#empower queer youth
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i met a queer high schooler today, at my job
throughout the interaction i had with them, i watched them become more relaxed and open, simply seeing me as a queer adult doing my job
i sort of feel like i served as an example for that student, of a queer person existing successfully in society.
i could pick up on their habits mannerisms and fashion, and related my own experiences to that. they were visibly disabled, so i wanted to ease their mind about accessibility concerns in the building, so i mentioned my heart condition and trouble with walking up stairs. they were immediately more comfortable. we used the elevator
i complimented their nonbinary pride flag bracelet, and pushed my hair aside so they could see my name badge with my pronouns, and they smiled.
it's so freeing to be seen without the expectation for any explanation, and i know that so i wanted to give them that peace of mind. i wanted to show them that the world outside of high school is survivable. hope is not crushed, i am here, i am visibly queer, and so it is possible for them too.
#queer#nonbinary#non binary#nb#enby#lgbt#lgbtq#lgbtqia#lgbtqi community#lgbtq community#lgbt pride#lgbtq+#lgbtqiia+#lgbtqplus#queer community#queer visibility#empower queer kids#empower queer youth#protect queer kids#lilith has the microphone
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🏳️⚧️ We're trying to raise $200,000 for LGBTQ+ youth programs before the end of the year! 🏳️🌈 Wanna help?
As they grow up in a world that wants to keep them down, LGBTQ+ youth are fighting to be themselves. But we believe young, queer people shouldn’t have to be "brave" just to exist.
By making a donation to support our programs, you're showing that you believe in the better world that we can create together.
Over the past couple years, the support we've gotten from some amazing donors has enabled us to support queer youth in SO many ways, like:
Granting LGBTQ+ students more than $1.2 million to imagine and create their own safe spaces and resources in schools across the US and Canada through 50 States, 50 Grants.
Creating award-winning content series educating LGBTQ+ youth on safe sex ed, inclusive terminology, careers in STEM, as well as tons more educational and mental health resources.
Handing LGBTQ+ youth the mic to advocate for themselves — at national conferences, on our award-winning Twitch vodcast Perfectly Queer, on social media, and in interviews with major news outlets...
...and so much more that you can see on itgetsbetter.org!
🟣 If you believe in "better" the way we do and want to help us keep doing this work to uplift, empower, and connect LGBTQ+ youth around the world, you can make a donation here!
#it gets better#queer youth#lgbtq youth#trans youth#trans kids#lgbtqia#queer#nonprofit#philanthropy#support trans kids
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This post reminded me of it, but my partner has observed that in contemporary gender discourse, maleness is so linked to adulthood and femaleness is so linked to childhood, that there are no "boys" or "women," only "men" and "girls."
This isn't exactly new -- for as long as patriarchy has existed, women have been infantilized, and "adult woman" has been treated as something of an oxymoron. Hegemonic beauty standards for women emphasize youthfulness, if not actual neoteny, and older women are considered "too old" to be attractive without ever quite being old enough to make their own decisions. There may be cultural allowances for the occasional older "wise woman," but a "wise woman" is always dangerously close to being a madwoman, or a witch. No matter how wise a woman is, she is never quite a rational agent. As Hanna K put it, "as a woman you're always either too young or too old for things, because the perfect age is when you're a man."
But the framing of underage boys as "men" has shifted, depending on popular conceptualizations of childhood and gender roles. Sometimes children of any gender are essentially feminized and grouped with women (the entire framing of "women and children" as a category). In the U.S. in the 21st century, the rise of men's rights and aggressively sexist ideology has correlated with an increased emphasis on little boys as "men" -- thus slogans like "Teach your son to be a man before his teacher teaches him to be a woman."
Of course, thanks to ageism and patriarchy (which literally means, not "rule by men," but "rule by fathers"), boys don't get any of the social benefits of being considered "men." They don't get to vote, make their own medical decisions, or have any of their own adult rights. They might have a little more childhood freedom than girls, if they're presumed to be sturdier and less vulnerable to "predators," but, for the most part, being considered "men" as young boys doesn't really get boys any more access to adult rights. What it does get them is aggressively gender-policed, often with violence. A little boy being "a man" means that he's not allowed to wear colors, have feelings, or experience the developmental stages of childhood.
