November 20: Remember

I Stayed up until 10:30 in the Morning and it was Worth It

I wrote my first research brief (my first school-induced overnighter), also known as a position paper, for my Community Leadership and Development class. As I frequently do, I wrote about LGBTQ kids, specifically, LGBTQ youth and suicide prevention. The first draft was worth 30 points. Here is the front cover with grade. "Outstanding in every way. You're done," which means I've got no rewrites to do!

Read the (outstanding!) paper here.

It Gets Better: Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles

I love this.

Over-Thinking is Classic Lisa

So, I've volunteered twice at Identity, the LGBTQ youth drop-in center which is affiliated with the Southern Tier Aids Program (STAP). Identity is where I'll do my 120-hour internship during my Spring 2011 semester.

If you've been paying any attention to me at all, you know LGBTQ rights and equality and activism and related topics are pretty G-damn important to me. I do a lot of research and writing on LGBTQ youth, I really have a heart for this population. I'm also really into LGBTQ kids not killing themselves after they've been marginalized and overexposed to homophobic, heteronormative, hateful, and oppressive surroundings. By extension, I'm really into the It Gets Better Project. Further, I'm pro the obliteration of DOMA and DADT (speaking of which, WTF, Barack? What are you doing? I am totally your friend, but I just don't understand). So, considering all that, I'm volunteering at Identity!

Brief deviation: I think I may ultimately be more cut out for LGBTQ advocacy, but since I don't know anything for sure, this is a totally reasonable and fitting segue, right? Right.

Back to Identity: like I said, I've only been twice. I don't have a great feel for what I'm supposed to do now or what I might be doing during my internship. I just keep getting told that I'm going to "work with the youth." Really? Ok.... Besides general uneasiness about newness, the main thing I've been concerned with is this: do I mention/refer to my husband. After my second afternoon at Identity, I'd decided that maybe I should refer to J as my partner and let folks assume what they may. In a world where these kids are often "the other," at Identity, they're not; I am (or maybe I'm not; I kind of feel like I am). So, allies are great! I think these kids think allies are great, right? I just don't know what to say. I don't want to seem too "straight" and estrange myself and then maybe they don't trust me? Or they don't accept me like they would if I fit better into their initialism? ::furrow:: So, J is my partner...?

Skip ahead eighteen hours. I was watching my favorite YouTube webcast everyone is gay, and I was making J watch a couple episodes, too. (I have to watch so much boring or annoying shit that he likes; I made him watch a couple episodes of something I like.) Anyway, it just so happens that one of the questions to my favorite lesbian advice-givers (from their bio: "Kristin and Dannielle are girls who like girls, and who give advice to those who are confused about sexuality, gender identity, dating, falling in love, or even dressing up like Super Woman") had an answer just for me. I'm not going to tell you about the question and answer; you have to watch it yourself and you should. "My" question is the second one and starts after the brief lip-sync to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Don't let me down. Watch this; it's not long at all. Maybe you'll understand more of what my goal is and you'll learn something about what is exceptionally critical to me (and about a gajillion other peeps).

UPDATE: Speed up to 3:58 or so to see "my" question and answer if you can't take the 7 or 8 minutes to see the whole thing.

We're all a community. Well, we are in my head and in the heads of Kristin and Dannielle. So, J is my husband? Discuss.

image via everyone is gay

It Gets Better: A Theological Response

Professor Stephen Sprinkle is "out and free" and is an ordained Baptist minister and professor of divinity at Brite Divinity School. His message is honest and wise, and I loved hearing his encouraging and courageous story. "Tie a not at the end of your rope and hang on."

via Slog

Actual Required Viewing

Please, please watch this. Please spread it around.

The Advocate:

Writer Dan Savage is reaching out to LGBT teenagers to let them know life may be difficult now, but "it gets better."

The "It Gets Better" Project is inspired by the suicide of 15-year-old Indiana teenager Billy Lucas, who hanged himself last week in his family's barn after enduring bullying from his classmates. After writinga post on The Slog about Lucas's death last week, one commenter expressed a desire to have spoken to him to tell him that things get better.

What Wanda Sykes Said

via Slog

Re: Um.... What?

I can't stop watching the Athens Boys Choir. Did you watch? Do it. Then watch it again 4 or 18 times. Revel in the fatuousness.

Um.... What?

From the Athens Boy's Choir...

::shrug::


via Slog

What He Said

From Jonathan Golob:

If being a gay man is an inborn, inherent trait with some genetic basis–as the massive, overwhelming, credible, sound, tenable, probable, corroborating, confirming, affirmative collection of scientific evidence states–why are there gay men at all? It’s a trait that strongly discourages procreative sex. Less sex with women means less babies and therefore less spreading of the gay genes.

These alleles should drop out of the population....

Continue reading here.


via DearScience