Our Kids on the Street

As I write this, there are four children playing in the Poetry Space of the gift shop next door. And guess what? The kids are loud, so periodically one of the parents has to come and give a directive—quiet down! That works for ten minutes, and then the crescendo begins. At some point, the other parent can abide it no longer, and will come down and reapply the directive. I, of course, am currently not attempting to squelch the noise, since these are not my kids. But I am observing the different parenting styles, and trying to assess the efficacy of each. My conclusion—both are pretty much as effective, which is to say…not very.

These kids are lucky—their parents are loving, concerned, educated. And there’s something else as well: these parents have known a lot of gay people, and if any of these kids is gay, the parent will barely blink an eye.

Now then—time for some facts:

One in every four LGBT kids who comes out to his or her parents ends up on the streets, either because she or he was kicked out, or because the child decided to leave.

The average age for kids to come out, nowadays, is fourteen. In the seventies, most people came out much later, when they were in college and relatively more stable.

Lastly, here is a paragraph from the Human Rights Campaign:

Youth homelessness in the United States is a national crisis in urban, suburban, and rural communities affecting nearly 2.8 million youth between the ages of 12 and 24. Furthermore, consistent research finds that gay and transgender youth are over-represented among homeless youth, comprising anywhere between 20 and 39 percent of the total homeless youth population even though they make up less than 10 percent of the overall youth population.

OK—my toy computer doesn’t have the calculator that my Mac does, but my feeble math skills suggest that we may have one million gay and lesbian kids on the streets. And while marriage equality and anti-bullying efforts are important—isn’t doing something for these kids important, too?

What are the problems? Well, the first is what to do with kids who are on the streets—are there beds in the shelters for them?

Answer—no. According to the clip below, called “A Day in our Shoes,” there are 3,800 homeless youth in New York alone, and 1,500 of them are LGBT. And how many beds are there for them? Two hundred.

Shelter is just one issue. A kid on the street is at major risk for drug and alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, and being the victim of violent crime. That kid you see sleeping after “school” on the subway? That’s the only safe—relatively—place for him to sleep. He’ll be up at five minute intervals all night, checking to make sure he’s all right.

It may be there are treatment programs which will help a kid achieve the daunting task of being an adult: paying bills on time, going to the dentist, convincing the bank to let you open a checking account even though your only ID is a high school identification card. But even those programs “age kids out,” as one of the directors in the clip “Kicked Out” put it. So at age 21 you’re supposed to be on your own—but what happens when you fall at the disco and need to go to the hospital? Ask any parent—it doesn’t stop at age 21.

Which is why Caitlin Ryan’s work at the Family Acceptance Project is so exciting. She starts with a simple premise—virtually no parent wants his or her kid on the street. No matter how terrible the parent is, or how badly drunk or addicted he or she is—no parent wants that for their kid. So the trick is to find a way to get parents to accept their gay kids.

It makes intuitive sense—families do change. Mine did, and Raf’s as well. And as you can see in the second clip below—even very macho, Hispanic families can change. And as the clip on the Family Acceptance Project website shows—the Mormons can change as well. Perhaps especially so, since the family is of huge importance in the Mormon church.

Ryan has reached out to John Kerry, who in 2011 introduced the Reconnecting Youth to Prevent Homelessness Act. Here’s what the Human Rights Commission has to say about it:

The Reconnecting Youth to Prevent Homelessness Act requires that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establish a demonstration project to develop programs that are focused on improving family relationships and reducing homelessness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. These programs must include research-based behavioral interventions designed to decrease rejecting behaviors and increase supportive behaviors in families with LGBT youth and research-based assessment tools to help identify LGBT youth at risk for family conflict or ejection from their homes. Additionally, the Secretary must provide educational tools and resources to help families identify behaviors that put LGBT youth at risk as well as provide multimedia educational tools and resources that are focused on helping a diverse range of families understand how their behavior affects LGBT youth.

And now a confession—I know that this legislation was not approved in 2011, and I think it has been reintroduced, though as of June of this year it hadn’t been. But after Googling frantically for 15 minutes, I can’t find who reintroduced it or when.

Normally, this would upset me, but nowadays I have more perspective. Not being able to chase down a reference is annoying. Being fifteen, gay, and on the streets?

That’s major!

An Everyday Hero

It’s getting a little old: another African nation is going through a spate of virulent homophobia. Oh, and is it any coincidence that the presidential election is in five days?

Robert Mugabe, 89, has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence in 1980; he was most recently elected in 2008. The election was widely held to be fraudulent and was unquestionably violent; allegations appearing through Facebook are that Mugabe’s top aides are corrupt and very rich. This election is expected to be very close.