This shifts in young adulthood, as boys forced into the role of "manhood" become actual men. As I've written about, I believe the trend of considering young adults "children" is harmful to everyone, but primarily to young women, young queer and trans people, and young disabled people. Abled, cisgender, heterosexual young men are rarely denied the rights and autonomy of adulthood due to "brain maturity."
What's particularly interesting is that, because transphobes misgender trans people as their birth-assigned genders, they constantly frame trans girls as "men" and trans men as "girls." A 10 year old trans girl on her elementary school soccer team is a "MAN using MAN STRENGTH on helpless GIRLS," while a 40 year old trans man is a "Poor confused little girl." Anyone assigned male at birth is born a scary, intimidating adult, while anyone female assigned at birth never becomes old enough to make xyr own decisions.
Feminist responses have also really fluctuated. Occasionally, feminists have played into the idea of little boys as "men," especially in trans-exclusionary rhetoric, or in one notorious case where members of a women's separatist compound were warned about "a man" who turned out to be a 6-month-old infant. There's periodic discourse around "Empowering our girls" or "Raising our boys with gentle masculinity," but for the most part, my problem with mainstream feminist rhetoric in general is that it tends to frame children solely as a labor imposed on women by men, not as subjects (and specifically, as an oppressed class) at all.
Second-wave feminists pushed back hard on calling adult women "girls" -- but they didn't necessarily view "women" as capable of autonomous decision-making, either. Adult women were women, but they might still need to be protected from their own false consciousness. As laws in the U.S., around medical privacy and autonomy, like HIPAA, started more firmly linking the concepts of autonomy with legal adulthood, and fixing the age of majority at 18, third-wave feminists embraced referring to women as "girls." Sometimes this was in an intentionally empowering way ("girl power," "girl boss"), which also served to shield women (mostly white, mostly bourgeois/wealthy) from criticism of their participation in racism and capitalism. But it also served to reinforce the narrative of women as "girls" needing to be protected from "men" (and their own choices).
I'm still hoping for a feminist politic that is pro-child, pro-youth, pro-disability, pro-autonomy, pro-equality, that rejects the infantilization of women, the adultification of boys, the objectification of children, the misgendering of trans people, and the imposition of gender roles.
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[“I want to spend a moment reflecting on exploitation: I’ve been eyed for social work since I was in my mid-teens. A racialized, mentally ill, gender queer youth, I was also remarkably articulate, psychologically precocious, eager to help and to please. The adult service providers whose orbit I floated in were quick to notice and take a shine to me—I was one of those once-in-a-blue-moon clients, the kind it feels both easy and rewarding to work with because I was so traumatized yet seemed to “improve” so quickly. The adults I trusted always seemed to want me in their empowerment initiatives, they were eager to put me on youth councils and committees, they gave me leadership roles despite the fact that I was in way over my head. I was brilliant and gifted, they said. I had so much to offer, they said. Helping was what I was made for.
I came to identify my worth with helping, my lovableness with how much I was able to give and please. It didn’t matter that most of my early jobs and roles involved some significant risks—for example, facilitating antihomophobia workshops in high schools as a high school student myself might have required a rather enormous amount of self-disclosure and vulnerability to strangers, but it was all for the cause, wasn’t it? And how proud my youth workers were whenever I came back from another successful outing. And if the honorariums they paid me were less than minimum wage, well, it was more money than I’d ever made before, wasn’t it? And how lucky was I to get paid to do something that did so much good for other people?
When I got to college age, I knew it was my purpose in life to help and heal other people. In my darker moments, it sort of seemed like that was all I was good for—and all the trusted adults, the wise youth workers and therapists and psychiatrists who mentored me, said I was gifted. They said I was special. My diversity made me fashionable. So “interesting” and “textured,” one psychotherapy supervisor called me. A wealthy white psychologist said I was an “ambassador for my people.” (She didn’t specify which people.) This was how, at twenty-two years old, I began an internship that involved doing therapy with adults who had survived childhood sexual trauma. Although I had no real clinical training, I held sessions for them at night in the windowless basement of a hospital in Montreal. I learned therapy techniques quickly, from videos on the internet and by practising on the job. People were counting me. I had to help.
