It’s very hard to separate out cause and effect. At the same time that social media adoption grew we also saw increased family acceptance and legalization of queer relationships. Are the rates of suicide going down because of social media, or because queer kids aren’t facing violence from peers, or because they’re not being disowned by their family and made homeless? Or is it social media changing society to reduce those harms by increasing acceptance?

What we do know is that suicide rates are dropping amongst queer youth. The change in acceptance and legalization of queer people’s existence has happened much faster than anybody in the queer community expected. A big shift has been the way social media stopped the censorship of almost all queer voices and stories.