Filed under Kids …

Apr 29 2013
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Kids, LGBT, Suicide

46 Senators Must Live Knowing 80 Young People Killed Themselves With Guns This Week

Gun control is a family issue and a LGBT issue. More access to guns equals more suicides equals more dead LGBT kids. It’s that simple. Last week 42 Republicans and 4 Democrats defeated the most meaningful comprehensive bill on gun control in 20 years, despite 85% of the public supporting serious reform. Based on 2010 CDC stats, about 370 people have killed themselves with guns since that vote. About 80 of those are between ages 15-24. In one week. 80 Dead Young People.

The excellent Harvard School of Public Health Means Matter Project has found that means (ex: gun, hanging, pills, carbon monoxide, bridge jumps, etc.) along with seriousness of intent are the most important factors in whether a suicide is completed or not. About one in three gay youth attempt suicide and the rate is thought to be quite a bit higher (as high as 84%) for transgender or gender non-conforming (GNC) young people.

Adolescents are impulsive by nature and consequently many of their suicide attempts are not pre-meditated but in fact unplanned and related to same day crises. If a young person has access to a gun in the home, he or she is twice as likely to complete the suicide (source: Speakforthem.org). An NVISS study on the Characteristics of Victims of Suicide showed that of completed firearm suicides of youth under 17, 82% used a firearm belonging to a family member, usually a parent.

In the past fifteen years of clinical practice, every single lesbian, gay, bisexual and particularly transgender person with whom I’ve worked (with maybe no more than one or two exceptions) has reported feeling suicidal at some point during their adolescence. Some made attempts. Some did not. There are complicated, multi-variable reasons why some LGBT teens with horrific circumstances manage to survive and even thrive while others take their own lives. However, access to guns ensures that more LGBT young people will die. Many of those suicides will be impulsive and maybe the young person would have been stopped if he or she selected a less lethal method.

When I worked in residential treatment, I got a call that a fourteen year old lesbian client was trying to hang herself in her dorm. I ran over there in time to see her sitting on the bathtub moments after a staff member had removed the noose from around her neck. If she’d had access to a gun she’d be dead. No doubt in my mind. No time to get to her. No time to intervene. Instead, in the months that followed, she got the help she needed around her depression and support around affirming her sexual orientation.

We cannot continue to look to a corrupt Congress to protect our young people. It is our job as community members, clinicians, parents, teachers and simply compassionate human beings to circumvent an ineffective legislative process and make our own plan.

Here are a few suggestions on things we can do right now:

1. If you have kids, get guns out of your house. If you refuse to relinquish your guns, follow the guidelines set-forth by the Means Matter Project to decrease the likelihood children will have access (It has been shown that hiding guns typically doesn’t work).

2. Put pressure on friends and neighbors to get rid of guns. Do you ever ask the parent of your child’s friend if they have guns in the house before allowing your child to go there? This should become part of our parlance in the same breath as “Do you leave the kids unsupervised? Do you allow your kids to drink? What time do you imagine they’ll go to bed?” Perhaps gun ownership will go the way of the cigarette. It was once cool and now it’s looked down upon.

3. Work with local law enforcement and local businesses to sponsor “Turn in Your Gun” days. Some towns have offered cash for guns or businesses can also offer free or discounted meals or merchandise.

4. Lobby your school board to ensure that teacher’s have a basic understanding of what to look for in depressed students. Teachers have more contact with our young people than almost anyone and they can certainly help identify young people who may be at risk.

5. Work with schools to continue to create climates for LGBT students (and students that are outsiders) that are affirming and safe in order to decrease the sense of isolation and hopelessness that accompanies suicidality.

6. Be that adult that a young person can talk to. Studies show that having one trusted adult is a protective factor for at-risk kids.

7. It goes without saying to vote each and every one of these Senators out of office.

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Jan 08 2013
1 Comment
Kids, LGBT Discrimination, Parenting, Uncategorized

How the Courage of One Mother Changed the World

PFLAG

PFLAG (Photo credit: jiadoldol)

I just wanted to take a moment to honor and remember Jeanne Manford, the founder of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). She died today at the age of 92. Jeanne became involved in the gay rights movement in 1972 after her son Morty was beaten for his involvement in a Gay Rights Alliance demonstration. At a time when having a gay or lesbian child was denied and not discussed, she wrote a letter to the New York Post (not the friendliest audience) stating, “I have a homosexual son and I love him.” She stood in the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade (the precursor to NYC LGBT Pride Parade) with a placard that said “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support of our Children”. Shortly thereafter, the first POG meeting (at that time it was just called Parents of Gays) met at Metropolitan Community Church in NYC.

