The Unspoken LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Crisis in Canada
Although Canada has more progressive policies and social support for LGBTQ people than the U.S., the youth mental health crisis in both countries is strikingly similar. Why?
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Last year, at 17 years old, Jack Wonnacott remembers taking a work break in his car, tears streaming down his face as he clutched the steering wheel. He had been keeping his gay identity a secret, and the weight of staying closeted was destroying his mental health.
As he sat in a Vancouver parking lot, he contemplated suicide.
“My mindset that day was, ‘I’m probably not going to go back to my home after this. I’m probably not going to see my family again,’” Wonnacott, now 18, told Uncloseted Media. After making a phone call to the 988 crisis hotline—a mental health helpline funded by the Canadian government—the operator felt that Wonnacott was a danger to himself. They called the police to have him picked up and taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
His parents were eventually notified and picked him up. After returning home, he came out to his family and found acceptance. But getting to that point had felt impossible.
Wonnacott’s experience is not rare. Though Canada is widely considered one of the most LGBTQ-friendly countries in the world, and in 2022 committed to providing $100 million CAD to support its queer communities, rates of mental illness among LGBTQ Canadian youth are similar to those of the U.S.
In both countries, LGBTQ youth report mental health challenges at significantly higher rates than their cisgender, straight peers. In Canada, 77% of LGBTQ youth report being the target of bullying. In addition, they are five times more likely to consider suicide and seven times more likely to attempt it.
And despite its universal healthcare system, 75% of Canadian kids with mental health disorders, including countless LGBTQ young people, do not have access to specialized treatment.
“If you think we’re in some sort of progressive place where everything is good, that’s absolutely not the case,” says Dani Gagnon, a registered psychotherapist (qualifying) who specializes in working with LGBTQ clients ages 16 and up. “It’s really disappointing that this is happening in Canada.”
“I think that there needs to be an overhaul in the way that we think about providing service, and the availability of those services needs to be rapidly ramped up,” Aaron Sanderson, the president and CEO of Kids Help Phone Foundation, told Uncloseted Media.
Jack’s Story
Wonnacott started feeling a looming anxiety when he began questioning his sexuality at 14 years old. “Knowing people are going to judge me, it impacted me quite a bit. I went through a phase of bad depression,” he says. “Am I risking losing access to my home, my freedoms, necessities? [What] if my family doesn’t accept it?”
Social settings and school made things worse. As an avid gym-goer, Wonnacott remembers locker room talk that made him question how safe it would be to come out. “There was a lot of talk about girls, and it was also a lot of conservative political talk,” he says. “You got a lot of use of slurs, a lot of calling things ‘gay.’ It just made me feel like maybe it’s not the best environment for me.”
The use of anti-LGBTQ slurs can be a destructive force for many young queer Canadians. A 2021 Egale Canada survey found that 62% of LGBTQ students felt unsafe at school, and a 2025 study found that the health disparities faced by queer Canadians are the “result of stigma associated with queer identities.”
The Boiling Point
As Wonnacott continued to spiral, his depression intensified. “If I don’t fit in, is there going to be some sort of repercussion? Am I going to be ousted?” he remembers thinking daily.
The weight of keeping his gay identity a secret led Wonnacott into a “dark mental place.” Paying attention in school, enjoying soccer games and even playing the guitar became challenging. To cope with his mounting anxiety and depression, he tried to conform.
“It built up over time, but it turned into ‘Maybe I just need to correct myself … to become normal,’” he says. “It snowballed into trying to change myself, and feeling like I’m not accepted or worthy.”
The desire to alter himself to fit in led to a cycle of restrictive eating. “I was not eating as much. Almost … starving myself at times,” he says. “I did it almost to punish myself. I felt like I was inherently wrong.”
One 2025 study found that gay and bisexual young men in both Canada and the U.S. are over two times more likely to meet criteria for a probable eating disorder diagnosis than their heterosexual peers.
By the 12th grade, Wonnacott’s mental health went from bad to worse when a crush on a friend led to complicated and intense feelings. He knew he needed support and managed to get on an antidepressant medication, commonly known as Lexapro, which Wonnacott says helped to even out his mood. Connecting with a gay therapist through a local government-funded youth wellness support center was also a big help. “We made a connection, and he was able to understand what I was going through,” he says.
Unlike Wonnacott, many Canadians face intense barriers to accessing free therapy. One 2023 study found that Canadians face wait times of over five months to see a mental health professional.
“We hear about young people waiting for years for access to counseling services,” says Sanderson.
That leads many to pay for therapy, where the average cost of a session ranges from $125 to $225 CAD. This creates a cost barrier for many queer kids, and especially the 25-40% of homeless youth in Canada who identify as LGBTQ.
“There’s a lot of therapy that is not covered by the government. It’s hell on earth trying to get an appointment with a psychotherapist,” Gagnon says.
Gagnon believes this leads many providers to send queer kids, many of whom need talk therapy, to psychiatrists “because it’s the easiest way to get into the mental health system.”
Sanderson agrees: “Canada struggles in [this] regard.”
Even with strong support, the homophobia Wonnacott had internalized at school translated into a deep fear that his parents would reject him.
