Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 06:29:18 -0700 (PDT) From: jessea@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Jessea NR Greenman) Subject: IA Speakers Bureau || CO Inside/Out Youth Group || PFLAG's annual one-day hot line || CA Public Hearing on Parental Rights and Sex Ed in Public Schools || ABC's 20/20 Story Friday Sept. 27 || Oct is LGBT History Month The Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) Stonewall Speakers Bureau is an organization of college students who do homophobia and heterosexism reduction training to high schoolers, teachers, faculty members, school staff people and others. They can be contacted at: Stonewall Speakers Bureau c/o Stonewall Resource Center Box U-2 Grinnell College Grinnell, Iowa 50112 515.269.3327 speakers@ac.grin.edu ------------------- ------------------- [this letter was written in response to a nasty letter written by one of the chief proponents of Colorado's anti-LGBT amendment. note the reference to problems youth have in CO schools, which i've asterisked.] COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE TELEGRAPH September 25, 1996 P. O. Box 1779,Colorado Springs,CO,80901 (Fax 719-636-0202, print run 117,000) (E-MAIL: gtop@usa.net)(http://usa.net/gazette) LETTER IN RESPONSE `Inside/Out' helps teen-agers deal with problems Upon reading Will Perkins' letter criticizing the "Inside/Out" youth group, I could no long allow his assertions to go unrefuted ("County health program won't really help teens," Tell It to the Gazette, Sept. 13). As a trained volunteer counselor for the youth group, I feel that I must answer Perkins' allegations. The "Inside/Out" youth group is a group of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered teens funded by the El Paso County Health Department under the auspices of the drug and alcohol counseling program. The extent of its health department funding is in its employment of two therapists who are full-time employees but devote only part of their time to this program. The remainder of the counseling is provided by four volunteers. I would now like to address how this youth group works. We meet with the teens once a week so that the kids have an opportunity to meet with each other and discuss their common problems, aspirations and experiences. Our mission as counselors is to accomplish these goals: *** We strive, with much effort, to keep them in school. We do this in spite of the fact that these kids experience physical and verbal abuse on a daily basis with little or no support from the administration. We counsel them on drug and alcohol abuse. We counsel them on sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and HIV awareness, and safer sex practices. We counsel them, with great success, on suicide prevention. We try to instill in them that they can have a completely happy and healthy life filled with the love and caring of families and friends. As counselors, it is not our mission to recruit, seduce, encourage them sexually or brainwash them. We are a group of people who perform a much-needed service in the El Paso County area, and we resent Perkins' suggestions to the contrary. -- Edward Marks, "Inside/Out" Youth Group Counselor, Colorado Springs ------------- ------------- [PFLAG's one day toll-free hotline, held annually in conjunction with their national convention, might is a good resource for parents of students struggling to come out] Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is hosting the third annual Family to Family helpline for people who have recently learned that a friend or relative is, or might be, gay. Family to Family is a toll-free national helpline and chatroom, this year operating from 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, October 10. This one day, national event puts callers and computer users in one-on-one confidential contact with parents, families and friends of lesbians and gays. Anyone who would like to access the helpline can do so in one of two ways: Call 1-800-24-PFLAG from anywhere in the U.S. -or- Use America Online keyword: "PFLAG" to access the chat room (PlanetOut is helping facilitate the online aspect). We have more than 75 volunteers -- parents and friends who have been in similar situations, and professional counselors -- prepared to take phone calls on that day. We now need to make sure that people who need the contact information have it. Could you forward this information to your list? Anyone who has additional questions can feel free to call Shelley Golden at 202/638-4200 x13, or send e-mail to SGolden@pflag.org. Thanks! ------------- ------------- CA Public Hearing on Parental Rights and Sex Ed in Public Schools Mark your calendars now: On December 11, 1996, the CA State Assembly's Education Committee will have an interim hearing at the State Capitol in hearing room 4202 on Parental Rights and Sex Ed in Public Schools. The hearing will start at 1 pm and run until 6 pm. As a public hearing, it is required that the testimony be "balanced" and there will probably be a public comment period. Those with questions can contact Assembly staffer [assistant to Ed Committee Chair Steve Baldwin] Dana Cody at 916-445-9431. ------------- ------------- [from long-time LGBT activist Ken McPherson comes the following note about a relevant show this Friday Sept. 27th] Hi Jessea, Just a note to let you know that ABC's 20/20 is doing Lyn Duff's story this Friday night at 10 PM PDT. She is the young woman, who, at age fourteen, at her mother's behest, was taken out of school in L.A. and placed in Rivendale, a lockdown unit for "troubled" youth in Utah, in an attempt to correct her lesbianism. The bill was paid for by the L.A. Unified School District even though they had no means of monitoring what was happening to her once she had been taken across state lines. Eventually she was able to escape, and through the courts, we had her placed with a lesbian couple in SF. While none of us have seen the piece yet, I suspect 20/20's angle will be the rights of a gay youth vs parents rights, the complicity of LA Unified, and my role as the gay person (evil?) who helped hide her from her mother until she attained new legal guardians. I suspect it might be of interest to some involved with the PERSON Project. Ken --------------- --------------- [from the founder of LGBT History Month comes this note:] "Friends, It's that time of year again! Fall. And that means October's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual History Month is upon us. For more information about getting an official History Month brochure or GLAAD's October Primer, send an e-mail request to: history.project@glaad.org Or visit their WWW page: http://www.glaad.org Enjoy the month! Rodney Wilson St. Louis" *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ OK TO RE-POST. Jessea Greenman The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) CHECK THIS OUT FOR TONS OF INFO - - http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/ Please cc us (for our files) on correspondence you send or receive re our action alerts. "Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot." bumper sticker sagacity