Youth Guide - Page 4 of 18 - Leadership & wellness for all youth

Gay Marriage Comes to South Dakota – Finally!

The fight for marriage equality shouldn’t be this hard. After all, it’s not like anyone’s asking straight people to suddenly take on a gay partner forever and ever. It’s merely an acknowledgement that other people want to have the same rights that many straight people take for granted. Alas, the battle for equal rights is going to be a long and very drawn out one. But today we have some great news. A federal judge in South Dakota ruled that a ban on gay marriage is simply unconstitutional, and gay marriages must be acknowledged by the state.

This means that couples in South Dakota can finally be acknowledged as married, after all the dust clears.

We keep seeing sharp comments around news articles, questioning whether or not these announcements matter. We think that in order to answer that type of question, we have to look at the people affected by it. For a straight person, gay marriage is something that they can take or leave. It’s something that pops up in their news feeds on Facebook, or they see it when they read the morning newspaper offline. Maybe a coworker mentions something in the workplace, and a few people nod their heads. Free speech is a bit more curtailed at work, so the uptight coworker that thinks marriage should be between a man and woman only can’t necessarily voice their opinion. The trouble with creating a non hostile workplace is that you can’t police people all of the time. When you’re gay and trying to be a professional, it’s hard not to participate in these types of conversations. It’s difficult in part because there’s so much at stake.

When we’re talking about gay marriage, we’re actually talking about someone’s future. We’re talking about the natural inheritance rules that are limited to only a chosen set. The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered among us don’t get to have a legally binding wedding. This means that there’s always a chance for a legal battle. How could anyone say that’s okay? What happens if one partner dies? Are you going to fight for gay rights when it’s time for the surviving life partner to take those assets and keep them for the next generation? Gay couples want to adopt children, another issue that tends to light people up. They make the argument that gays shouldn’t adopt because they can’t get married. Now gay marriage is slowly but surely being taken off the table. Now what is the excuse for not allowing gay adoptions?

We see articles that talk endlessly of the concern that children raised by gay couples will turn out to be far more dysfunctional, but no one ever stops to think about if that’s the case for the children born to straight people.

It’s a nasty double standard, and it needs to end in 2015. But you can be part of the change movement in a few small ways. [Read more…]

Support for Transgender Youth is More Important Than Ever

By Webmaster

What does it mean to be transgender? We’ve heard it described a few different ways but one description rings in our heads the most: like being born in a bad costume that you can never, ever take off without undergoing intense pain. You know that if someone describes being transgender like that it’s time to pay attention. Unfortunately, we’re not paying attention. Being gay, lesbian, or bisexual has its share of challenges, and we’ve talked about them endlessly in the past. But what does it mean to be transgender, and why are we ignoring the problem?

We think that the conversation on transgender youth needs to definitely be out there. It’s okay to be LGBT, and that definitely includes transgender. But when you have no articles discussing your lifestyle, it’s hard to feel included at the table. We’ve read some reader feedback about this, and felt it was time to correct the situation. Since we’re not transgender, we apologize for any hurt feelings that the lack of inclusion may have caused.

Being transgender means a complex series of decisions. Do you consider yourself a male or a female? Do you want to look at gender reassignment surgery? Do you want to dress as a woman, but keep the genitals of a man? There’s no easy answer here, and there’s no wrong answer either.

As a society, we need to allow the discussion to take on more than just genitals and dresses. We also need to highlight transgendered people in the media. Laverne Cox is speaking out about transgender issues. She is an MTF transgender activist and actress who wants the world to accept transgendered people as who they are, rather than as whom the world thinks they should pretend to be. Media representation is the fastest way to increase people’s view of transgender issues, but it’s also a way that criticism creeps in. People tend to reject what they don’t understand. Unfortunately, gay and lesbian people tend to also be in that category. We have to embrace transgender people as allies, not as enemies. We’re all in the same battle. Don’t you want them to have the same freedoms that you enjoy? The “gay agenda” has enjoyed a long time in the sun, but there’s room in the sun for everyone’s issues. We don’t have to pick and choose, though it can feel that way at times. Throw in subjects of race, class, and disability, and the conversation gets even more complicated. [Read more…]

Leadership Essay Writing – Fundamental Tips

By Webmaster

Leadership is one of the most considerable topics in business and management essay writing. There are many theories of leadership and many authors have their personal points of view about this concept. If you need to make an uncommon and well-structured essay about leadership, you should learn about the proper organization of your process of writing.

Method #1: Find Your Own Approach

Step One: Identify Your Audience. When you write an essay for oral presentation in front of your class, you should complete a slightly informal text that will attract attention of your mates. On the contrary, you ought to make a formal essay if you are supposed to hand it in to the teacher or the members of the admission commission. Thus, the style and tone of your leadership essay primarily depends on your listeners or readers.
Step Two: Who Will Evaluate Your Essay? The quality and the style of an essay depends on the purpose of writing. If you compose your assignment for college, your work will be definitely scored. If you do this essay for a blog, you have freedom of thought and speech whereas no one will criticize your essay strictly.
Step Three: Plan Your Leadership Essay. The foremost action is to make a schematic outline of your essay. You should make your mind about its content and idea. It is reasonable to brainstorm a few research questions that will play the role of the core of your text. Most often, students create three or four essay questions that help them observe the concept of leadership from several sides. In the end, you can try to make a thesis statement. In fact, its content will change after you research the problem of leadership professionally.
Hint: Choose your own writing approach at once. Write your essay focusing on strictly theoretical information devoted to leadership and its types OR concentrate on the practical cases that illustrate different types of leaders in different situations. The sooner you decide, the more time you will have for your research.