Some quick number-crunching tells me that I gave over 4,000 hours of unpaid therapy in order to get to paid work as a clinician. By contrast, the very first sex work gig I got paid me $100 for some nude cuddling and a sloppy hand job that I completed in twenty minutes. I almost never think about that first gig now. I still dream about the stories my clients told me in that first unpaid therapy internship I took at twenty-two. Occasionally, I still cry, wondering how they are now, if I’d done enough to help them.
My social work experience isn’t every social worker’s experience, so I can’t claim to speak for the whole social work community. What I can say is that the people around me saw something useful and beautiful that they liked in me, so they took it and used it and I allowed it to happen because I wanted to feel loved and I didn’t think I really had choices. What I can say is that my sex work practice started out rough and frightening, but it blossomed into a decent learning experience and a business that paid me lots of cash up front, usually with no strings attached.”]
kai cheng thom, do you feel empowered in your job? and other questions therapists ask sex workers, from The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory & Transformative Justice Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health, edited by Zena Sharman, 2021
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In honor of the 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots – June 28th, 1969 – Duck Prints Press is thrilled to share with you how we’re celebrating Pride Month: with queer stories, of course!
Introducing our Pride 2023 Bundles: two collections of short stories, one general imprint, one erotica, each priced at a discounted $19.69, with all purchases benefiting two wonderful queer charities selected by the authors of the stories in the bundles: The Ali Forney Center and the Transgender Law Center.
We’ll be donating roughly 35% of the proceeds from these bundles to charity – the Press is donating 10% off the top, and many of the authors chose to donate part of their royalties as well, bringing the totals to approximately 40% of the list price of the erotica collection and approximately 35% of the list price of the general imprint collection.
How This Works
you buy one or both bundles between now and July 28th, 2023.
we tally up all the proceeds earned and do some math-e-magic to figure out how much we’re donating!
we divide the charity share in half right down the middle and, within the first week of August, we donate raised money to the Ali Forney Center and the Transgender Law Center; then, we post the proof we’ve done so.
you get fantastic stories!
we all get that happy, glowy feeling of knowing that money has been well-spent on fantastic causes!
About the Press
Duck Prints Press is a queer-owned indie press, founded to publish original works by fancreators. We’ve been in operation for over 2 years, and in that time we’ve worked with well over 150 creators to publish four anthologies and almost 70 other stories, from shorts to novels, and we’ve got more on the works (our fifth anthology is Kickstarting RIGHT NOW, as a matter of fact!). The vast majority of our creators and their creations are queer/LGTBQIA+ (maybe even all, but we don’t out anyone and we don’t ask demography because, frankly, it’s none of our business).
20 of our authors have chosen to include their short stories in one or both of these short story bundles, and these 20 and others nominated charities, then voted to narrow it down to these two! Participation in these bundles was entirely voluntarily, as was choosing to donate shares of royalties, which about a third of the authors have opted to do.
About the Charities
Note: These charities are not affiliated with the Press, do not know we’re doing this fundraiser, have not endorsed this in anyway and are, as such, utterly uninvolved in this beyond being the beneficiaries of our efforts! Text is from the websites of each charity and is being used under fair use laws.
The Ali Forney Center was founded in 2002. Committed to saving the lives of LGBTQ+ young people, our mission is to protect them from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to live independently. A 24-hour program, The Ali Forney Center never closes its doors. We provide more than just a bed and food for those in need — from initial intake at our drop-in center to transitional housing and job readiness training, we provide homeless LGBTQ+ youth a safe, warm, supportive environment to escape the streets [of New York City].
Transgender Law Center is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. Since 2002 we’ve been organizing, assisting, informing and empowering thousands of individual community members towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for liberation.
About the Bundles
(this is getting long, so read more...)
We’re offering two bundles: one containing 14 stories from our general imprint, the other containing 11 stories from our erotica imprint. For all the deets, you’ll need to visit the page for each story, but here’s an overview…
Titles in the General Imprint Charity Bundle:
A Mutual Interest by Alec J. Marsh
The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch
Let the Solstice Come by D. V. Morse
Warmer Lights by Era J. M. Couts
An Odd Gathering of Peculiar Cats by J. D. Harlock
Dead Man’s Bells by Nicola Kapron
Widow’s Black by Nina Waters
twin flames by nottesilhouette
A Shield for the People by Puck Malamud
Much Ruckus by R. L. Houck
Bubble, Bubble by Sage Mooreland
Settling Down by Theresa Tanner
Best Friends AND… by Tris Lawrence
To Fill My Cup by Violet J. Hayes
Approximately 35% of the $19.69 list price of this bundle will go to the charities.
