Therefore, in order to reduce suicide risks, schools should not encourage teens to self-identify as “gay” during adolescence before they have matured. Sexual attractions are fluid and do not take on permanence until early adulthood.
I think I take more than a little bit of an exception to the claims in there. First of all, we shouldn't confuse attraction with the patterns of expression. We know well that teens experiment with their identity quite heavily. I'm cautious about saying that sexual attractions are "fluid" per se, when there is a great deal of narrative evidence that suggests that in fact such attributes are not fluid, but rather very broad for many people.
Similarly, I take exception to the idea that schools should not be affirming of their GLBT students. Consider the generally hostile messages that GLBT youth (or adults!) face on a daily basis, and then ask yourself what kind of despair someone who can't find a supportive voice to talk with is going to experience. It takes many youth years to overcome their internalization of these negative messages, only to face making dramatic and life altering decisions later in life when the potential disruption is even greater.
Lifesite spins it a bit harder, and quotes Griggs as saying the following:
Griggs also notes that schools with Gay Straight Alliance clubs are notorious for suppressing ex-gay organizations or individuals supporting tolerance for the ex-gay community. "GSA clubs and their teacher sponsors make schools unsafe for anyone who has rejected the 'gay' label in their lives or who believes in ex-gay equal rights. Our efforts to reach all students are typically met with hostility and violence. Time after time, we have faced hostile gay students and teachers ripping up our ex-gay materials or demanding that we be banned from distributing our materials on campuses."
The problem I have with the 'ex-gay' ministry thing where GLBT youth are concerned is the fact that ex-gay programs are predicated on conditional approval. Their approval is granted only so long as the person continues to act straight, and if someone changes course, they are shunned by the rest of that community. Considering how emotionally vulnerable GLBT youth often are, this is arguably predatory at the very least.
... and just to wrap this all up with a nice little bow, Truth Wins Out has the researcher who was an author of the paper that PFOX cites take them out to the woodshed for a beating:
Dr. Remafedi’s study was the one cited by PFOX to back their unfounded conclusions. Today, Dr. Reamafedi released the following comments to Truth Wins Out:
“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.”
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