“At one point, I was leading a double life,” he says. “If I had [known] that support from my family was coming, then it would have been different. I would have known that I shouldn’t be ashamed or scared. That would have been a game changer.”
One 2023 review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry suggested that internalized stigma is impacted by messaging and information that deem queerness as “abnormal, unhealthy, unnatural, psychopathological, and harmful.” The review found that this messaging leads LGBTQ people to develop similar negative attitudes and beliefs about themselves. And a 2009 study from McGill University found that 65% of its 220 participants dealing with internalized homophobia struggled with suicidal ideation at some point in their life.
“[The stress] built up into a feeling that I couldn’t ignore. It became bigger and bigger,” he says. “And that just built up to, ‘How do I fix it if trying to change how I look or diet didn’t help?’ Then it turned into, self-harm [and] thoughts of suicide.”
“I am isolated, I am alone in this. I am broken,” Wonnacott remembers thinking.
All of this led him to that parking lot and nearly taking his life.
Trans and Nonbinary Youth and Familial Rejection
Of all queer young people, trans and nonbinary Canadians experience the highest levels of social stigma, with trans youth being two times more likely to consider suicide than LGB youth. As a closeted kid, Casey Mariani, who identifies as nonbinary and queer, remembers being chased around the schoolyard by their peers brandishing makeshift crosses and Bibles in their face. After showing interest in starting a gay-straight alliance at their school in Toronto, Mariani’s classmates turned against them.
“At recess, they all made an anti-gay club and chased me around,” Mariani, now 23, remembers of their experience at Catholic School. “It was like I was a vampire and they’re trying to get away from me.”
Around age 14, Mariani first started to think they might be queer. They had entered online spaces on Tumblr and found acceptance there. “I changed my name to Casey online, and I started going by that. … I was kind of living this double life. In real life, I was still going by my birth name. I hadn’t told my family anything,” they told Uncloseted Media.
Mariani grew up in a strict Catholic family with Filipino and Italian parents, where secrecy felt like the safest option.
Their concerns reflect the data: Only 7% of trans youth from immigrant families say their cultural or ethnic communities are supportive. Mariani’s mom was born in Manila and raised in a world of strict gender roles. They believe this may have contributed to their mom’s difficulty in accepting their trans identity.
“A lot of kids don’t feel comfortable or safe talking to their family about their gender identity or about their sexuality,” says Gagnon. “It sets them at a disadvantage.”
When Mariani came out in grade 10 as trans, their identity was met with skepticism. “My mom would come up to me and be like, ‘So why can’t you just be a lesbian? Why do you need to be a boy? Why do you need to transition?’” they say.
While Mariani did get a therapist at 15-years-old through a Toronto hospital, they say it didn’t provide any relief because they didn’t feel like they could trust their therapist. “There would be very long silences in the sessions because I didn’t know what I could say. … I remember she just kept trying to push me to come out to my family,” they recall.
“If I could have trusted my therapist to where I could get into the nitty-gritty of it … I think that would have lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.”
Gagnon says LGBTQ-specific training is not mandatory for licensed therapists in Canada. “Not only is queer-affirming practice not mandatory, but there’s also limited formal training around working with BIPOC clients, intersectionality and inclusive clinical language,” they say. “Much of that learning is left up to therapists to pursue independently after graduation, which creates variability in care, quality and accessibility.”
Mariani, who is autistic, remembers feeling like their therapist did not understand them. “I never really had a safe space to talk and to feel like I was being listened to,” they say.
With little to no support, Mariani’s mental health deteriorated, and at around 17 years old, they leaned into restrictive eating and alcohol. “I started taking Tylenol and drinking a whole bottle of wine almost every night,” they say.
Finding Healing
It took years until Mariani started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where they met their sponsor, who became a transformative mentor. They say if they had someone who is queer in their corner when they were younger, it would have been a huge help. “I think I wouldn’t have gotten burnt out,” they say. “They are definitely the most cherished person I have in my life right now.”
Aaron Sanderson with the Kids Help Phone Foundation believes support services for LGBTQ youth in crisis need to be made more accessible through an increase in virtual services.
“We have to consider the role that in-person, physical services might play in relation to stigma,” says Sanderson. “Walking into a building takes a different level of bravery than it does to, for example, connect with a confidential or anonymous service. … We need to make it really easy for those people, because it’s when people are not at their best that they need the support.”
Gagnon says more training and easier access to mental health services for queer youth is essential. For Mariani, it was game changing when they eventually got paired with a gay Filipino gender therapist. They say they felt like someone could finally understand the nuances that come with being queer and from an immigrant family. “It was like, there’s finally this person seeing me,” they say.
Since calling 988 and coming out to his parents, Wonnacott is now out and proud. His relationship to his family has improved. “I am close now with my parents,” he says.
Wonnacott is now in a relationship, and says his boyfriend is “a constant presence and someone [he] can trust.”
“Coming out felt almost like a bit of defiance. I’m going to make this space for myself and not let other people’s judgment impact that,” he says. “This is my identity. I don’t have to hide it.”
Additional reporting by Hope Pisoni.
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