Titles in the Erotica Imprint Charity Bundle:
Pas de Deux by Aeryn Jemariel Knox
Study Hall by Alec J. Marsh
A Safe Place to Land by boneturtle
Clerical Error by Dei Walker
In the Moonlight by E. V. Dean
We All Need to Get By by Lyn Weaver
The Fated Prince by Mikki Madison
Lust by Nina Waters
No One Right Way by R. L. Houck
Easier Than Expected by Samantha M. Piper
Urchin Juiced by Xianyu Zhou
Approximately 40% of the $19.69 list price of this bundle will go to the charities.
What are you waiting for? Come get some great stories, support a queer-owned business this Pride, and benefit two fantastic causes. Win-win-win situations don’t get much better than this!
These bundles will only be available for one month, so don’t miss out. Visit our webstore between now and July 28th and get yours!
#duck prints press#our titles#read pride#short stories#queer fiction#queer short stories#queer business#queer authors#queer books#read queer#lgbtqia
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Hey! This is @reaux07 and I just wanted to re-introduce our org! I am the current executive director of Better Future Program (BFP), a 501(c)(3) youth-run nonprofit headquartered in Bulbancha on Chahta Yakni and Chitimacha land. We envision a future in which youth are not only empowered to challenge oppressive hierarchies each day, but to create new, innovative, and inclusive frameworks of community care and intersectional justice.
Since 2016, our team has been dedicated to educating the masses on various academic subjects, mental health, and most importantly, social injustices that affect today's youth. We even offer over 3,000 free novels, movies, podcasts, and more just to fulfill this goal.
Here's the catch though! Since BFP is youth-run, many of our volunteers are students. During both the holidays and the start of each semester, we always experience a dramatic drop in participation, often meaning our workshops go from being run by 65 people to just 3 or 4. Currently, this is unsustainable for both our organization and our individual mental health. That's where YOU come in.
We need more volunteers! We'd like to not only fill up all of our leadership roles but have more than enough participants to allow each person's responsibilities to be greatly lessened. This would mean we could continue serving marginalized communities, uninterrupted, internationally, while still allowing volunteers to take breaks! We are only human. And even more so, many of us are only teens or children! We need your help.
And guess what? We have a $5,000 grant as gifted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana as well as nearly $600 in donations, all to go towards commissioning marginalized artists, mutual aid networks, and so on. Help us develop these plans further so we can service YOUR community today (e.g. we are currently sponsoring a chest binder drive for a local high school).
If you are interested in filling a leadership role, applying as a general volunteer (no specific responsibilities), or are simply interested in learning why we use a committee-based, horizontal organizational structure, tap here. There is something for everyone, promise!
And if you are interested in interacting with our community, our Discord server is linked here and our Linktr.ee below:
Please share to help support a Black-, woman-, queer-, disabled-, and youth-run organization!
#reaux speaks#signal boost#black lives matter#queer#disability justice#intersectionality#resources#announcement#palestine#fat liberation#abolition#anarchism#socialism#communism#headquarters -> new orleans#free palestine#israel
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Anyway, just for anyone following along at home, here are some orthodox organizations that are working on gender and sexuality issues within the broader orthodox community:
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To be as polite as possible, my post about hairloss isnt about “embracing ugliness” it’s about expanding your perception of beauty and challenging youth-centric queer beauty standards. I get that that type of mindset is really helpful for some people, but I really do not like that applied to me, especially when you have No Idea what I and other people look like. It comes across as very inappropriate and just straight up rude. Again if it helps you and makes you feel empowered, then that’s dope but I don’t really see most people as “ugly” anyway, so…
Please do not tell me or other strangers that are experiencing a COMPLETELY NORMAL sign of aging to “embrace ugliness”. It goes against the entire idea of my post in the first place. Do you even realize what the hell you’re saying? Just like… idk… realize that other human beings see the things you say when you post on the internet and that the OP (me) sees every single comment and tag.
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Reblog This Please
An article has come out about The Trevor Project which includes damning reports about union busting, "misplacing" 50 MILLION DOLLARS, Calls from trans people or parents of trans youth going unanswered and more
If you know of the Trevor Project I highly recommend giving this a read.
As sad as it is, this is a normal path for charity projects.