Method #2: Understand the Phenomenon of Leadership

Step One: Research the Term Profoundly. If you expect to complete a grand essay, you should read about leadership a lot. Visit your local library and find the authors that investigated this topic. It is wise to choose several authors who possess authentic opinions about the phenomenon of leadership. Make notes of their genuine ideas concerning the types of leaders and the place of leadership in business and management. Do not limit yourself with the books and periodicals. You can use e-books and online articles that reveal the problem from their original side.
Step Two: How Do You Understand Leadership? When you learn something about leadership, you should define the role of leadership for yourself. Think about the image of a perfect leader and provide the reader with your arguments. Enumerate the most notable traits of character and skills for a great leader. You can analyze this concept from the point of view of business, management, politics, education and even family. Try to define the similarities between the leaders from these different fields. Make the image of the ‘universal leader’.
Step Three: Write about Leadership from Your Personal Experience. Make your essay even more engrossing presenting your own experience related to leadership. Do you have distinct leaders among your friends or family? Have you ever tried to be a leader? What are the results of your efforts?
Hint: After you provide the reader with the theoretical facts about the typology of leaders, introduce a paragraph devoted to the description of your personal experience as a leader. Try to connect your experience to the types of the leaders that have been mentioned in the theoretical part.

Method #3: Write Your Essay

Step One: Prepare a Great Introduction. Your task is to make the reader interested in your essay. Write about the relevance of the topic of leadership and say that nearly every author has his own understanding of this term. Introduce a sound thesis statement that will illustrate the main idea of your paper. Enumerate the subsections and questions that build the concept of your text.
Step Two: Complete the Main Body. The main part of your paper should be devoted to the analysis of the term ‘leadership’. Start with the theoretical presentation of this phenomenon and write down all the types of leaders suggested by the credible authors. You can continue your discussion with the personal understanding of the term and the role of leadership in your own life. Observe the problem from different angles.
Step Three: Write a Good Conclusion. When you are through with the discussion, summarize your essay briefly. Enumerate the key points of your research and evaluate your contribution into the understanding of the concept of leadership.
Hint: Write your essay accurately and deliberately. Make it logical and understandable. Every new idea should be placed into the new paragraph. Try to continue your previous thought plainly. Do not make rapid transitions from one problem to another. The reader can lose the point of your research.

These leadership essay writing guidelines are provided by SmartWritingService.com essay service.

Should You be Openly Gay On Campus?

By Webmaster

Everyone wants to fit in whether they want to admit it or not. Even though we’re a gay community, we’re not going to say that there aren’t times where we wish to fit in a lot better than we do. Even as adults, we still look back on our school days and wish that people could just accept us the way we are. Unfortunately, people aren’t always that accepting or forgiving.

As more gay youth find the courage to graduate from high school and start thinking about college, a question hangs in the air: should you be openly gay on campus? Can you be openly gay on campus without risking your entire college career?

There are plenty of openly gay students. I think the question is unfair, because not everyone wants to be openly gay. Not everyone wants to open that part of their life up to public scrutiny. You can’t expect for zero criticism to take place. Anytime you reveal that something about you is different, people are going to talk about it.

Coping with the College Crowd

College is rough because no one really teaches you how to cope. You will find your “niche” in college as long as you stand up for yourself. Don’t be afraid to be weird. Many, many college students are waking up and realizing that being against gays is wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being gay, and we need to treat it as a healthy, normal part of someone’s sexuality.

The changes, in our opinion, also start from within the gay community. Pressuring someone else is come out is never okay. On the other hand, we should be encouraging to other people that want to be out, but find that they just can’t get themselves to commit to such a big change right away. If your university has a group for LGBT people, join it. If there’s a bigger group in the city where your university is located, join it! You won’t meet like minded people unless you go out there. Some gay people expect everything to be handed to them, and that’s just not the case.

We’re not saying that you’re automatically going to get along with other LGBT youth, just because you share a designation. That’s not the point of this. The point is to find people that you’re going to resonate with. Being locked up in your dorm room isn’t going to help your social life.

Should you “come out” to professors and other staff members? Not as much as you might think. For staff that will be potentially involved in social issues, it might be a good thing to “own up” to being gay. But for your run of the mill professor that is grading your papers and teaching you different subjects? It’s frankly none of their business what your sexuality is. You’re free to love whoever you want to love. The school should have a strong anti-discriminatory policy. But here’s the thing about those politics: they only work when you’re committed to speaking up. If someone is threatening you, file a complaint. Get help. Don’t just assume that your voice will be silenced because you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

We know firsthand how tough college can be, so we’ll touch on the subject numerous times before the school year is over.

Why Attacking the CEO of Apple for Not Coming Out Is Wrong

By Webmaster

As the iPhone 6 gets ready to launch, everyone is taking notice. But here’s something that people are taking notice of that isn’t a cell phone: Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. He’s got big shoes to fill after Steve Jobs´s death, but it looks like he’s doing just fine.

Yet there’s a growing wave of concern over one issue that Tim Cook seems to avoid: talking about his sexuality. He has backed LGBT issues before, and supported Apple’s $100,000 donation to stopping Prop 8 from passing.

Many LGBT activists believe that if someone is going to identify as gay, they need to be gay everywhere rather than shying away from the topic. Yet we are firm believers in one principle above all: everyone has the right to remain silent and share what they feel is public information. Tim Cook doesn’t look like he’s ashamed to be identified with LGBT issues at all.

What he looks like to us is a busy executive that really doesn’t want to have a thousand eyes poking into his private life. We can’t blame him at all for taking that stance. Pressuring him to speak about a big issue like his homosexuality isn’t kind, and it destroys the heart of what we believe here.

It’s no one’s business but yours. If you want to sing it from the rooftops, go ahead and do that. But if you want to make it more of an intimate thing that everyone knows but doesn’t hassle you about, then that’s fine too. [Read more…]