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Loading ...Siciliano: LGBT teen homelessness is an epidemic
As National Coming Out Day approaches, I find myself wondering if the LGBT community is failing too many of the teens who come out.
When a teen comes out, and their parents are able to accept them, it is a wonderful thing. However, recent studies have shown that as many as 25 percent of teens face rejection by their parents and families when they come out. Our nation’s homeless youth population is swollen with LGBT youth who have been thrown to the streets as a punishment for their honesty and integrity in coming out.In last year’s report “An Epidemic of Homelessness,” the Task Force cited studies showing that up to 40 percent of all the homeless youth in the United States are LGBT.
It is upsetting and disturbing to hear the stories kids tell us when they seek help from the Ali Forney Center. We hear of kids being battered and beaten by their parents and family members. We hear of kids being told that they are damned and unloved by God by their religious leaders.
We hear of kids being gaybashed in youth shelters, most of which in our country are “faith-based.”
A common theme I hear in the stories our kids tell us is how, in the eyes of their families and communities, their being LGBT cancels out their human value. They become no longer worthy of love and protection in the eyes of their parents.
This is where the broader LGBT community must come to the table.
We need to show our kids that they are loved and cherished for who they are. We have an obligation to our youth to create and support structures that protect queer youth when their parents refuse to do so.
In every city we need to be advocating that youth shelters be safe for LGBT youth, and that distinct programs be created and funded to meet the needs of LGBT youth. Paying closer attention to the needs of our kids needs to be a higher priority for us as a community on local and national levels.
I am proud of the Ali Forney Center’s trailblazing efforts in responding to the urgent needs of homeless LGBT youth. We opened in 2002 with six cots in a church basement. Since then, we have grown to offer eight seperate residential sites with the capacity to house 50 youth per night. We have a drop-in center that offers food, showers, medical and mental health care, HIV testing and prevention services, and vocational and educational assistance to over 500 youth per year.
We offer the kind of guidance, support, and protection that youth should be receiving from their families.
When Ali Forney, a homeless queer youth, was murdered on the streets of NYC in 1997, this kind of support for LGBT youth did not exist. Ali was faced with the choice of staying in a Roman Catholic-run youth shelter where gaybashing was notoriously prevelent, or of struggling to survive on the streets. Ali chose the streets, and was mudered on a cold December night.
It is wonderful now to see how our youth are able to thrive when given the kind of nurturing and support they need. We were so proud this past summer when one of our former clients, Lamont, was fearured in a New York Daily News article about his courageous efforts in founding the first LGBT student club at Medgar Evers College, where he became a student while living in our housing program.
We were also filled with pride last summer when Andre, another of our kids, was given a full scholoship to dance at the Alvin Ailey School.
Most recently we have exhaulted in the accomplishments of Isis, who came to us last year with a fierce determination to pursue a career in fashion, and moved from our housing program in June to become the first trans woman contentent on America’s Next Top Model!
However, the Ali Forney Center is a rarity. There are only a small handful of programs in our country dedicated to housing LGBT youth – there are tens of thousands of LGBT youth enduring the terrors and humiliations of homelessness on our streets.
The protection and safety of our youth must become a central priority of our community. We need to show these kids, and ourselves, that they are valued. When a kid is thrown to the streets for being gay, it is an assault against each one of us.
We need to do a better job, so that when kids come out of the closet, they do not have to be thrown to the streets.
We have some very prominent gay and lesbian people out there (Ellen, George Michael, Elton John, David Geffen, Rosie O’Donnell etc.) who have a few bucks, and it makes me wonder why there aren’t more LGBT teen shelters like the Ali Forney Center? We need them, since the ones are filled to capacity.
And that was a terrible fate for Ali Forney…no one should have to be placed in that situation just because they’re gay.
Similarly to what other people have said, we the homosexual community have gained many roll models over the last few years, I/E, Mathew Mitchel the Australian Olympian who won a gold medal for diving, certainly a model for young gay men and boys. But roll models are not enough for homeless youth especially those who are deprived of the love of their families during what is for them the most difficult time in their lives.
It is my belief that we must unite in some way to assist these unfortunates we who have lived long lives in the shelter of our anonymity, owe it to those who have had the courage to come out to support them in their time of need. we ar4e capable of self love why cant we show a fragile youth some love and kindness to help him or her through the gut wrenching realization that those whose love they took for granted have just turned on them with the same disregard that the animal world shows to those that cannot fulfill the roll that is expected. their world that they grew up in has been torn from them and they are left in a sea of insecurity. c’mon all of us lets unite and show the rest of the world that we are stronger and more resilient than they think. ROBERTO.