Sara
When I started college last year, I only knew two people out of the 8,200 students who go to Oswego. It was good to have a clean slate, and be able to completely start over and make new friends.
In high school, a lot of people didn’t like me. I’m super-outgoing and wasn’t afraid to share my views. I’m the type of person who raised her hand so much the teacher refused to call on me. Some guys in my classes would disagree with me just to piss me off. When I did talk in class, someone would raise their hand and say “I disagree with everything Sara says!”
My freshman year of high school, two guys cornered me on the stairs and one tried to slam his backpack into me. He’d already written “Let’s snuff that psycho dyke bitch” about me on Facebook a few days earlier. The guys got detention and that was it. Then they left me alone, and I never had a problem with them again, but I still got chills every time I walked past them in the hall. (more…)
A Look Back
In the spirit of nostalgia and our 1 year anniversary, here are some highlights of the past year. Thanks again for all the support and we hope the coming year is just as awesome as the last!
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| Where it all started! Gay Prom, Yonkers, New York |
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| A Growth Grant from DoSomething.org! |
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| A successful Kickstarter campaign! |
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| A trip to the South, met with Braxton in Auburn, Alabama |
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| A weekend trip, met with Hot Sause in Stony Point, New York |
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| A recent trip to Coney Island, New York, with Isaac! |
One Year Old!
We Are the Youth has had an incredible first year! Below is a press release that went out this morning to mark our first anniversary. In order to continue to bring you the stories of youth from across the country, we are working to raise additional funds. We’re now fiscally sponsored by Brooklyn Arts Council, which means you can make a tax deductible donation and we can accept matching donations from companies. To contribute please visit the BAC donation page and designate We Are the Youth as the specific program or fund (further instructions here). Your support means a lot. And please continue to tell friends, family and contacts all about We Are the Youth!
Thanks for a great first year!
Diana and Laurel
LGBT Photojournalism Project Celebrates First Year
We Are the Youth, a photojournalism project chronicling the individual stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in the United States, is celebrating its first anniversary this week, coinciding with Gay Pride Month.
Through photographic portraits and “as told to” interviews in the participants’ own voices, We Are the Youth captures the incredible diversity and uniqueness among the LGBT youth population. We Are the Youth was founded on June 23, 2010 by photographer Laurel Golio and journalist Diana Scholl, childhood friends and queer women who live in Brooklyn. The first series of portraits and interviews was done at Gay Prom in Westchester County. Since then, We Are the Youth has grown to profile dozens of youth in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
The launch of We Are the Youth predated the rising attention to the plight of suicides among LGBT teens. We Are the Youth has used its platform to share stories of depression and bullying, but also of happiness and hope. “We don’t go into these interviews with an agenda to comment on the issue of the day,” Scholl said. “The youth tell us what’s going on in their lives, and these stories paint their own pictures.”
These profiles have a positive impact on the youth featured and the thousands more who have viewed the website. “We Are the Youth brings legitimacy to the struggles of youth like me. They help young people everywhere realize that they are not alone, and that they are loved. As a teenager I scoured the Internet for projects like We Are the Youth; my pain coming out would have been lessened by a powerful and passionate organization such as this,” said Noah Maier, a student at Mercer University in Georgia who was featured on We Are the Youth.
In September, We Are the Youth will be featured at its first festival, Gender Reel, a Philadelphia event dedicated to enhancing the visibility of gender non-conforming, gender variant/queer and transgender identities.
We Are the Youth is the recipient of a Do Something grant, and has been featured on numerous outlets including Jezebel, Change.org, and the It Gets Better Project. We Are the Youth is sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council.
For more information contact us at hello@wearetheyouth.org.
Nel
My guidance counselor is probably my best friend in the entire world. This year it’s uncomfortable for me to sit in classes where there’s a substitute who’ll call out my entire birth name. So if there’s a substitute teacher, I’ll just go to my guidance counselor’s office and sit there the entire period. We’ll talk about our weekends. I told her I was starting testosterone, and she’s like “Oh my God, I’m so excited for you!”
I’m three months on T. It’s going great. I just think my body’s reacting really well. The changes are awesome. Whenever I go to school, people will say “Your voice is changing. Your face is changing.” It’s easier for me to talk to new people. Before I was very self-conscious about not passing. (more…)
Isaac
Coney Island is definitely my favorite place in New York City, if not the world. I live in TriBeCa, and in the summer I try to go once or twice a month to Coney Island. It’s such a great place to spend the day. You can go on the rides, go to the side show, get food, go on bumper cars, go to the arcade. I love the arcade. I don’t go alone. That would be a little awkward. I’d just be sadly eating my hot dog alone. I go with friends.
