The Home Front and Queer Youth.

There’s No Place Like Home: Families Are an Essential Support for LGBT Youth

Center for American Progress

February 25, 2011


“With a targeted strategy, and a lot of attention, we can build a child welfare system that addresses the needs of the LGBTQ population,” said Bryan Samuels at a CAP event February 7 on the importance of family support of LGBT youth. Samuels, commissioner for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, was joined on a panel by Dr. Caitlin Ryan, director of the Family Acceptance Project, or FAP, and Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Jeff Krehely, CAP’s Director of LGBT Research and Communications, gave welcoming remarks. Immediately following, David Hansell, the assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, spoke about the role of government in ensuring acceptance and equality for LGBT youth.

A series of highly publicized suicides by LGBT youth last fall punctuated the need to address bullying in schools, a problem endemic in communities across the country. “Ostracism is one of the worst thing kids can experience,” Hansell said in his remarks. “It eats away at their self-esteem, and they become less able to resist bullying. And that’s why there is a coordinated effort going on across government to try to prevent the coercive effects of bullying, and to imbue young people with the self-confidence to stand up against those who try to intimidate them.” Evidence of the government’s resolve can be found in the Affordable Care Act, which makes it easier for LGBT individuals and same-sex couples to access healthcare, as well as in efforts to make adoption viable for same-sex couples, Hansell argued.

For many LGBT youth, bullying doesn’t stop in the schoolyard. These youth find themselves equally vulnerable to humiliation, intolerance, and even violence in the one space that at the very least ought to offer refuge: the home. No one denies the horrible effects that bullying from peers can have on the mental health and self-esteem of young people, but recent research conducted by FAP suggests that the effects of intolerance in the home may be even worse.

Typically, Dr. Ryan explained, families are removed from the care equation: “The inclination is not to engage the family, but automatically to exclude the family because families are seen as unsupportive at best and volatile or potentially dangerous at worst.” The work of FAP, however, offers a new framework for family engagement and looks to ways in which families can be educated about the consequences of rejecting their child.

Indeed, FAP research demonstrates the alarming consequences of family intolerance of LGBT youth. Dr. Ryan stated that, for instance, HIV incidence increases drastically with higher family intolerance levels: “LGBT young people who experience a high level of family rejection … during adolescence are more than three-and-a-half times more likely to be at high risk for HIV infection as a young adult. That risk is about cut in half for families that express moderate levels of rejection.”

The research found similar trends with respect to depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and suicidality. In each of those categories, LGBT youth who experienced high levels of rejection were considerably more prone to self-destructive behavior. Engaging family in the discussion, and educating them about the consequences of rejecting their child, is therefore paramount to ensuring the mental and physical well being of LGBT children.

On the panel discussion, both Minter and Samuels stressed that Dr. Ryan’s research should inform policy decisions regarding LGBT youth.

“If we really want to address the problems facing LGBT youth, we also need resources and policies that are focused on keeping these young people in their families [and] in their communities. … that’s the way we’re going truly protect future generations,” Minter stated. He continued, “I think the most hopeful and inspiring aspect of Dr. Ryan’s research, to me, is that they’ve developed family intervention programs that really work, and that have shown us that the goal is eminently achievable.” More funding for research efforts such as those undertaken by FAP and the increased availability of materials and programs to educate families about the importance of accepting LGBT children can help make substantial improvements in the lives of LGBT children across the country. Those interested in learning more about FAP’s findings can access their research here.

See also: *
Families Matter by Shannon Minter and Jeff Krehely

To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:
Print: Megan Smith (health care, education, economic policy) 202.741.6346 or msmith@americanprogress.org
Print: Christina DiPasquale (foreign policy and security, energy) 202.481.8181 or cdipasquale@americanprogress.org
Print: Raúl Arce-Contreras (ethnic media, immigration) 202.478.5318 or rarcecontreras@americanprogress.org
Radio: Anne Shoup 202.481.7146 or ashoup@americanprogress.org
TV: Andrea Purse 202.741.6250 or apurse@americanprogress.org
Web: Erin Lindsay 202.741.6397 or elindsay@americanprogress.org

EXILE: Incarcerated LGBT Youth.

Another decent post from the folks at Solitary Watch - the embedded articles/reports are worth reading, too.

---------------------------

LGBT Kids in Prison Face Rape, Beatings, and Isolation
Solitary Watch / July 13, 2010
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN

“Across the United States, the brutal and dysfunctional juvenile justice system sends queer youth to prison in disproportionate numbers, fails to protect them from violence and discrimination while they’re inside and to this day condones attempts to turn them straight,” writes Daniel Redman in a powerful article on LGBT youth behind bars, which appeared last month in The Nation.