Charity projects do not help in the end, or if they do help, they will crumble under the weight of top down organization and the greed of those running the Charity. Charities always find themselves lining the pockets of the people at the very top before expenses trickle down to the on-the-ground care.
We need to move away from Charity and instead focus on Mutual Aid.
Charity means relying on the good will of the rich and those in authority to give us help by the "Good of their hearts", but when we ask too much, or rather, when the EMPLOYEES ask too much, then the Charity is quick to remind them and us that in the end IT IS ANOTHER BUSINESS.
Mutual Aid is community work. Mutual Aid is horizontally organized. No rich person collecting funds at the top. No limits in the care provided. Mutual Aid is when a person, a group, or a community comes together to provide Aid to each other and to others, to strengthen community ties, and to protect each other. Mutual Aid is fluid and unbound by the liberal chains of the capitalism system, unlike Charity.
Mutual Aid can be anything from providing DIY hrt supplies to transgender youth in states where HRT access is banned. Mutual Aid can be providing shelter and emergency asylum to queer people in aggressively anti-queer areas. Mutual Aid is talking to all of the gardeners in your area and agreeing to freely provide excess harvest to each other and other community members. Mutual Aid is providing Narcan to homeless communities. Mutual Aid is blocking bulldozers from rolling into your local park to uproot the forest for a cop training center. Mutual Aid is de-arresting someone who's being brutalized by the police. Mutual Aid is fluid, Mutual Aid is unbound, and Mutual Aid empowers the People over the Authority.
#trevor project#the trevor project#lgbt#queer#news#gay#lesbian#transgender#anarchy#anarchism#trans#transmasc#transfem#hrt#diy hrt#leftism#leftist#mutual aid#charity#important
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hope this isnt a weird question but if youre ok with sharing, what is ur job / what is it like? im currently unemployed bc of several disabilities and everything i look at or try seems impossible or actively shuts me out, but its very . idk not "inspiring" bc i hate that word but its a mix of like. makes me happy for the person + creates a feeling of hope + curiosity too when i see disabled ppl with jobs, and i love hearing abt what its like and potential experiences out there
sorry this is long winded and feel free to ignore if u dont want to share! have a lovely day :] <3
Not a weird question at all!
I work part time as a youth support worker for a local queer organisation. I help facilitate youth groups and I also act as a one-to-one mentor. Occasionally I go into schools to deliver training.
At youth groups we do educational stuff, craft activities, play games, eat food,and just chat. My job is to help create and maintain a space where people are safe and supported, and also hopefully having fun.
One-to-one mentoring sessions very hugely depending on the needs of each young person. Sometimes I am helping people with practical things like changing their name at school, sometimes I am there so people can vent at me about how shit Life can be as a queer teenager, sometimes people want to talk about their hobbies, sometimes it's something completely different: every session is different. These sessions usually take place at our office, at schools, or at A community centre or café so I end up going to lots of different places.
When I go into schools we do a mix of talking and activities about being queer and we will often do a Q&A session where are young people get to ask us any questions they have.
What is like? It can be emotionally difficult – I often work with young people who are going through some really difficult things and it can be hard knowing that I can’t wave a Magic Wand and make it all go away. But overall I absolutely adore my job. The young people I work with are amazing and it's incredibly rewarding knowing that what I do makes a real positive difference to people’s lives. Plus a lot of the time I’m getting paid to do fun activities and eat food
Oba disability side, they organisation I work for has been incredible at accommodating me. They’ve gotten ramps and made structural alterations to the office building and everything. I’m not always able to do as much as my colleagues physically (like when we set up or pack away after groups), but that’s simply not an issue– everyone empowers me to do what I can and they can work around that. My supervisor is amazing and often checks in to make sure I’m not overworking myself and to make sure they’re doing everything they can for me. It’s a wonderful place to work.
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'...This year the awards ceremony, which champions media that promotes LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance, has a whopping 310 nominees across 33 categories.
Among this year’s nominees are films like All Of Us Strangers and Red, White, and Royal Blue, TV series like Yellowjackets, Heartstopper, and Fellow Travelers, and reality series like Queer Eye and The Ultimatum: Queer Love...
Across 2023 and 2024, GLAAD has heavily campaigned for more trans and non-binary stories to be told across the media in an effort to combat the concerning number of bills targeting trans youth and trans healthcare in the US.