I like my friends in high school a lot. I hated my middle school. I didn’t really have many friends. It wasn’t my place to be. There were only 20 kids in my grade, but everyone was best friends and I was an outsider. I went to the school since I was two, and liked it a lot until I was 11. Then in sixth grade everyone started changing.
I definitely changed. That was the year I basically started to transition. In the end of sixth grade I watched “Barbara Walters: My Secret Self.” It was all about transgender kids. I tried to convince myself that wasn’t me. I didn’t want to go down that path because it seemed so difficult. But every day it was something I thought about more and more until there was no other option. (more…)
Chase
I got my first tattoo on my 18th birthday. I’ve gotten seven since I’ve moved to New York. Tattoos are a showcase of my art and my passion. They’re so addicting.
The tattoo on my arm is my transition tattoo. I was blossoming into the person I am becoming, so I thought of orchid flowers. Pink and blue are symbolic colors for gender. The blue flower is bigger than the pink one, because it will never go away that I was a girl, but this is who I am now.
For a few weeks I wanted to go to the LGBT club at school. But I can’t. I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to be out. I feel like if I come out, there will be stigma attached to me. Like, “Oh, there’s Chase. The guy that used to be a girl.” Since moving to the city, I’ve been 100 percent stealth. I live with a few kids from high school and another transguy. They’re the only ones who know, other than my trans friends. I don’t mind people knowing. I just don’t advertise it.
For most people, realizing they’re transgender takes a lifetime. For me it only took a year. Once I have an idea in my head, I run with it. I’ve never wanted to slow down with this. (more…)
Raciel
I wasn’t scared to move to New York, because I’d been sneaking away to the City since I was 11. My friends and I would skip school and ask people how to get to the Village. My dad wasn’t a parent who was overprotective. I never gave my parents reason to disbelieve in me.
I’ve been happy since moving to New York. Not as happy as I was in the beginning, but that was during the summertime when everything was great.
I was on the beach last summer, and guys would just hit on me. It was a lot easier for me to meet people in New York. It was on the beach that I met a 42 year old guy who was a social worker at NYU. We only dated for two months, but I really got to know him. I really fell in love with him. It was so cosmic, I guess. It was one of the greatest times of my life. (more…)
Service Trip to Out Youth, TX
Purchase College senior, Tamara Brown, led a group of 14 Purchase students to Austin, TX. to volunteer at Out Youth, a non-profit organization that provides services to LGBTQ youth ages 12 to 19 in Austin and Central Texas.
Here is Tamara’s perspective:
We were welcomed with open arms and started the week off right with a pot luck organized by the staff at Out Youth. Over the next few days, we attended the Martin Luther King Day March in Austin, assisted in clean-up efforts in the surrounding neighborhoods and organized the space at Out Youth to make it more efficient and practical for those who use it. We also made calls to high schools in Texas to find out whether or not they had a GSA and if they were interested in starting one. Out of the hundreds of schools that we called, only a handful had an active GSA and less than five were interested in starting one. If anything, these calls made it abundantly clear how vital Out Youth is to the local LGBTQ community. On our final night, a lock-in was organized which gave the youth a chance to let loose and be themselves. We played board games, made t-shirts, held a dance off, hung out by the campfire and shared stories. Throughout the night, one student directed short video clips for the Make It Better project.
Out Youth was certainly a home away from home. The staff was filled with spunk, creativity and above all, loads of compassion. The young members of Out Youth, some as young as 12, were inspirational to say the least. They were a diverse crowd, coming from all corners of the country and the world and quite a few members were deaf, which allowed some Purchase students to brush up on their sign language. These teens had oodles of charisma, talent, and smarts; we only wish we could have taken them with us.
Out Youth is a remarkable organization. It just celebrated its 20th anniversary and remains the only organization in Central Texas to provide programs and services specifically designed for LGBTQ youth and their allies. I couldn’t have picked a more deserving organization for our service trip this year. They will certainly hold a special place in my heart for years to come.
To contribute a write-up of an LGBT youth related event, email hello@wearetheyouth.org
Update From Our (Virtual) Office
It’s been a while since we’ve said hello and many big things have happened since then! First of all, we’re happy to announce that Brooklyn Arts Council has signed on as our Fiscal Sponsor! Although it’s only been a few weeks, we’ve been impressed at BAC’s friendly and professional rapport and are very excited to work with them in 2011. Now that we have a fiscal sponsor, we’ll be able to apply for a larger array of grants and any contribution that you make to We Are the Youth will be tax deductible! For more information, please email hello@wearetheyouth.org.
In addition, Quincy was our last profile from the Southern Series so starting next week, we’ll be posting profiles of interesting youth in the tri-state area (including some youth from the Common Threads Retreat that we attended in January)! In the meantime, stay tuned for a “from the field” write-up and if you need something to do, join our mailing list (we promise not to bombard you with a million newsletters, just a friendly update here and there).