I still tear up every time the PFLAG contingent walks in a pride parade. I cry and clap and holler. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big contingent of a hundred family members and allies walking down 5th Avenue in New York City or the group of five Hawaiian moms I saw in the very small Kauai parade (which was really more like a picnic), Like Jeanne, these parents get it. They get that there is no substitute for a parent’s love and acceptance. Period. I am so grateful for every parent that has found his or her way through the social stigma and religious indoctrination in order to love his or her child. It leaves us with a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people can feel connected, can feel loved, and don’t have to lose their families in order to be themselves

Caitlyn Ryan of the Family Acceptance Project has empirically documented what we intuitively know: that family acceptance of LGBT youth protects against suicide, depression, and substance abuse, and is correlated with better health and self-esteem. In other words, family acceptance is a good thing and paramount to a LGBT person’s sense of self and well-being. Family acceptance may also help to mitigate the other detrimental effects of living in a homophobic culture. There is no way of knowing how many lives PFLAG has saved or how many families avoided estrangement. PFLAG gives parents a place to come together and struggle with their fears, their homophobia, ultimately with a goal of supporting and loving their children. Jeanne Manford leaves a powerful legacy – not just in starting PFLAG – but in being the kind of parent that every parent can aspire to follow.

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Oct 22 2012
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Kids, LGBT Discrimination, Parenting

The Boy Scouts: Time to Call It Quits

October 22, 2012

An open letter to straight allies of the LGBT community:

Hello there, straight allies. Here I am again, asking for your help in making sure that LGBT people in our country are treated with fairness and respect. So here it is: Please take your boys out of Boy Scouts. It really is time. I know the Boy Scouts are fun, educational and do cool stuff, but the time has come to hold the Boy Scouts of America responsible for their decisions. Deactivating your son means that you are standing up for equality, letting your son and the BSA know that discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is not acceptable and you won’t have your son be a part of an organization that blatantly and unapologetically says it is.  Deactivation also means a substantial loss in revenue for the BSA and at this point that may be the only thing that gets their attention.

Despite internal and external pressure to change their antiquated policy, this last July, Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed its policy banning gay members and scout leaders. A statement that means, “Yes, we, in this year of 2012, are once again asserting our belief that LGBT people are not welcome. That they are immoral and it is acceptable to throw them out of community.” Last week, after twelve years spent completing the requirements to attain the Boy Scouts highest honor the prestigious Eagle Scout award, Ryan Andersen was thrown out of Scouts and denied the award because he is gay. Although Ryan’s mother has activated an on-line petition through change.org to fight the Boy Scouts decision, I predict these 22,000 signatures will fall on deaf ears at the Boy Scouts of America.  Imagine if Ryan were your son or your son’s friend. How would you explain this to him? What would it feel like to be excommunicated from a group you had been a part of for the better part of your childhood?

The good news is we are finally starting to see some isolated incidents of push back around the country. In Northern California, ten staff members at a Boy Scout camp resigned in support of a 22 year old Eagle Scout leader who was fired for being gay.

This letter from Chris and Lauren Glaros of Ohio made the rounds on facebook this summer, skillfully explaining their decision to withdraw their seven year old son from Boy Scouts. A Board Member of the Ohio Valley River Council of the Boy Scouts resigned in April after Jennifer Tyrell, the leader of her son’s troop was ousted for being gay.

As an out queer person, I am not eligible to be a troop leader. To do so, I would have to lie, go back in the closet and risk the possibility of being discovered and essentially fired (from a volunteer position at that!). I would never be willing to do that because of what it would communicate not only to my son but to the other children. I want my son to be proud of ALL of who he is – whether he is straight, gay, somewhere in between, whether he likes music, art or sports, whether he is shy or outgoing. But most of all I want to teach him about  loving kindness and compassion. I want to teach him that all boys – all people – have inherent value and dignity and it is NEVER appropriate to exclude someone because of sexual orientation, race, gender or ability – among other core aspects of one’s identity and experience.

I don’t question that Boy Scouts can be a valuable experience but more important than what the Boy Scouts offer is teaching our children that we are all lovable and acceptable.  As we nurture our boys, don’t we want them to question the kind of man they want to be in the world? Don’t we want them to have the experience of being fully accepted for who they are?  My son is white, middle-class, gender-conforming and my early guess is that he is likely straight (or straight-ish). I want to raise a man who enters this world with compassion, understanding the experience of those less fortunate than himself.

