Youth Guide

Leadership & wellness for all youth

How to Cope with Being Excluded after Coming Out

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So, the big day is here. You decided that you’re no longer going to hide your orientation and/or identity from your circle of influence. What’s a circle of influence, you might ask/ Well, that would be your friends, family, coworkers, the people that you volunteer with, the church that you attend, and anywhere else that you frequent often. There are a lot of people that are going to be aware of your “new” status, so planning how to speak out is important.

But you hit a snag as you let the news out: some people take it well, but other people do not at all. They suddenly don’t feel like they should spend much time with you. This hurts. There’s no other way to say it. The pain of being excluded hurts. You start wondering if they were just looking for a reason to get rid of you. The pain can bring in another round of depression which can quickly get out of control.

So we wanted to encourage you. After all, you might feel that coming out was a mistake. If people are going to just exclude you, what’s the point? [Read more…]

The Semicolon Project is Awesome – Here’s Why

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A semicolon represents a time where you could finish a sentence, but you choose to just add a little more. It’s become not just a cliché, but an empowering battle cry for people dealing with depression and thoughts of suicide. It’s always unfortunate to hear about someone thinking about such a tragic topic, but it definitely happens more than you might think. In the LGBT community, many teens struggle with body image, fitting in, and trying to be accepted. When you have a stable support circle willing to take care of you, then this is pretty easy. But when you struggle to find people that love and care for you, it can be hard to even get out of bed in the morning. Some people lose their battle with depression, choosing to end their lives in order to stop the pain completely. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but when that temporary problem is all you can think of, it takes over your life.

semicolon-project

The Semicolon Project is about drawing a permanent or temporary semicolon somewhere that you can see it. It’s a reminder to yourself that while you could choose to end your life, it’s so amazing that you choose to keep going. [Read more…]

How to Attract Your first Same-Sex Relationship

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Why is this article titled with “relationship” rather than partner? Because it’s more than just the person. When you decide that you want to enter a relationship with a member of the same sex, you’re stepping onto a battlefield. We wish that it weren’t that way, but take it from us — it is a battlefield, with plenty of opponents. There will be a lot of eyes on you, whether you like it or not. And you can get sucked into a national movement going on without really wanting to be involved. We know that you’d rather just enjoy the peace that straight couples get, but that won’t be happening for a long time. People are very worried about the LGBT scene and feel that it contributes to a “moral decay” of their society.

Boring. The truth is that people are sticking their noses where they shouldn’t, and it hinders your ability to have a fulfilling relationship. But “hinders” doesn’t mean “not possible at all”, it just means that there are some obvious challenges to your first “real” relationship.

Same-Sex Relationship

Fight From Where You Are

If you’re going to pursue this, you need to fight from where you are right now, rather than where you think you want to be. So if you’re dreaming about a relationship coming into fruition once you have a job or a house or a nice car…keep dreaming. Love doesn’t work that way at all. You need to think more about how you’re going to take care of yourself, take care of someone else, and work together with them to create a great life. That might mean living in a cramped apartment but being able to curl up and watch your favorite television shows at any time you want. It also might mean living out in a more isolated area but being able to watch the stars come out every night. There are so many little sacrifices that we don’t think about when we’re in love and happy, because we’re committed to making it work.

So fight from where you are instead of dreaming big right from the start. You’ll have plenty of time to dream together with someone great.

It’s the same concept behind going out and finding someone to be with at your current weight instead of dreaming about being smaller or more muscular. If one person doesn’t find you attractive, you can bet that other people are going to find you attractive. You just have to make sure that you’re pushing through all of your options and not giving up for a single instant.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Go where the people are. If you have LGBT meetups, that’s even better. Getting to know someone in a space that’s safe is always the best way forward. Don’t settle for the first person that says hello! Not everyone in our community wants the same things, and you may be pressured into doing things that you don’t want to do. It is never a crime to say no and back away. Don’t even let anyone make you feel like you have to “put out” or “give it up” in order to earn their affection. Those are the type of people that will leave you high and dry when things get rough.

You have to set yourself up for success and push forward to a better day, on every level. Cultivating more positive energy will make you much more appealing to potential partners. Everyone likes the person that always has a joke or something witty to say. If you aren’t that person right now, don’t worry. The more you dig into the current trends of the day, news, and even literature, the more interesting you’ll sound. Dig into the history of a region, the food of a culture, and the way people live their lives. Get interested in the world around you, because the last thing any of us need are more entitled people. Volunteer and give your time to causes that you stand for.

Make Moves That Work

The fun part of socializing is that you get to make people feel good, but the downside is that sometimes you feel like youíre playing to an empty house. You’re trying to find someone that resonates with you, and that’s far from an overnight thing. You just need to think about your options in terms of what’s going to work well for you and what isn’t. In other words, if you don’t say anything, how will anyone know anything about you?

Don’t get lost in the details. Go out, have fun, and then go from there. Let someone dazzle you with their personality as much as you dazzle them. Even though you’re looking for a same sex partner, you still deserve to expect the same romantic treatment as straight couples experience. Hold out for someone that truly thinks you’re special, and you’ll be a thousand times happier than someone that settled because the other person was “just there”. Trust us, we know these things!

3 Ways Caitlin Jenner’s Story Reveals How Much We Have to Do

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Think that the fight for our rights is over just because Caitlin Jenner has a docu-series on TV right now? That couldn’t be any farther from the truth. The reality is that we have to keep speaking up. While we admire Ms. Jenner’s boldness, the truth is that there are still thousands upon thousands of people that are still silently suffering. After all, not everyone has the money to go through facial reconstruction and body shaping to finally look the way on the outside that they feel on the inside. They feel female on the inside, but they can’t express that because surgery costs too much. Hormones are expensive. Things are super difficult for them, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll have the support of their family. Many transgendered teens are still threatened with eviction if their status were discovered by their parents.

Here are three key points that show we have a lot of work to do.

1. Lack of Counseling for Transgendered Teens

Counseling is still a major issue in terms of helping transpeople, especially transgendered teenagers. This is a very hectic and complicated time of life, because many relationships depend on the teen having a positive state of mind. The connections we make as teens can really open doors for us, but if you’re spending all of your time worrying about what others are thinking about you it’s hard to get anything done. [Read more…]

The Hard Truth About Returning Home For the Holidays as an LGBT Youth

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Growing up is hard for any child, but making the transition from teenager to young adult as an LGBT youth is even harder. The level of discrimination that’s allowed is absolutely ridiculous. Just when you believe that you have things under control, someone else comes in to stereotype and degrade you. But thankfully, things have gotten better for many LGBT people. We’re on TV, in newspapers, represented in the sciences, and just about anywhere else that we want to be. Hollywood has realized that unflattering portrayals of LGBT people aren’t acceptable, and that’s really improved the image of this community tremendously.

Yet there’s one part of life that hasn’t seemed to change all that much, and that would be the families that we moved away from in order to pursue work or school. When you return home for the holidays, you may have found things have changed.

For example, if you have a significant other, they may not be welcome at the house. Before you take the time to book travel accommodations, you need to have a serious talk with your family. They need to meet the people that matter in your life, but you also need to realize that you can’t force them to change. If you encourage them to open their minds a little bit, you’ll go further than condemning them for being homophobes or transphobes. [Read more…]