Thanks again for all the support!
Laurel & Diana
Common Threads
From January 14-16, We Are the Youth participant Shonz, volunteered at the 13th Annual Common Threads Youth Empowerment Retreat in Stony Point, NY. Here’s Shonz’s perspective:
This past weekend I got the amazing opportunity to volunteer at the Common Threads Youth Empowerment Retreat. The retreat is a 3 day program for high school students interested in ending violence and oppression rooted in sexism and heterosexism. This year, Common Threads had over 100 participants!
Over the course of the weekend, workshops were held on adolescent issues in a safe and fun-filled atmosphere. Common Threads tries to empower and inform the youth by teaching them how to create positive change in areas like personal safety, political advocacy, and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. If you have ever participated in PrideWorks, Common Threads is like the extended version.
This was the first time that I was able to take part in the weekend. Even though I was a volunteer and not a participant, the experience was motivational and educational. The weekend kicked off with an opening ceremony on Friday night, during which a representative from each group lit a candle. The candles were placed in a circle with one large candle in the middle to symbolize unity.
The next day kicked off with breakfast and workshops. Workshops consisted of Dance, Safer Sex – LGBTQ Style, Healthy Relationships, Health Tips for Trans Youth, Their Friends and Allies and many more. I got to sit in on many workshops and found them all to be fun, informative and interactive. That night, the participants got to “let loose” with a themed dance. This year’s theme Dia De Los Muertos.
The end of the weekend was the most moving of all. For the closing ceremony, the participants and their advisers were asked to get into a circle while the volunteers stood in the middle. As I gazed around the circle I felt excitement radiate though the room; some faces already teary-eyed knowing what was to come next. The famous Common Threads ball of yarn was presented to the enormous circle. I watched eyes light up with anticipation. They were told to wrap a piece of yarn around their wrist and state, in three words or less, what they got out of the weekend. After doing so they would roll the yarn to someone across the room. Words like “hope, love, freedom, friendship, change and family” were in abundance. In the end, we were left with a web of yarn, held strong by all of us working together. The yarn was then cut, leaving everyone with a symbol of our bond.
Common Threads is a weekend where you get to be your complete self and no one judges you for it — instead, they applaud you for your differences. I encourage you to get your school involved and attend the 2012 Common Threads Retreat. I look forward to volunteering again next year!
To contribute a write-up of an LGBT youth related event, email hello@wearetheyouth.org
PrideWorks
On November 16, We Are the Youth participant Schwalb attended PrideWorks, a conference for LGBT youth and their allies in Westchester, NY. The annual conference drew over 600 people. Here’s Schwalb’s perspective:
For all of us queers up here in Westchester, Prideworks is one of those things that you and your queer/activist friends talk about even when the event is pretty far off. In other words, “How great was the keynote this year at PrideWorks?” is sure to help spark a good conversation all the way into January. And there’s good reason! PrideWorks is a day-long conference for queer youth and their allies that provides a space for us to be together and give each other the support that we all need.
This year’s PrideWorks started out with various speakers telling us, the attendees, that we have the power to effect change in our schools and communities, and that by simply attending the conference, we’re acting as pioneers. Next up was Cheryl Wright, with a keynote address that was far from your average speech. After playing a song or two, she invited Eliza Byard, Executive Director of GLSEN, to come up on stage and ask her questions. The questions largely centered around her coming out story and how she became involved with GLSEN, until she started to invite questions from the audience. To me, this seemed symbolic of the kind of community that I want my community, the queer community, to be: one that respects and celebrates the voices of all of its members.
Workshops throughout the day ranged from topics such as bisexuality to homeless queer youth, all providing interesting looks at the queer community, the groups it’s composed of, the intersections of identities, and effective tools for activism. My personal favorite was Growing Your GSA, where I gained a wealth of practical tips for increasing the impact of my activism.
All pre-programmed activities set aside, I think I speak for a lot of PrideWorks attendees when I say that my favorite part of the conference was “the circle.” Since 2009, the circle has been a gathering in the back of the County Center, on the basketball court, where PrideWorks attendees step into the middle of a circle and share feelings, stories, songs, poems, and reflections with one another. It’s really special in so many ways, largely because it gives us a venue to share our experiences and emotions and build a community. Plus, there are some really talented people who perform! For me, one of the more telling moments of the conference was when, in the circle, I decided to leave in a line that reveals my queer identity in a poem I had performed elsewhere, but hadn’t felt comfortable performing fully. I think it says a lot about the support that the conference provides to queer youth who really need it.
To contribute a write-up of an LGBT youth related event, email hello@wearetheyouth.org