LGBT youth reportedly make up 15 percent of the juvenile prison population, and report 12 times as many sexual assaults as straight youth do. In addition to being raped, beaten up, bullied, and shunned, these kids often end up in solitary confinement. Redman writes:

Sending LGBT victims of violence into isolation, instead of punishing their attackers, is common practice across the country, even though a federal court has held the practice to be unconstitutional and the American Psychological Association opposes it. And once the youth are put on lockdown—whether to punish or to protect—they miss out on crucial educational opportunities. In 2006, a bisexual youth in California petitioned the court to be removed from his facility because staff members had kept him in isolation for twenty-three hours a day. At 20 years old, he had missed so much schooling that he was only halfway to his high school diploma.

Besides using isolation to purportedly protect queer youth, guards also use lockdown as punishment. “We had one kid who wouldn’t go to school because he was afraid” of the other youth in the facility, says Wesley Ware [of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana]. And because he was on the mental health unit, a certain amount of social interaction was required as part of his rehabilitation program. For refusing to leave his cell, he was put on lockdown for noncompliance, and his chances for release diminished yet again.

Often, queer youth face as much hostility from prison guards as they do from peers. When a youth faces bullying or violence from another kid, staff can be reluctant to intervene. “The staff views it as [the kid] deserves it, or he’s asking for it—so they don’t intervene or they’ll egg it on,” Ware says. They view it as “good for the kid—gotta teach him and have it beat out of him. Then when the gay kid finally breaks, then he faces the disciplinary consequences.”

Guards are often bullies themselves. Krystal [a transgender teen in Louisiana] reports that staff called her “a disgrace to mankind,” a “punk” or “fucking faggot” on a daily basis and threatened her, saying, “I’ll beat your fucking ass.” When staff called Krystal “faggot” or other names, sometimes she talked back. “Sometimes I would even say, I’m proud to be that,” Krystal says. She would receive more tickets for talking back.

Redman talked to several teens in Louisiana, where the Juvenile Justice Project has just released a comprehensive–and disturbing–report, Locked Up and Out: Youth in Louisiana’s Juvenile Justice System. But as he clearly states, “Antigay policies aren’t just a problem in the Deep South or rural regions.” Nor do prison abuse, rape, and solitary confinement happen only to LGBT kids. As Matt Kelley pointed out yesterday in a post on the subject at Change.org, “The problem of abused LGBT youth in prison forces us to think not only about broader issues of sexual assault in prison, but also on alternatives to locking up juveniles.”

Meanwhile, as the Sentencing Project noted last week, ”Three major juvenile justice initiatives remained stalled in the Congress.” One of these is the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), which “promotes the use of effective community-based alternatives to detention, keeps youth out of adult facilities, reduces the disproportionate involvement of youth of color in the system, and promotes other research-driven best practices in the juvenile justice system.” Sounds like a good thing, right? Too bad it’s currently three years overdue for reauthorization.

We want change, not nickels: Homelessness and queer youth.

Invisible: The Crisis of LGBTQ Youth Homelessness. (follow link for video interviews with homeless GLBT youth).


The Raw File
March 2010


According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimate, the count of homeless and runaway youth ranges from 575,000 to 1.6 million per year. Out of that number, it is conservatively estimated that between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).


Given that between 3 and 5 percent of the American population identifies as LGBT, the figures make it starkly clear: across America, in its major cities, and suburban and rural counties, a disproportionate share of the tragedy of youth homelessness falls on the backs of LGBT young people.


Mostly poor and minority, many of these young people come from homes marred by instability, conflict, abuse, neglect, or parental drug use. In many cases, coming out as LGBT was the final factor that forced these young adults out of their homes: one-third were assaulted by a family member upon revealing their sexual orientation or gender identity, and over a quarter were kicked out of their homes outright. Having experienced this violent rejection at home, in church or school, or, in some cases, in foster care, many LGBT youth turn to the street, and its grim realities.


Too often, sex work and survival crime, drug abuse and mental illness become a part of everyday life, as animosity towards their sexual orientation or gender expression at mainstream shelters and programs effectively bars them from receiving the meager services available to homeless youth, services that might take them towards stability. By being homeless in a society that discriminates against LGBT people, these young people have been rejected twice: first by their homes, families and communities, and then by the services and systems that are supposed to help and protect them. Caught in the intersection of race, poverty, gender expression and sexuality, these young adults fight to find their way through a society that chooses not to see or help them.


In 2005, disturbed by the silence surrounding this issue and seeking to put a face on this little-known crisis, I began photographing the residents of Sylvia's Place (MCCNY Homeless Youth Services: Sylvia's Place), New York City's only emergency shelter for homeless LGBT youth; its 30 beds comprise over half of the shelter space specifically designated for the upwards of 8,000 homeless young LGBT people in New York City. Using the shelter as a “home base”, I have spent countless hours with these young people, bearing witness to hidden and intimate aspects of their existence: working as a prostitute on “the stroll”; crying at the grave of the mother that left them too soon; kissing their new boyfriend; spending a last Mother's Day with children that they will never see again; moments of introspection. By eschewing exploitative visual stereotypes of homelessness, youth, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and especially gender non-conformity, I believe that these images truthfully show the urgency of their lives.