So why do liberal people allow their sons to participate in boy scouts:  My guess is that many straight allies want to look the other way on “the boy scout issue” because they want their boys to enjoy the nice things the boy scouts have to offer.

Fighting for civil rights has always entailed personal sacrifice. Just as white people were necessary to the success of the Civil Rights Movement, straight people are necessary in the fight for equality for LGBT people and the end of institutionalized discrimination. Right now it may feel “easier” to just let your son participate but when you let your son participate this is what is implicit in that participation.

1. That being gay is bad and if you are gay you will be thrown out. Statistics suggest that there is at least one gay/bisexual boy in every troop. That child will learn – if not now then later – that who he is not acceptable. If he knows he is gay already, he will live in fear EVERYDAY of being found out. And that is not an exaggeration. It is the chronic  sense of inadequacy and rejection that is the basis for so many suicide attempts by LGBT people. And even if your son is straight do you want him being part of an organization which tells him that gay boys are different and don’t deserve to participate.

2. Gay friends in the community are not fit to be leaders of the troop. (Imagine trying to explain to your son why the gay father of your son’s best friend can’t be a troop leader. Or if you know me personally, I’d like you to look me in the eye and explain to me why it’s ok for your son to participate in a group that deems my “lifestyle” too immoral to permit me to lead your son.)

3. Gay people are immoral and not safe to be around children (the BSA literature actually cites the “moral” problem with homosexuality, and the exclusion of particularly gay male leaders was historically based in the horrible stereotype that at best gay men are not adequate models of “masculinity” and at worst are sexual predators).

4. And mostly importantly, that it is ok to look the other way when discrimination doesn’t affect you directly.  The civil rights movement needed white people just like the gay rights movement needs straight people.  Would you let your son participate in a club that didn’t allow African-Americans or didn’t allow people who had been adopted, for example. Truthfully it doesn’t seem that much to ask that you find an alternative activity for your son so that the discrimination of LGBT people does not continue to be systemically enforced.

I’m sure your son will be disappointed not to belong to Boy Scouts. My son will be disappointed and perhaps he won’t understand until he’s older. I will tell him that I understand his feelings but we want him to be part of an organization that is inclusive and actually carries out the values they set forth (see the Glaros letter for a good discussion of this) and until the Boy Scouts decide to do this we are going to find another organization.

To borrow a line from the marriage equality movement, wouldn’t you rather be on the right side of history? When your children are grown wouldn’t you like them be able to see that you had a set of values and beliefs that you abided by even though there was a personal cost.

This week the Boy Scouts released files documenting the cover up of decades of sexual abuse.  In coming weeks I think we will come to see that this cover up is of the same likes as Penn State if not the Catholic Church.  The leaders of BSA cared more about maintaining the reputation of its leaders than protecting children.  Maintaining status, reputation and power were clearly the main objectives. So if you don’t want to pull your sons to help end discrimination against LGBT people, you may want to pull them from an organization that allowed boys to be abused FOR DECADES without holding the adult perpetrators responsibility.

Continued institutionalized discrimination is devastating for young LGBT people. The cost to their mental health is tremendous. I am asking you as your neighbor, your friend and an LGBT person to take a stand against the Boy Scouts of America and withdraw your children until their policies are amended. When scouts and leaders take action and withdraw their financial support, maybe the BSA will begin to listen.

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Feb 27 2012
2 Comments
Gender Identity, Kids

When Even Santa Fails: What Gender Variant Kids Need to Thrive

I spent this past Saturday at the Transformations: Clinical Perspectives on Transgender Experience and Cultural Context Conference hosted by Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City. I came away from the day completely energized by and in awe of the work many of my colleagues are doing to support transgender people and their families.

I’ve been spending time thinking about what a child who is gender variant, meaning he or she does not conform to typical standards of what it means to be a boy or what it means to be a girl in our culture, needs to grow-up into a well-adjusted, securely attached adult who feels self-assured and can thrive in this world.  And why gender-variant children are so at risk for being deprived of what they so desperately need. A gender-variant child needs what every child needs: caregivers that mirror (or reflect back) a sense that ALL of  a child’s self  is worthy and valuable and loved ; caregivers with whom they feel safe and protected by; and at least some people around who let them know that there are others like themselves in the world, that they are not alone.  When children do not receive these things, they don’t learn how to regulate their own emotions and they don’t learn how to have trusting and safe attachments in the world. (for more on Kohut’s theory of self-psychology, upon which this explanation is based, see here)

Storyteller-researcher Brene Brown (definitely watch her Ted Talk), writes that we have a developmental need for connection. The process by which we connect with other human beings is  fundamental not only in that it enriches our lives but in that it is imperative (as Daniel Siegel has demonstrated) for our brain’s development and growth.   The thing that stands most in the way of human connection is shame. Shame prevents people from being vulnerable, from being authentic and from feeling deserving of connection.