This year, the organisation notes that a wide range of their award nominees have centered trans and non-binary people and issues “in timely nuanced, and empowering ways.”
Of the 30 TV shows nominated across categories like Outstanding New TV Series, Outstanding Comedy Series, and Outstanding Drama Series, 10 feature trans or non-binary characters.
They include popular releases like Our Flag Means Death, Doctor Who, Sex Education, and 9-1-1 Lone Star...'
#GLAAD Awards#All of Us Strangers#Doctor Who#Our Flag Means Death#Baldur's Gate 3#boygenius#Sex Education#9-1-1 Lone Star#Heartstopper#Queer Eye and The Ultimatum: Queer Love#Yellowjackets#Red White and Royal Blue#Fellow Travelers
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If we ever see Miles in Cooper's uninverse, please let Miles be trans and a baby queer that Cooper mentors both as a spider and as a young queer.
I think it'd be amazing if Cooper was able to use his own experience (as awful as it was being that he was kicked out of his house) to help someone else and empower them. Not as Web-Weaver, which would also be great, but as Cooper Coen.
I can imagine him meeting Miles at some sort of youth center or pride event, the young gal just having her egg cracked, and just freshly bitten, and nervous as hell. Her parents don't know she's trans or gaining superpowers, and Coen, seeing a lotnof himself in her (using her because transfem in this universe in my head) helping her and taking her under his wing.
When she decides to tell her parents she's queer, Cooper is also there. He knows how terrifying that can be and gets to smile and watch as Miles hugs her parents and then leaves (with saying goodbye) once he knows Miles will be safe and alright to give them much deserved family time to talk and have a much more private moment.
#cooper coen#miles morales#i just think Cooper would be happy for Moralea aa well#becUae he wants eveeyone tobhave aupport ans love#but hed def be kepeing an extra close eye for like twonor three weeks afterwards#just in case Miles suddnely needed anplace to stay
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🏳️⚧️ Opportunity for queer Twitch streamers - reblog! 🏳️🌈
It's that time of year, ya'll - twice per year we welcome a new group of paid It Gets Better Ambassadors to our It Gets Better Twitch channel for another season of ultimate queer content for LGBTQ+ youth!
If you're a streamer with a positive community, you love to discuss LGBTQ+ topics on stream, and you'd be excited to help us uplift, empower, and connect queer youth ages 13-18 through our channel, definitely apply.
We've got more info (including some basic requirements) here, where you can also submit your application through December 4, 2023: itgetsbetter.org/blog/twitch
Can't wait to meet you!
#it gets better#twitch#queer streamer#lgbtq streamer#cozy streamer#trans streamer#lgbtqia#opportunity#just chatting
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I like your reblog of that post about abusers not going away from a society and all of us having to deal with that. But I have a question, and I think it might sound like a gotcha but I mean it sincerely. If communities can and should intervene in how children are treated by their families, how do you ensure communities don't collectively abuse children? A very topical example is communities deciding that a parent letting their child transition is 'abuse'. But also, community ideas of what a disabled child Really Needs are based on what's most convenient (cheap, comfortable, traditional) for the community, and the parents are the ones who have to advocate for the kid in that situation. And I know that parents are a very common source of abuse for both trans kids and disabled kids. But they are also - and that's the mindfuck of it - a shield against the community. How can we ensure the safety of vulnerable kids without assuming that communities will magically shed their prejudices (and also their selfishnesses, as in begrudging disabled kids a 'disproportionate' share of resourced)?
This is a really tricky question, and why I think both "Social services should intervene more in families" and "Social services should intervene less in families (or be abolished)" are both bad takes. We live in a world where beating children is culturally normal and generally legal (or at least there are few if any penalties for it, making it effectively legal), but accepting queer and disabled children as they are is considered "abuse." That's why I think as much as possible, the emphasis should be on empowering young people themselves. Obviously, as I mentioned, the younger the kid, the less possible this is (a baby can't exactly move out on their own), but I think that needs to be the focus. Other than that... there's no real good answer other than just trying to change cultural norms around youth rights, I think.