In a perfect world, these young people would not be ignored: we would all be aware, not only of their daily struggles, but also of the hope that they have for their future selves. It is my hope that these images can bring awareness to the crisis of LGBT youth homelessness, and thus bring about positive change in the lives of this neglected population.


Samantha Box is a 2010 fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts

Youth Resource Bank: Center for HIV Law and Policy

Fabulous resources.

Youth in State Custody

Adolescents institutionalized in foster care and juvenile justice facilities are overwhelmingly members of the communities most affected by, and at risk for, HIV/AIDS—low-income youth, African-American and Latino youth, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender youth, and survivors of violence and other abuse. For many of these youth, the path to state custody may have included a period of living on the streets and engaging in substance abuse and sex in exchange for money or drugs.

It is critical that youth in state custody are provided comprehensive, LGBTQ-inclusive sexual health care, including the information and education necessary to make healthful decisions, and an environment that is respectful and responsive to the health needs of youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities. The Resource Bank includes resources that address issues such as access to health care, HIV prevention, youth rights, and rights and needs specific to LGBTQ youth.

CHLP INITIATIVE
Teen SENSE

HIGHLIGHTED RESOURCE

Juvenile Injustice: The Unfufilled Rights of Youth in State Custody to Comprehensive Sexual Health Care, The Center for HIV Law and Policy

This is the first legal report and guide on the rights of youth in detention and foster care facilities to comprehensive sexual health care, including sexual medical care, sexuality education, and staff training on sexual orientation and the needs and rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. This publication analyzes the foundation of this right and the sexual health care needs of youth in out-of-home care

HIGHLIGHTED RESOURCE

Hidden Injustice: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth in Juvenile Courts

The Equity Project

This report, published in late 2009, examines the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in juvenile courts nationwide. Despite the fact that LGBT youth comprise a significant portion (up to 13%) of youth in detention, they remain invisible to many juvenile justice professionals and are often treated unfairly and harshly in the justice system.

Drawing from first-hand accounts of more than 50 LGBT youth and in-depth interviews of more than 60 juvenile court judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, probation officers, and detention staff from across the country, Hidden Injustice sheds light on the numerous barriers to fair and effective treatment of court-involved LGBT youth. The report provides juvenile justice professionals, policymakers, and advocates with detailed practice and policy recommendations to help them address these problems. The Appendix includes a model non-discriminatory services policy and a sample court order to ensure a transgender youth receives appropriate medical and mental health services related to gender transition. Click here to download.

HIGHLIGHTED RESOURCE
Potential for Change: Public Attitudes and Policy Preferences for Juvenile Justice Systems Reform, Center for Children's Law and Policy

As part of a Models for Change program funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Center for Children's Law and Policy issued a report on a poll it commissioned to determine public attitudes about the value of juvenile justice reforms, and public preferences for investment of funds dealing with juvenile offenders.

CCLP reported, in part, that a significant majority of those polled believe that funds would be better spent on counseling, education, and job training for youth in trouble; that treatment and services are more effective ways to deal with youth than incarceration; and that the juvenile justice system treats low-income youth, African American youth, and Hispanic youth unfairly, and far worse than middle-class youth who are suspected of committing similar offenses. Click here to download.

From Change.org:

LGBT Youth Behind Bars: Isolated, Abused, Neglected

by Matt Kelley July 12, 2010 11:16 AM (PT)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in prisons and jails are among our country's most vulnerable people — and what's more, they're virtually invisible to mainstream society.

Photo Credit: Erin MC Hammer

GritTV checked in this week on the issue of LGBT young people behind bars and brought us one of the more thoughtful (and frightening) presentations of the issues I've seen in a while. (Watch the full episode after the jump.) As their episode reveals, the treatment of LGBT youth in prison brings into focus a dangerous mix of many of our prison system's worst flaws.

We frequently cover the issue of sexual assault in prison, and LGBT youth are among the most victimized populations behind bars. Juveniles are vulnerable in adult prisons — or in any prison, for that matter — and LGBT youth are often the most vulnerable of that group.

But this week, GritTV guests Gabrielle Prisco and Daniel Redman didn't focus only on juvenile issues or prison rape. Instead, they connected important dots on this issue: to homelessness, to the school-to-prison pipeline and the severely excessive use of solitary confinement for our most vulnerable prisoners.

In his excellent recent Nation article, Redman tells the stories of terrified young people — often in need of help — who find themselves in the most hostile environments imaginable. LGBT youth make up 15% of the juvenile prison population, he reports, and they report 12 times the number of sexual assaults as straight youth do.