photojournalism - We Are the Youth

Isaac, 16, New York, NY

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 sideshow, 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.

Until I saw that, I was confused about how I felt. I didn’t feel like a girl, but I didn’t feel very masculine either. I never played sports, I didn’t like cars. I didn’t like stereotypically girl things either. I liked music and making videos and things that are ambiguous, I guess.

I told my parents about the Barbara Walters special, and about how I felt like those kids. I also talked to my therapist. We came to the conclusion I shouldn’t tell people I’m having these feelings, because it probably wasn’t true. Well, they came to that conclusion.

My parents were hesitant at first. They didn’t want me to tell anyone if it was just a phase. By seventh grade they were getting that it wasn’t a phase and would have a big role in the rest of my life.

I was just starting puberty during this time. After I was on hormone blockers, there was a pill I had to take daily, and I missed it one day. I got my period, and I’d never had it before. It was pretty traumatizing and lasted for a month. I wasn’t with my parents; I was with my grandparents in North Carolina. I was terrified.

I didn’t want to tell my grandparents because I thought it would be too awkward. I was only there for three days, and kind of stayed in bed the whole time, which I felt kind of bad about. It was the last time I spent a long period of time with my grandfather before he died. It was kind of depressing, that I didn’t get another chance.

I’m sure my grandparents would have been really supportive, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling them I got my period. It was one of those reality check things, where I was living as a guy and had never experienced these things before. Then this thing that defines women was happening to me. Not fun.

I was so young when I started transitioning that I didn’t really think about my sexuality. I had little crushes on girls and stuff. Now I’m attracted to girls, exclusively, but I haven’t dated anyone. I feel like a girlfriend’s not going to happen until college.

I think people in high school are less open to having a transgender significant other. It really reduces your options. It would be one thing if I was significantly attractive. I think it’s less because I’m trans and more because I’m short and ginger and nerdy. I think I try to use the trans thing as an excuse for not having a girlfriend. College will definitely be a blossoming period.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Brooklyn, NY, 2011
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Hot Sause, 17, Nyack, NY

I got my nickname when my friends and I were taking hot sauce shots one day. It became some craze, and now everyone calls me that. I spell it “Hot Sause” since my name is Keana, but it’s not spelled like other names. People can still refer to me as Keana, but I feel like the name puts me into a box. I like that my nickname is gender-neutral.

I feel like I’m not really a boy or a girl. I don’t think people understand that. I’m performing in Guys and Dolls in my high school musical. I’m playing the character of Big Jule, who is supposed to be a guy. But since I’m playing it, they changed it into a girl’s part and changed the pronouns from “he” to “she.” I wish they had just kept it a guy’s part, though. I don’t know why.

But it’s the director’s decision. I love being in the show. I love practicing and acting. I’m very musical. I’ve been writing music since I was in the third grade. I started rapping recently and I’m actually performing at my school this Sunday. It’s a song I wrote called “Breathe.” It’s a rap inspired by all the things I’ve heard on the news about kids getting bullied and facing violence. In one of my verses, I say, “Stop the violence.” It’s really a radical poem.

I love music and I love helping people. I think I want to be a music therapist. It goes hand in hand. I want to bring joy into the lives of people who feel like they’re forgotten.

At Common Threads, I just grabbed the mic at the dance and started DJing. It was my first year going, and I was nervous when I got there. But then I felt so comfortable. Everyone in the whole place hugged me and I felt that love. At the end I cried because I couldn’t stay there. If it was a town, I’d want to live there. I had to leave all those good people who care about me and go into a world where people are not as nice.

I have friends at school, but not anyone I can relate to. Most of my friends at school are straight. They’ll talk to me about my issues, but they won’t get into detail. We don’t really talk about who I like. Maybe they don’t feel comfortable asking me about it.

I go to Rockland County Day School. I’m not sure if there are any queer-identified people besides me. That’s what a Gay-Straight Alliance should be for. It kind of upsets me that they don’t have one. They should have a queer-safe and friendly place. I’d love to talk to other people like me, and maybe they could introduce me to people. It’s kind of hard for me to date. I’m kind of shy when it comes to talking to other girls. There aren’t a lot of people I can talk and relate to. I can’t just walk up to a girl and know what her preference is.

I was in a relationship that was unhealthy. I met her online, and it’s not really good to do that. We were going back and forth and back and forth. She was confused about her feelings for me. She didn’t like the way I was referring to myself. She hated when I referred to myself as “he” sometimes. She didn’t really understand that. But I stayed with her, on and off for five months, because I had feelings for her.

