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…)
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
My Coming Out Story: Ryan
In honor of National Coming Out Day, we’ll be sharing unique coming out stories all week. Ryan tells We Are the Youth how the Larry King Show aided in his coming out process:
When I came out as transgender, I came out very slowly. My brother was the first person I told, then I told my mom when I was 14. I told my dad when I did because he went away and brought back this really girly necklace for me. I just had to tell him that day because I felt guilty. I came out as trans to the world when I was on the Larry King Show. I was telling one person at a time at school and if I weren’t on the Larry King Show it would have taken years to come out. It’s easier just to be out. When you’re trans, it’s different. If I didn’t come out people would still be calling me “she,” or by my birth name and I’d be extremely uncomfortable. In some cases it’s not a good idea to come out, if your safety is in jeopardy. For me it was just a convenient time to come out
Check back next month for a full feature on Ryan!
Queer Teen Reports Back: Attending the Grand Central Die-In
We Are the Youth participant Schwalb attended the Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In at Grand Central Friday night (see video above). Hundreds protested the homophobia that led to the recent suicides by young gay men. Here’s Schwalb’s perspective:
Grand Central. 6 PM. Friday, October 8th. The main concourse was a lot queerer and a lot stiller than usual. Hundreds of queers and our allies had gathered to “die-in” and call attention to the transphobia and homophobia that’s gripped our nation since its genesis. It seemed as though the media coverage of a phenomenon that many of us had been hearing about and even experiencing ourselves for years and years had served as a wake up call to more mainstream queers and allies. Anti-queer sentiment still kills, it does so on a large scale, and immediate, committed, direct action is crucial if we want to better the situation for queers and queer youth in particular.
Despite cops proudly displaying their heavy-duty zip-ties, when the three whistles blew at a few minutes past six, we all fell to the ground, repeating the names of queer people who had either committed suicide in response to anti-queer bullying or been killed in hate crimes. When we heard another three whistles, we all stood up chanting, “Civil rights now!” Amidst these chants, I felt the same sensation in my ears that I feel when I listen to a carefully arranged six-part harmony. I swung my left arm back and forth like I had learned to do singing “Solidarity Forever.”
After many had gotten tired of chanting, “Civil rights now!” a switch was made to, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Homophobia’s got to go!” Yes, this mantra holds much truth, but I couldn’t help but think that this population dominated by 30-or-so year-old gay, upper-middle class, white cismen wasn’t thinking about the BTQ part of our alphabet cereal acronym, or the fact that when we think about any of the “ism’s,” one or more other “ism” intersects with the original ism, and we thus need to be considering rankism in addition to heterosexism and cissexism (which, judging by the chants, wasn’t really being thought about either) if we seek to combat any sort of discrimination.
To be honest, though I fully support this die-in and believe in the potential for positive change presented by actions like these, the reading of Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaws at Bluestockings that I attended after the die-in meant just as much, if not more to me, a queer teen, on a lot of levels, despite the fact that it had decidedly less media coverage. The very idea of the book as a collection of queer stories implies the idea of creating a patchwork of queerdom that, when sewn together, becomes a network of support and a powerful force for positive change.
And this was reflected in the reading: a diverse array of people came together to discuss the experiences of oppression we have in common, the experiences of oppression we don’t have in common, and how all of these experiences play off of each other in our creation of a supportive and inclusive community and society. All in all, as a struggling, queer teen, what gave me the support I need last night were the stories I heard and the email address that one of the contributors wrote in my copy of Gender Outlaws.
Vigil Tonight in Ridgewood, NJ
Join Garden State Equality in Ridgewood, New Jersey to commemorate Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who committed suicide after his roommate posted a webcam video of him having sex with another man.
Corey Bernstein, 15, will be speaking at the event about his experiences with bullying as a gay youth. Corey, who will be profiled on We Are the Youth next month, spoke with us this morning.
All throughout elementary school I was different and didn’t fit in. I was teased and bullied. Once I started middle school it put me at the bottom of the food chain. The bullying got worse. I wasn’t out at this point in my life, even to myself. In 7th grade I was fed up with it. I tried to avoid the situation,” Corey said. “It was just a bad situation for me to be in. I became depressed and came very close to having the same fate as Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown and all those other boys we’re hearing about this month. I was admitted to a hospital for a couple of weeks.
Corey then came out, changed schools and is now using his past experiences to tell other young people not to give up.
For anyone else who is feeling alone and depressed, reach out and you’ll be surprised how many people will help you pull through. Find yourself that one person you can feel safe with. Whether that’s a friend, sibling, teacher. Even The Trevor Project or someone you don’t know. It seems like you’re the only person out there who is gay. But thousands and thousands of people are gay. There are resources.
Join Corey at the vigil tonight at 7 p.m. at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and check back next month to learn more about Corey.
Magda
I was born in Poland, and I’ve lived in Williamsburg most of my life. There used to be nothing here but factories. I used to hate it. But now there’s so much going on, I don’t want to leave for college next year.
I’m going to Poland this summer to stay with family for six weeks. I definitely won’t tell them I’m gay. Poland is one of those places being gay is really not tolerated. My mom’s really cool about it though.
I came out to myself my sophomore year, and to my mom recently, two months ago. I wasn’t really worried about telling her because I knew she’d accept me. But I just didn’t feel like I needed to tell her before that. (more…)