We live in a culture where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people feel shamed. Even when a gender variant child has parents who support gender non-conforming behavior, he still internalizes the message that he is not ok. All he has to do is listen to the discussion in pre-school or look what’s toys are marketed to boys.

Gender different children (and adults) experience, insidious trauma, the little traumas or “micro-aggressions” that happen on a day to

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Espera...

Image via Wikipedia

day basis when the world lets you know that who you are is not good enough.  I worked an eight year old boy whose parents told him that Santa would only bring him boy toys. On Christmas morning, even though the boy has asked for a kitchen set, he found that Santa had brought him balls and cars. He threw such a tantrum that his parents finally relented and went to the toy store to get what he wanted.  In Dr. AndreA Neumann Mascis’ presentation on Advanced Clinical Perspectives in Working with Transgender Survivors, (in which the term “survivor” refers not only to surviving discrete physical, sexual or emotional abuse, but refers to surviving in a culture that deprives trans people of basic human dignity and nurturing) he noted that for some gender variant children “everything feels like a punch.”  Can you imagine the despair of a child who has seen that not even Santa Claus can see him clearly? Even something that should be so celebratory as Christmas morning can be devastating for a child who is not mirrored and accepted for who he is.

As a culture we need to continue to unpack these antiquated notions about what it means to be a boy and what it means to be a girl. We need to challenge people and institutions who insist and adhering to this oppressive ideas in order to hold onto their own power. As parents of kids across the gender spectrum, we must support and encourage gender variance, letting each of our children know that he or she is loved and safe and not alone.

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Feb 04 2012
9 Comments
Kids, Transgender

NJ Brownies Support Transgender Girl Scout in Wake of Cookie Boycott

Watch their you-tube video:
When my seven-year-old daughter Emma told me last September that she wanted to be a Brownie (the younger troop in Girl Scouts), I was apprehensive at best. As a kid, being a girl scout was the last thing I had ever wanted mostly because I couldn’t fathom wearing the dress, and as an adult, I want to raise a kid who is progressive and feminist and not stuck in the 1950s (which was the assumption I made about the Girl Scouts). But Emma wanted to do it, and so after making sure they don’t have the same homophobic policies as the Boy Scouts (which they don’t) I gritted my teeth and said, “yes, honey, of course you can join.”

It helped me that around the same time conservatives were  flyering the internet, warning parents that the Girl Scouts are pro-lesbian, pro-feminist and pro-choice. I thought “well, I can only hope.” That said, I couldn’t have foreseen that joining the Brownies would be such a rich opportunity for Emma and a couple of her friends from the troop to show support for a transgender girl named Bobby Montoya who is a Girl Scout in Colorado.  This was a story that Emma could relate to – a little girl who wanted to be a Girl Scout – and therefore was the perfect example to teach her about being an ally and accepting people for who they are and who they say they are.

By now, many of you are probably aware of the controversy that has been sparked by the decision of the Colorado Girl Scouts to include a seven year-old transgender girl named Bobby Montoya in one of their local troops.  After initially denying her enrollment, the Girl Scouts of Colorado flipped their decision, making an official statement that  ”if a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”

Consequently, there has been cookie backlash! A 14-year-old called Taylor published a video on you-tube (which has since been made private after the teen was threatened) called for a boycott of girl scout cookies to protest the decision to allow Bobby into the Girl Scouts. In Louisiana, several parents have pulled their girls from Girl Scouts because of the Colorado decision (which, by the way, is a state policy that doesn’t have anything to do with Louisiana Girl Scouts) and started their own, I can only assume transphobic, HonestGirlScouts.com.

When I told Emma what was happening, we talked about making a video to support Bobby and she wanted to invite her troop members to participate with her.  Many parents elected not to have their daughters participate – even if they supported inclusion of transgender girls for reasons I plan to address in another post.

Here is the video that Emma and her fellow Brownies Courtney and Emmy made in their support for Bobby. And just so you know, these are the kids’ words. They wrote it themselves, and they read aloud the Girl Scout Law to remind people what the Girl Scouts are really about.  I’m obviously more than just a little proud, and actually I’ve discovered that Brownies are pretty cool as well.

Link to you-tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS_F0smsIB0&context=C38c2528ADOEgsToPDskJeLV0wwhCc5tZrPR2egnuV

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