Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 18:38:55 -0700 From: Jean Richter Subject: 5/1/2000 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. UT: Gay club asks for injunction 2. NY: Data wanted on drug abuse among questioning teens; Workshops on gay families and schools 3. CA: Reports wanted on Day of Silence activities; Opinion piece on the plight of gay teens 4. MA: Accused harassers of students face civil complaint ================================================================ Salt Lake Tribune, April 21, 2000 P. O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, UT, 84110 (Fax 801-257-8950) (E-MAIL: letters@sltrib.com ) ( http://www.sltrib.com ) Gay-Club Issue Goes Back to U.S. Court By Heather May, The Salt Lake Tribune East High School students hoping to create a club to discuss gay and lesbian issues demanded Thursday to be allowed to meet on campus for the rest of the school year. Through their attorneys, Jessica Cohen and Margaret Hinckley asked a federal judge to force the Salt Lake City School District to let the PRISM ­ People Respecting Important Social Movements ­ club convene immediately, pending the outcome of a lawsuit they filed last week. [Deleted article. filemanager@qrd.org] * The Associated Press contributed to this report. ================================================================================ From: SARATOGANY@aol.com Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 12:28:53 EDT Subject: Info Request: alcohol/drug abuse and kids struggling w/ their sexual orientation Message forward by: The Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS Email to: saratogany@aol.com CSS-NYS-Note: Please read the below request for information regarding alcohol/drug abuse and kids who are struggling with their sexual orientation. The information is needed for a school district grant proposal (where applicable, something others may want to consider in their districts) I am sure some of you have the data/info sought. CSS-NYS will compile the information and or info resources. We will sent to the requestor/the CSS-NYS list recipients. Please disseminate this message widely. ===================================================================== 4/21/00 John, I am trying to locate information (studies, statistics) that show a link between alcohol/drug abuse and kids who are struggling with their sexual orientation. It is generally accepted that a link exists but I am going to need data...especially current data to show it. My district just announced yesterday that it had $70,000 in grant money to go to programs/activities that deal with drug abuse prevention. I would like to draft a proposal that would directly assist this at risk group. Given the atmosphere in our district toward glbt kids (especially in light of the showcase incident and the pending arbitration) I don't hold out much hope but I want to give it a try. Any direction you can point me in would be most appreciated. I will be out of town until Wednesday (April 26) but will try and check mail a few times in the interim. Many thanks, John. Mike (last name wihtheld) ===================================================================== "The Actual or Perceived GLBT Student Protection Project" A project of: Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS John Myers Director of Operations and Programs PO Box 2345 Malta, NY 12020 (518) 587-0176 Email: saratogany@aol.com (To join or unsubscribe the CSS-NYS e-mail list, send request to address above.) ============================================================================ From: SARATOGANY@aol.com Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 10:58:49 EDT Subject: Albany: Building Partnerships; Gay Families - Caring Schools (NYED co-sponsor) Message forward by: The Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS Email to: saratogany@aol.com ================================================================== Building Partnerships; Gay Families - Caring Schools Two (2) events: 5/4 and 5/5 Event(s) sponsors: Center for School Health and Wellness (NYED) Undergraduate Social Work Department, College of St. Rose Lambda Family Circle Committee for GLBT Families and Schools Connections Psychotherapy / Associates GLSEN Capital Region May 4th Free "Creating Niches with Room to Grow: Strategies for Inclusive Education for Children of Gay and Lesbian Headed Families" With author Virginia Casper (re Gay Parents/Straight Schools) Location: First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany Channing Hall 405 Washington Ave. Albany, NY 6pm Potluck 7:15pm Presentation and Discussion *Childcare provided during discussion* May 5th Building Partnerships; Gay Families - Caring Schools A conference for educators, parent and community members. Virginia Casper will present the keynote address, "Gay and Lesbian Issues in Our Schools: Children's Development, Learning and Family Culture" Local presenter will also be offering workshops The conference will take place from 9am to 3pm at the College of St. Rose (Albany) Cost $30 (student rate and scholarships available) Contact GLSEN NYCR at 518 462-6138 VM #76 ===================================================================== "The Actual or Perceived GLBT Student Protection Project" A project of: Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS John Myers Director of Operations and Programs PO Box 2345 Malta, NY 12020 (518) 587-0176 Email: saratogany@aol.com (To join or unsubscribe the CSS-NYS e-mail list, send request to address above.) ============================================================================== X-Sender: cmlaub@pop.slip.net Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 15:37:10 -0700 From: Carolyn Laub Subject: Day of Silence Updates!!! Send us your updates about the Day of Silence! Get published in the upcoming newsletter, Outright, from the Bay Area GSA Network! We are looking to hear from all the GSAs that have done a Day of Silence (on the actual day or not). What happened at your school? How many people participated? Who participated (teachers? GSA members only?) What reactions did you get? Did you have to struggle with your administration to get it approved? What impact did the event have on homophobia at your campus? What follow-up are you doing? Specific anecdotes are encouraged!! Send in responses to outright@gsanetwork.org Thanks, Carolyn & Emilie (newsletter editor) **************************************** Bay Area Gay-Straight Alliance Network 965 Mission Street, Suite 218 San Francisco, CA 94103 ph: (415) 442-4726 fax: (415) 442-4727 www.gsanetwork.org carolyn@gsanetwork.org **************************************** ========================================================== GAY TEENS LOST IN SHUFFLE By Greg Bredbeck I, like thousands of other gay, lesbian and queer people, was profoundly moved when Hillary Swank ended her Oscar acceptance speech with a plea not only for tolerance, but for celebration of diversity. And certainly the film "Boys Don't Cry" breaks some new ground by bringing transgender issues to the mainstream in a way that really hasn't happened since Rene Richards made headlines. But the issue the film raised most profoundly for me was not the plight of transgendered people, but the plight of teens. Watching the scenes of confused desire took me back to my own young adulthood in a way that was both painful and enlightening. It also reminded me how seldom queer teenagers get to see themselves reflected in either the mainstream or the queer media, or even in the gay and lesbian political movement. Being a queer teen in America is no picnic. This year more queer teens will die from suicide than from any other cause -- and at a rate almost four times as great as their straight peers. Outside of the major urban areas of the country, almost no queer teen will have access to a support group or a queer-friendly counselor. Most queer teens will see only slick, sexy and successful gays like k.d. lang, Greg Louganis and Ellen Degeneres as possible role models, and not surprisingly they will feel inferior in comparison. In general, the gay and lesbian political movement has become a lobbying force for the middle-aged. Concerns cluster around issues of employment, marriage and property rights. Our celebrations focus on parties and marches that require both money and, in many instances, proof of legal age -- two things most queer teens don't have. Efforts like those of State Representative Sheila Kuehl to legislate for the protection of gay and lesbian students in public schools are by far exceptions, not rules. And they mark only partial and incomplete efforts to alleviate the pain felt by teenagers who feel they face their differences on their own. The reasons for ignoring the plight of queer teens are complex, but I think there are two basic ones that come to the fore. The first is political. The Religious Right has successfully monopolized the image of the child as a symbol of "family" values. Media figures such as Dr. Laura Schlessinger continue to champion "the child" as the last bastion of homophobia, the continuing and incontrovertible reason to label homosexuality deviant and criminal. For many gay and lesbian people, this ploy has been so successful that it has resulted in a wholesale abandonment of an entire generation; the politics of supporting young people has become tantamount to being a religious conservative. Moreover, if we see past this ploy and reach out to young people, we risk substantiating the ludicrous religious claims that we are 'recruiting" or -- and this is much worse -- are pedophiles. The second reason is personal. To reach out to young people and share in their pain in many ways returns us to our own scenes of childhood trauma. Growing up queer is never easy, and for most middle-aged gay people the events were faced with a minimum amount of therapy and family support. The primary coping mechanisms became repression and denial, and the issues buried by these survival mechanisms remain intact. To return to the years of pain, even in someone else's life, risks reactivating them. And since the youth who need the help are not "biologically" ours, the tendency to avoid this painful encounter is even greater. It is this second reason, the personal, that makes it so compelling to me that we overcome the efforts of the Religious Right and reclaim America's youths as everyone's concern -- queers included. For unless we want have our legacy left to a generation that, like us, remains crippled by the fear of childhood pain, we must overcome our fear of the terms "recruitment" and "pedophilia" and dedicate our resources to providing professionally qualified and sympathetic environments of hope and growth for queer teens. This might, of course, mean fewer parties, later marriages, and one or two less marches -- but that is a small price to pay for a future filled with queers who could begin their adulthoods with the positive self-image we have all had to struggle for. DESERT POST WEEKLY Thursday, April 6, 2000 Desert Communities Newspaper Group 68-625 Perez Road, #6 Cathedral City, CA 92234 (760) 202-3200, FAX (760) 324-2751 ==================================================================================== Associated Press, April 24, 2000 Three girls accused of harassing Moroccan students face civil complaint BOSTON (AP) ­ The state attorney general's office has filed a civil rights complaint against two female high school students who allegedly groped and ripped a Moroccan classmate's clothing because they thought she was gay. The complaint, filed under the state's Civil Rights Act, accuses the two girls and another classmate of threats, intimidation and physical attacks on three Moroccan teen-age girls in the two months before the alleged attack on a subway train in January. [Deleted article. filemanager@qrd.org] ================================================================================ Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) These messages are archived by state on our information-loaded free web site: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/