That relationship took a lot out of me emotionally. Maybe if someone comes along, it would be cool. But now I’m just focusing on school and performing and acting, and just trying to get out of high school.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Stony Point, NY, 2011
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Noah, 19, Macon, GA

Before I left for college, my parents told me not to tell anyone at school I was gay. But I was so excited about being in a gay-friendly place, the first thing I did when I got to campus was find out who was in charge of Common Ground, Mercer’s Gay-Straight Alliance. Now I’m the president.

I made the decision to get involved with a lot of different things at school. I’m the photo editor of the school paper. I’m in Amnesty International. I’m on the table tennis team. I also do my own photography, and I’m having my first gallery exhibit this winter. Plus I’m trying to keep my grades up while having a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend, Kayden, in Atlanta, which takes the commitment of a full-time job. I have to force myself to sleep.

Mercer is a small Baptist school in the South, so it’s not going to be a liberal school. But it has a history of gay activism on campus that I didn’t tell my parents about when I was applying. My parents know I’m president of Common Ground, but I don’t think they realize what a big part of my life it is. I didn’t know any gay people before I came out, so I figure it’s my job and responsibility to make sure it’s easier for other people.

I was 16 when I came out. I told my friend, and he thought I should tell my parents because he was worried about my soul. They weren’t thrilled. I had to go to several Christian therapists. Not ex-gay therapy, but ones that try to work out what’s best for you.

A month later I actually got kicked out of my school. I told only two people at the school I was gay, so I know exactly who told the administration. It was a private school, and they had a secret meeting. It was about a week before my senior year was about to start. I had enough credits, so I just graduated early. It was rough. I didn’t feel like God loved me or my parents loved me. All those things happened at once, and it was intense.

December of that year I tried to commit suicide. I tried to swallow a bunch of pills. A friend called when I was doing it, and she talked me out of it. Then I decided not to feel so sorry for myself.

Looking back, I think it was a half-hearted attempt. But back then I thought I was so serious. I really did believe it was the only option. I really did.

Afterwards, I sent my parents a garbled letter in emotional language. I don’t think they know the extent of how serious it was. I think they thought I was being a hormonal teenager, which I sort of was.

That was two years ago. Everything is so much better now. At college, no one cares that I’m gay. My brothers and sisters don’t care, and my father’s trying to be accepting. This summer, my mother said she’d rather I be a drug dealer than be gay, because there’s rehab for being a drug dealer. But just recently she told my dad, “I’m not going to be one of those Christian people who hates gays.” She’s making an effort, and in turn I’m trying to be as sensitive as I can be to her needs.

Like, I try not talking about gay stuff around her, and when I’m with Kayden I try not to be handsy. It may not be the best situation, but it’s improved dramatically.

Kayden’s coming over Christmas Eve. He’s never been here on a holiday with my extended family. I anticipate that no one will say anything. It usually bothers me when people don’t talk about stuff, but in this particular case I’m kind of cool with it. I used to think that when people didn’t say anything, they were thinking all sorts of bad things. But now I realize it’s that they’re making a conscious effort to be more accepting.

Kayden and I have been together two years. We met when we both lived in Alpharetta, Georgia. Now he lives in Atlanta and I live in Macon, but we try to see each other every weekend. It’s actually good on a small campus like Mercer, where everyone’s in everyone’s business, to date someone from outside the bubble.

But we don’t have that connection you have in a relationship where you see each other all the time. But we work at it. Skype helps. I feel very lucky to be with him. He balances out of all the things I can’t take care of on my own.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken at Mercer University, Macon, GA, 2010
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Schwalb, 15, Croton-on-Hudson, NY

Last summer I decided to stay home from the camp of my Zionist, socialist youth movement, and I hung out in the West Village on the Pier with a lot of queer kids. In some ways I regret it, since my youth movement is where I’ve met most of my closest friends, and it means more to me than really anything in my life. But in some ways I don’t. That summer allowed me to be around queer people I really respected and queer people that I didn’t.

But now I feel like I have a cultural disconnect with the whole Pier scene. It’s not like I don’t respect them because they come from a different background or anything like that. I just don’t really share very much with them, whereas I share a lot with my youth movement friends who are also into activism and have life experiences similar to mine, as we all come from Jewish families.

On some level I want to be involved in the environment of the Pier, but there’s a lot that’s wrong with it: a lot is centered around careless sex and clubs and drugs. I kind of approach my involvement there in the future from a place of activism, which I feel sort of bad about because it makes me feel like I’m self-righteous or something.