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[“Several contributors to A Woman Like That acknowledged that exploring the territory of their own coming out in writing was unexpectedly difficult. Seasoned writers told me how arduous, even painful, it was to explore coming-out memories that had long been held under pressure at a depth. One novelist said that her family’s rejection of her as an open lesbian had been too agonizing to revisit; she was unable to complete her story. Another, author of a soul-searching memoir and surely no coward, wrote a haunting piece about her first erotic experience with a woman, but withdrew it when she remembered that the words “lesbian and bisexual” would appear in the book’s subtitle.
These are indeed powerful words. I am deeply indebted to the writers who are free to embrace them.
Many writers in this collection recall childhood desire, embryonic lesbian hunger, and the innocence and mystery of those feelings on the brink of collision with the straight world. One writer asserts that she was “born queer,” while another confesses to the sin of “converting”—implying that, contrary to current rules of political correctness, some feel they have chosen to be lesbians. Some write with youthful ebullience and wit of adventures as “sex-positive” lesbians, with almost a gasp of surprise at the seeming absence of oppression in their lives. A handful write of uncommonly loyal families that nurtured independence in childhood and remain a source of strength to their unconventional daughters. Some contributors write of harsh punishment rendered for sexual nonconformity and of the survival skills and moral intelligence they have wrested from their experiences. Two write of their incarceration in mental institutions as young gay women, and of the exhilaration of release. Another, stunned by the abrupt firing of teachers rumored to be lesbians, learns that even a “progressive” environment may be unapologetically homophobic; her knowledge of danger ultimately empowers her to speak against injustice. One writer, who tells of coming out to the sons of whom she has lost custody, speaks of having cracked open their small universe—a shattering, but one that allows light and the possibility of new knowledge and connection.
A number of writers in this collection tell coming-out stories that are not about a single defining moment but rather about a continuum of experience. They recall many passages—a gradual shedding of false selves, an ongoing process of self-discovery and self-naming. One writer, nearly deported from the U.S. for her outspoken political writing, equates coming out with the freedom to explore deeper places in her own psyche. A writer in her seventies tells movingly of her failure to name herself a lesbian at a reunion of those who as children were transported to safety in England to escape the Nazi death camps. Next year, she resolves, she will come out to them. Another, Another, in the form of a diary of a week in the present year, reminds us that, regardless of how secure our identities, we are forced to come out as lesbians each time we intersect with the heterosexual world, or remain invisible as we have been for centuries.”]
Joan Larkin, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000
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Hey! An event I collaged up these posters for. If you know anyone who would be interested in this either as an attendee or a food donor, drop us a line! The QR code for email (bottom left, second poster) includes an example template for donation notification if writing an email makes you anxious.
The conference has been going on since the 80s in its week long format and in recent years we've had to scale back a fair bit because of dwindling numbers and finances. Last year we numbered around 20 people at peak and a lot of us (including me) are aging out this year.
I have never felt more at home in my queer disabled body with my wacky neurotypes than I have at Summer's End. I was a girl guide as a kid and it's been a lot for me to have an opportunity to access nature in a way that I didn't think I would get to again because of who I am and how I need to move throughout the world. I feel Crip Camp about it. I feel run away to the woods to be braless with tranarchists and artists and zinesters and punks and Jewish farmers about it. I'm running a workshop this year where we make buttons. We have access to canoes! We have a community of people who want to help each other and feel empowered by each other. Sometimes therapy is not enough, sometimes you need to feel community and get to know yourself in the woods for a week. It's a little pocket of belonging that I wish everyone had. And I hope it keeps going for many many years down the line, long after everyone in it now is gone, when it has become something the youth of the future want it to be. There is no higher body making this conference happen. It's all us. And we can't keep it going without outreach help.
The fee is a sliding scale and many people come for free. If anything here is hard to read, feel free to click for the alt text.
I also encourage folks ask any questions you feel like!
As for COVID precautions, proof of vax is required and negative rapid test (we can provide those). The event is mostly outdoors but we encourage people to bring HEPA purifiers if you can fit it in your luggage for the indoor parts. (I'll be bringing one personally, but mine isn't graded very high and idk which building I'll be sleeping in.) Camping is encouraged but we have cabins!
tl;dr if you're 16-28 and want to be in the woods on Abenaki land for a bit have I got the thing for you!!
#you also don't have to come the full week either#and there's other accommodation info that I haven't included here#but I hope folks will feel free to ask#prayin tumblr works for outreach because the algorithms everywhere else are just not helping#not very marketable apparently!!!
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