GSA is a OK!

via ThinkProgress

A new study from the Family Acceptance Project published in the current issue of Applied Developmental Science details many important benefits for middle and high school students who have access to a gay-straight alliance (GSA) in their school.

Of note are the ways LGBT students benefit from the mere presence of a GSA at their school, even if they do not actively participate.

Though the study has a limited sample size, it demonstrates the significant impact GSAs can make:

•Students at a school with a GSA were less likely to experience depression and more likely to have higher self-esteem.

•Students at a school with a GSA were less likely to drop out and more likely to succeed in higher education.

•Participation in a GSA was associated with fewer problems with substance abuse, depression, and lifetime suicide attempts.

•Having a perception that a GSA effectively promoted school safety was associated with less depression, fewer problems with substance abuse, and greater college attainment

So, while GSAs make a very big difference for LGBT youth, they do not solve all problems.

The study suggests that in addition to supporting the formation of GSAs, “school administrators and personnel should consider additional policies and programs that are associated with safer schools for LGBT students,” such as anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies.

Nevertheless, creating visibility and support for LGBT youth in schools clearly contributes to many positive outcomes.

GLSEN found similar GSA benefits in its 2009 National School Climate Survey with adolescents.

This new study from the Family Acceptance Project shows how the benefits of GSAs during adolescence affect LGBT young adults as well.


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Not Just a Preference

via fabmagazine, by Alex Rowlson

We’ve all been there.

You visit a hookup or dating website, cruise somebody’s profile and are confronted with the list: no fats; no femmes; no Asians; no blacks; masc only; my age or younger; str8-acting, you be too; non-scene; and on and on. What we find is a lot of hate when all we want is head.

“Gay men have forgotten how to have sex,” says Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, editor of the forthcoming anthology Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? “For so long that was supposed to be something gay men were good at, but I’m not so sure anymore.

 They might be good at the technique but not the openness. Sex should be about opening possibilities, not closing them off.”

The negative language so prevalent on Craigslist and Grindr seems to signal that the culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation.

Gay sexual oppression is catalogued painfully on the Douchebags of Grindr blog, which sorts prejudiced profiles based on everything from racism and sexism to self-hating homophobia.

But even though we see it everywhere, most people are as willing to admit to the exclusionary aspects of their desires as Lindsay Lohan is to submit to drug testing — statements are qualified by “Sorry, that’s just what I’m into” or “No hard feelings, it’s just my preference.”

Sycamore says that while people have the right to say what they’re attracted to, they have a responsibility to watch how they say it.

“On the one hand, people are stating their preference, but on the other, these are not neutral terms. If we were living in a culture where everything was the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. But when sexual preference reinforces dominant systems of power in an unquestioning way, that’s when it becomes problematic.”

Michael J Faris, co-author of the essay “Fucking with Fucking Online: Advocating for Indiscriminate Promiscuity,” believes that sexual oppression too often is unexamined.

“Desiring one thing more than another I don’t see as a bad thing,” he says. “When you say, ‘I won’t date a black person or won’t sleep with a black person,’ that’s what I see as being racist. If you can’t interrogate your desire, that’s a problem.”

Sociologist Adam Isaiah Green, a faculty member at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, believes “the concept of sexual racism is too strong and too intentional.

Our liberation movement worked to remove shame from sexual desire, and I think we should take a lesson from it in terms of how we deal with the topic of racialized desires.

Sensitizing ourselves to the connections between our most inner sexual desires and the sociopolitical landscape we are immersed in also seems like a good way to go.”


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NYT: In Efforts to End Bullying, Some See Agenda

via NYT, by Erik Eckholm

 Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance, explaining that some children have “two moms” or will grow up to love members of the same sex.

But such efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized suicides by gay teenagers, are provoking new culture wars in some communities.

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I Love My Boo Campaign Launches October 4 NYC

We LOVE the gawjuss "I Love My Boo" campaign. The images of loving/caring gay boy-next-door/on the block couples - sans the ubiquitous nipple pony, gleaming 8-pack, pornstrosity look - is so refreshing and so needed. Eye candy is nice, love it, okay, but is that all there is? Really? Is our only value as gay men in how little body fat we have and how bubbly our booties are?

The campaign images send a powerful message to those who would demean us and worse - and there are plenty, hello. Besides the haters, we need to see ourselves represented in ways that demonstrate our love and commitment to one another - which can happen in the context of a couple as well as single men and their friends and families. We all got a boo, whether we're banging each other or not.

Frankly, we are sick and tired tired tired, and OVER the worn out and false meme that "all gay men are dogs" and we're all selfish, irresponsible, and incapable of loving anyone or anything outside the image we see in the mirror.

Blech.

Bravo to GMHC for this great work.

The campaign kicks off Monday, October 4th on the New York City MTA subway system with ads in 1,000 trains and on 150 platforms. There is a rally that day at Christopher Street Park (7th Ave & Christopher St) - so show up if you are in NYC, eh?



Check out their FB page. And make an "I Love My Boo" image your profile pic in support of the campaign. You should also post a pic of you and your boo. Do it.

Lovin the boo!

Anti-discrimination bill re-introduced in Congress

Rod.2.0 covers the re-introduction of ENDA in Congress...