Activism is the most important thing to me. Above all, I believe in the equality of human value. In the first slam poem I ever wrote, the first line was, “What I want to say today is an exact call to action causing warm interaction between people of different identities, ethnicities, not based on pity or even ethics committees, a change in attitude, the conclusion of a feud gone on far too long.” It was about xenophobia and how essentially we’re all human and deserve the same rights. I can’t say I was an activist when I was five, but since sixth grade, at least, I remember giving my grade presentations on the genocide in Darfur. I guess I was kind of a strange child.

I’m leading an environmental group at school. I’m in the process of becoming a madrich, which is a guide, in the youth movement. I’ve been involved with my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance since seventh grade, which was when I first started coming out while I had this huge crush on a girl in my youth movement.

My parents have been promoting activism from a young age. My tradition with my mom used to be to go to a rally in D.C. every year. It’s like my parents are these amazing people who’ve done amazing things and want me to get involved in activism, but at the same time, I remember my mom talking about this lesbian couple, and saying, “On a political level, should they have rights? Of course. But do I agree with them on a more personal level? Not really.” To me, there’s a conflict of interest there.

Now school’s starting tomorrow and I’m feeling alright. I’m focused on homework and trying to get back into the normal swing of things. I’m very pensive, thinking about how I can facilitate my own happiness at the same time as my family’s level of comfort. If I succumb too much to their demands I feel like I’m selling out and not being myself. At the same time, I want to make it easier for them.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Croton, NY, 2010
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Jezebel, November 2010
Read the Original Story

Sarah

Sarah, Age 19, Brooklyn, NY

In Japan if you have tattoos, you’re in the mafia. When I saw my grandmother in Japan I had to cover mine up because she’d reject me as part of the family. I also couldn’t tell my grandmother I was gay. Having tattoos and being gay and going to art school? She’d be like, “What are you doing with your life?”

I’m half-Japanese and half-white. When I’m in America I feel more Japanese, but when I go to Japan I feel really white. It’s strange because I don’t really have a home. My mom has lived in America for 30 years, but says she views her time here as an extended vacation. I asked her if she wants to move back to Japan, but she said she’s too old at this point. She’s basically cut off ties with my dad so I told her she should do what she wants.

I was born and raised in Minnesota, but I didn’t really speak English until I was five. Now English is my primary language. I think in English. I dream in English. My Japanese is slowly fading. (more…)

British Journal of Photography, Collaborative Portraits, November, 2011

Change.org, June 2010

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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, 17, NJ

I feel like I’m really lucky to be where I am. My parents, my friends, my teachers — everyone’s accepting. I haven’t lost any friends; I’ve gained friends. All my teachers are cool with it. They mess up pronouns, obviously. My English teacher messed up once, then emailed me to apologize.

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 was 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.

I just shaved my blonde creeper-stache. It was getting nasty. I’m not that into facial hair. When my trans guy friends would talk about wanting facial hair, it wasn’t something I wanted. I mostly just want to pass. It’s more my upper body that I’m concerned about.

Before, I used to just wear sweatpants every day. I didn’t want to have to get up and get dressed. I thought girls dressed like girls and guys dress as guys. I was never a lesbian. I didn’t want to walk down the street and have people see me as a girl with another girl. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not me.

I thought a lot about what other people thought of me. After freshman year, I’m like, “I don’t enjoy this anymore.” I didn’t want to have to get up and get dressed. Since learning what transgender was, everything changed.

I used to hate going shopping. Now I love it. I’m always begging my mom to order more clothes for me. I waste all my money on clothes and food. I really like PacSun. I like skinny jeans, but they tend to show off your curves. I like the PacSun jeans that are straight-legged, and they completely make your hips go away.

I don’t need bottom surgery. It’s at least 30 grand. I could spend that money on something completely different. If I had $30,000 to spend, I’d probably buy a car. My dream car is the Maserati GranTurismo, but that’s way, way above 30 grand.

I do want to make a lot of money someday so I’m financially stable. My parents moved here from Sweden, and they’ve done well. I don’t want to spoil my future kids completely, but I want to give them at least what I have now.

I have no idea what I want to do. My mom talks to me about it every day. I don’t think my mom’s gone a day without mentioning college. I’m like, “Uh huh.” I think she’s just worried that I’m gonna end up as a nobody. I think if she knows that I have a career in mind it will ease her worries. She says, “You’re going to end up working at Burger King or the laundromat.” It doesn’t stress me out that she keeps bugging me. It’s just annoying.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in NJ, 2011
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

We Are the Youth Seeks Intern

Are you passionate about LGBT youth issues? Are you actively engaged on Twitter and Tumblr? Are you a good researcher? If that sounds like you, we have a great internship opportunity! For more information about this part-time, New York-based internship, check out Internship Opportunities. Spread the word!