future children.
David Bond is a Vice-President with the Trevor Project, a crisis center for LGBT young people. He talks about the deluge of calls and messages his organization has received since the November election.
“The volume has continued to be higher than typical levels for November and December. This is very indicative of a higher level of emotional distress” for LGBT youth throughout the country, he said. “They’re clearly more distressed, so much that they feel the need to reach out for help.”
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“The election results and the rhetoric going on in the media are enabling what would otherwise have been latent discrimination,” Bond said. His organization, he said, is now counseling youth confronted by a wave of more “obvious and observable discrimination that is seemingly more welcome in the public eye, unfortunately.”
It’s become almost a cliche to say that “elections have consequences.” For vast numbers of American teenagers, the consequences of this particular election are turning out to be permanent.