Understand the LGBTQIA+ news: One in six children who died by suicide in England were LGBTQ+, QueerAF can reveal

This week, the QueerAF newsletter celebrated its 4th birthday. On the day we launched, Jan 25th 2022, Boris Johnson became the first serving Prime Minister to be arrested amid lockdown party investigations, and 300 of you signed up to understand the LGBTQIA+ news every Saturday.

As we land in your inbox today, after four years of delivering queer accountability journalism—holding government, the NHS and anti-trans movements to account—More than 10,000 of you are here with us, to get everything you need to fight back.

But the landscape has changed dramatically since we first launched our newsletter. Trump is back in the White House, Elon Musk and the tech bros control what we see, and Labour has shifted to the right in a world of growing censorship, protest crackdowns and coordinated attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights.

And I don't need to explain to a QueerAF reader how terrible so many of the mainstream media titles have been to our community. How even some of the gay press have been captured by a focus on clickbait and profits over people. 

At QueerAF, as well as reinvesting all of our revenue in our mission to 'change the newsroom, to change the country,' we've been investing in news and queer journalists in a way no other UK gay media has for a decade with our podcast.

Meanwhile, in the past year alone, our investigations have regularly set the news agenda, held government ministers to account, exposed vast Trans+ inequality in the NHS, and delivered exclusives that have set the tone of parliamentary debate on Trans+ rights.

That's why this year, for our annual crowdfunder, we need your help to accelerate that work. We've delivered incredible impact on a shoestring; imagine what we could do with a whole lot more.

Information is a tool for liberation. Investigative journalism is the lifeblood of LGBTQIA+ activism

Censorship of queer lives is rising, all over the world - from rules that will ban face masks at events like Pride, to algorithms filtering out our stories, and worse - AI slop fuelling division with misinformation.

All this while dark money fuels anti-rights groups, to undermine our community and the unity we hold so dear. So this year, we asked you - our most important editors - how to best improve access to critical information for our community's liberation.

The response was overwhelming - 95% of you asked us to pledge, in one way or another, to increasing our investigative journalism. Meanwhile, there was a clear need, across the board, to hear about when we win, as well as stories of joy and hope.

We hear you. So, if we hit our crowdfunding goal by February 28th 2026, we’ll fulfil these three pledges - chosen by you - to help LGBTQIA+ people get the information they need to fight back against rising hate:

• Ringfenced investigation fund: We'll track and expose anti-Trans+ organisations, lobbying and influence networks behind anti-LGBTQIA+ and gender-critical, transphobic campaigns and uncover even more Trans+ healthcare knowledge in the UK.
• Dedicated Trans+ journalist: Increase our investigations and explainers by increasing the resources for our lead investigative journalist so they can work every week.
• A monthly queer joy digest: We'll highlight community wins, activism and progress being made - including how to learn from this - so you're always connected to hopeful, winning narratives. The change we want is out there.

We're not the kind of crew to wait around, though. We've always modelled the change we want to see - so, we're hitting the ground running. As we ask you to help us hit our modest funding goal, of just £8,000, we're getting started on these pledges today.

We lead this weekend's newsletter with the first in our new investigative series, Under Pressure: A new investigative series about the targeting of Trans+ youth in the UK.

After months of hounding the National Child Mortality Database with press requests, and cutting through their lies, denials and accusations they are suppressing data about Trans+ youth suicides - we've got hold of it. An FOI submitted by QueerAF reveals how many young trans people have died by suicide in England in the last six years.

Meanwhile, you might not have heard about two critical wins in the media this week - but we're prioritising them. Even better news? Both of them are losses for Sex Matters. Two more in a streak of losses for the gender-critical charity behind the UK's most pernicious anti-trans rhetoric. We bring you news on their Conversion Practices and Hampstead Ponds losses.

Delivering on joy, we've launched the ultimate toolkit to debunk lies about Trans+ people, along with our launchpad project, Trans+ History Week, which brings us stories of hope and joy from our history. And we're giving it away for free.

We deserve better, and at QueerAF, we’re not only modelling the change we want to see, but we’re also working with the media so it better represents us.

We're a queer media outlet like no other. And while crowdfunding from other gay media outlets promising investigations have failed to deliver any yet, we've been at the coalface every Saturday, delivering you the information you need to fight back.

There’s a better way for our LGBTQIA+ community to be seen, heard and celebrated in the media, and we’re making sure that change happens.

Help us expose the anti-trans machine, uncover Trans+ healthcare inequalities, work with a dedicated Trans+ journalist and produce a queer joy digest so you can see where we're winning and, crucially, how - support QueerAF's annual crowdfunder now.

Understand the LGBTQIA+ headlines and keep track of the latest queer content and perspectives. The QueerAF newsletter is written by Jamie Wareham and a different queer creative each week.

💬 This week:

• NCMD Data: After a year of investigating, press requests and FOIs, we can provide an insight into data about LGBTQ+ suicides that some groups were concerned were being suppressed.
• Critical wins: All three of our quick news summaries are wins for the Trans+ community this week, from the EHRC, to Hampstead Ponds and Conversion Practices.
• The ultimate toolkit: The more time and energy we spend making the millennia-old history of Trans+ people and gender-diverse communities well known, the quicker we can drown out their lies and misinformation about us. A look at the new free resource we've produced for Trans+ History Week.

Skip the doomscrolling and support queer creatives instead. We are QueerAF – and so are you.

Exclusive: One in six children who died by suicide were LGBTQ+, new data shows

CW: Children dying by suicide | TL;DR: 107 LGBTQ+ children, of whom 46 were trans, died by suicide in England between 2019 and 2025, figures from the National Child Mortality Database show. Amid heated public debate about whether trans children are dying by suicide, campaigners say we need to "take the politics out of policymaking" to address the factors behind these preventable deaths - by Ludovic Parsons