Research indicates that LGBTQ+ teens entering high school experience significantly higher anxiety symptoms compared to their cisgender heterosexual peers, highlighting the unique challenges they face during this transition.
Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, were accused of plotting to murder a classmate, with Valdez admitting to planning to use a knife found in her backpack. In an apology, she expressed feelings of being 'disgusting, cruel, and useless,' indicating deep-seated issues.
My local Target was the first place I noticed the shift. One day, a few years ago, a sign appeared: red text on white paper announcing that no one under 18 would be allowed in without an adult. Before the poster, every weekday afternoon, clots of teens would move through the arteries of the store, occasionally blocking them. The kids would laugh among themselves, swatch makeup on their arms, peruse the candy offerings.
The number of suicides per 100,000 young people ages 10 to 24 declined by nearly 12 percent, from 11 to 9.7, between 2021 and 2024. The decrease was driven largely by reductions among young men, whose suicide levels fell by nearly 15 percent, while suicides among young women declined by about 2 percent.
The Missing Social Unit From middle school onward, American children don't belong to a "class" in any stable sense. They move continuously - subject to subject, room to room, teacher to teacher. There's extensive discourse around respect, equity, and inclusion. But there's remarkably little structured attention to the actual social life of any group. Because there isn't really a group.
New data has shown that one in six children that died by suicide in England between April 2019 and March 2025 were part of the LGBTQ+ community. Out of the 647 children that died by suicide during that time period, 107 were LGBTQ+ and 46 were transgender. The figures were obtained by QueerAF via a Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database.
Without effective tools and preparation, many parents understandably default to instinct and use common ineffective tactics, such as warning, advising, informing, or trying to control their teens. The adolescent brain has been compared to a car with a powerful gas pedal and weak brakes when in the presence of other teens or when expecting to be seen by them (Bulow, 2022; Steinberg, 2008). Further, they are drawn to peers, and then instinctively rev each other up into risky experimentation and sensation-seeking.
Amid the Valentine's Day celebrations in the Philippines, declining teen pregnancies among older girls contrast sharply with rising cases among those under 15. Images of romance and young love fill social media feeds, restaurants, and shopping malls across the Philippines. Some local groups also use the season to distribute condoms and awareness flyers. However, behind the festivities lies a more complicated reality as national data show a worrying pattern behind the romantic veneer.
