Gender Reel Festival!
If you’re in Philly the weekend of Sept 9th-11th, come check out Gender Reel, an annual festival dedicated to enhancing the visibility of gender non-conforming, gender variant/queer and transgender identities. We Are the Youth will be showing 4 portraits and accompanying interviews Friday night and all day Saturday!
Blogs
- AfterEllen – news, videos and reviews on lesbian and bisexual women
- AfterElton – news, videos and reviews on gay and bisexual men
- AutoStraddle – “news, entertainment, opinion and girl-on-girl culture”
- Change.org – an online destination for social change
- Pam’s House Blend – centers around LGBT issues, rights, religion, and politics
- Queerty – centers on gay issues. “Free of an Agenda. Except That Gay One”
- The Elder Project – an oral histories of GLBTQ elders
- Towleroad – centers on gay issues.
- The Slope – the home/blog for the hilariously charming web-series, The Slope, which follows the lives of a lesbian couple navigating their way through modern-day Park Slope, Brooklyn
- Velvet Park – “Dyke Culture in Bloom”
We Are the Youth Seeks Intern
Carter, 19, Oakland, CA
I don’t know what I could do to make me seem gayer. Even last night, I was talking to a girl I’ve known for a while. I said something about some girl, and she was like “Oh, are you bisexual?” She jumped to thinking I was straight to thinking I was bisexual. I’m like, “No, I’m pretty fucking gay.”
I could cut off my hair, but that wouldn’t be me. I’m not one of those people who can change my appearance at the drop of the hat. I don’t have piercings, I don’t have tattoos. I guess hair grows back, but I have weird things with my hair. It’s like a security blanket. To me, at least, cutting my hair so people know I’m queer would feel like putting on a costume.
I wrote a paper about hair. When I started writing it, the point was going to be that you can’t judge people’s sexuality based on their hair. But then all the research I found showed you can make assumptions on people based on their hair, and it’s been a really helpful way for members of the queer community to identify each other. My paper ended up with me realizing that I am the exception.
I feel like I always have to drop hints when there’s someone I’m into. It is kind of a bummer. But now is one of the first times I feel very comfortable with who I am and who I’ve grown into the past few years. I don’t want to alter that.
I think I first realized I was attracted to women when I was 16. It was interesting; my mom knew me so well that, when I told her, she said she wasn’t surprised because I’m very drawn to feminine things in my artwork. It’s not that my art is necessarily girly, but it’s very female and bold, and maybe delicate. A couple years ago I felt very fragile, and my art reflected that. Now it’s feminine in a more concrete, stronger way.
I identify as queer because I’m not comfortable 100-percent cutting out an entire gender. I didn’t really embrace the word queer before I knew about it at Mills College. I’m majoring in women, gender, and sexuality studies, and I learned a lot about what it means to be queer as not just a sexuality but as a political identity.
Honestly, I can’t imagine myself dating a guy. I’ve never felt an emotional connection to a guy before. Maybe, like once or twice, I felt a physical connection. But if I just want to hook up with someone and don’t like them as a person, it’s probably a bad idea.
As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in New York, NY, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org
The Vigils Continue
The LGBT community has stood together through many vigils as of late, realizing the power to unite under a common cause — to acknowledge those that are no longer with us and to increase visibility of our community — is more important than ever. We went to a wonderful vigil last night at the New School during which attendees introduced themselves to the crowd stating their name and the way in which they identify; having strangers stand up around you and proudly shout who they are for all to hear was so very moving.
We Are the Youth was started to provide a space for LGBT youth to share their stories. Over the past few weeks, it’s become clear just how crucial it is to fight stigma, increase visibility and let others know that they are not alone. The small action of coming out (even as an ally) can have a huge impact on those around you, in ways you may not realize, and can sometimes be the difference between life and death.
To share your story, please email hello@wearetheyouth.org
Maddy, 16, New Rochelle, NY
The hardest thing about coming out, for me, was coming out to myself. From there, things got easier. My family is very accepting. I’ve managed to avoid getting picked on about it, for the most part. I have a girlfriend — who is amazing, by the way — and we’re an out couple in school. However, coming out to oneself is very difficult — at least, it certainly was for me. After all, society has built all these expectations up for us to fulfill, and finding out you’re LGBTQ is not one of them.
When I found out that I had feelings I would later describe as pansexual, I was really afraid. If I acknowledged and accepted this part of myself, then I could never be “normal” and I’d be denied rights.
There are people out there who are afraid of me, some of whom even publicly state that they want me dead. Of course, they don’t know me, but that only made them more surreal to me. However, I did come out, and I’m glad I did, because it takes a lot of courage to do so and I think it made me a stronger person.
Now I’m very proud of my identity as pansexual and also, though I discovered this later, my identity as genderqueer. I’ve always been too masculine to feel like one of the girls and too feminine to feel like one of the boys. And, if you think about it, just what is a girl or a boy anyway? If it was really all about what organs you had, then why should so much else be attached?
From the day you are born, and even before nowadays, people start to assume how you’ll act, what you’ll wear, what you’ll like, your skills, your goals and so much more, just from one part of your body. These concepts — man and woman, girl and boy — are so filled with assumptions that who can say what they are? Since I can’t, I’m not going to label myself as one right now, though this is just my opinion and I’m still thinking a lot about it.
While my identity as a queer person is very important to me, that’s not the only part of who I am. I’m a theater geek, an aspiring artist/writer, a lover of graphic novels and manga, a musician, a singer and actor, a total nerd when it comes to school, an optimistic pessimist, a Unitarian Universalist atheist, a liberal and a human. Just like you.
As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in New Rochelle, NY, 2010
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org
