Yes, absolutely.
Of course, suicide in particular and other mental health topics as well are stigmatized for everyone. There is a reluctance to open up. There is a reluctance to confront it head-on. You might imagine that for folks like sexual and gender minorities who have a history of feeling the need to hide, conceal or withhold, you have a double layer of stigma. What this means is that both where we end up, in terms of migrating to communities that are more sexual or gender-minority affirming, and where we turn up for services will look very different. This means that sometimes we need tailored strategies.
I work as part of a study team in Vancouver called Still Here. It's a study of experiences of suicide with LGBTQ2S people. It's led by my colleague, Dr. Olivier Ferlatte. In that study we found that when we actually did photo exhibitions with art-based approaches and got LGBTQ2S people together, there was a little more comfort in talking about the levels of suicide in the community.
Apart from those spaces, or apart from queer-focused or queer-affirming suicide prevention services, there is a tendency to want to withdraw, to be reluctant. In fact, when we talk about some of these statistics within LGBTQ2S communities, often people are either surprised or want to shy away from it, maybe because they feel like there's already a point against them, and they don't want to be doubly stigmatized.