Sub-Saharan politicians have learned: stirring up hatred against LGBT folk means votes. So Mugabe is running—well, as much as an 89-year old can run—around the country saying things like this: “They are worse than dogs and pigs, yes worse than dogs and pigs,” he said. “I keep pigs and the male pig knows the female one.”

That’s actually mild; today’s El Nuevo Día had this to say:

Harare- El presidente de Zimbabue, Robert Mugabe, candidato a la reelección en las elecciones del próximo 31 de julio, consideró que los homosexuales "merecen ser castrados", informó hoy el diario estatal Chronicle.

Yup—castrados means just what you think it does….

Homosexuality, you see, is a Western thing—Mugabe refers to Great Britain as United Gay Kingdom, and that, in post-Colonial Africa, is deeply suspicious. But Mugabe has left the merely verbal and moved into the world of action. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

In 1996, former President Canaan Banana was arrested based on accusations made during the murder trial of his former bodyguard, Jefta Dube, and found guilty of eleven charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault in 1998. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, defrocked, and served 6 months in an open prison.

Oh, and he also changed the constitution. No longer is it enough to criminalize sodomy, not it’s illegal to perform any act—holding hands, kissing—that would be considered “indecent.”

Well, is it surprising that Wikipedia says this about LGBT folk in Zimbabwe?

Homosexuality is highly taboo in the socially conservative country and Mugabe's anti-gay stance resonates with many Zimbabweans.[16] Gays and lesbians in Zimbabwe are threatened by violence and suicide attempts are common among the gay community.

Well, into the picture steps Peter Tatchell, an Australian-born activist for LGBT issues. He’s apparently not afraid to get into a scrap—he was one of thirty people to create the group OutRage! Remember those guys? Here’s more Wikipedia on the subject:

Some OutRage! activities were highly controversial. In 1994, it unveiled placards inviting ten Church of England bishops to "tell the truth" about what Outrage! alleged was their homosexuality and accusing them of condemning homosexuality in public while leading secret gay lives. Shortly afterwards the group wrote to twenty UK MPs, condemning their alleged support for anti-gay laws and claiming they would out them if the MPs did not stop what they described as attacks on the gay community. The MP Sir James Kilfedder, one such opponent of gay equality,[45] who had received one of the letters,[46] died two months later of a sudden heart attack on the day one of the Belfast newspapers planned to out him.[47][48] In a comment in The Independent in October 2003, Tatchell claimed the OutRage! action against the bishops was his greatest mistake because he failed to anticipate that the media and the church would treat it as an invasion of privacy.

Peter Tatchell, being interviewed by Natalie Thorne, deputy editor of Fyne Times, at a 'First Sunday' event, November 2007

On 12 April 1998, Tatchell led an OutRage! protest, which disrupted the Easter sermon by George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with Tatchell mounting the pulpit to denounce what he claimed was Carey's opposition to legal equality for lesbian and gay people. The protest garnered media coverage and led to Tatchell's prosecution under the little-used Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (formerly part of the Brawling Act 1551), which prohibits any form of disruption or protest in a church.[49][50] Tatchell failed in his attempt to summon Carey as a witness and was convicted. The judge fined him the trivial sum of £18.60, which commentators theorised was a wry allusion to the year of the statute used to convict him.[51][52]

Right—clearly a guy not afraid to get into a fight. Tatchell also went off to the first Moscow Pride march, and not surprising gotknocked unconscious for the trouble.

So what did Tatchell do about Mugabe?

He attempted a citizen’s arrest, not once but twice. Back to Wikipedia:

Tatchell became convinced that Mugabe had broken international human rights law during the attack, which is estimated to have involved the massacre of around 20,000 civilians. Then in 1999, journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto were tortured by the Zimbabwe Army. The arrest in London of Augusto Pinochet seemed to him a precedent that human rights violations could be pursued against a head of state, thanks to the principle of universal jurisdiction. On 30 October 1999 Tatchell and three other OutRage! activists approached Mugabe's car in a London street and attempted to perform a citizen's arrest. Tatchell opened the car door and grabbed Mugabe. He then called the police. The four OutRage! activists were arrested, on charges including criminal damage, assault and breach of the peace; charges were dropped on the opening day of their trial. Mugabe responded by describing Tatchell and his OutRage! colleagues as "gay gangsters", a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters, and claimed they had been sent by the United Kingdom government.[64]

On 5 March 2001 Tatchell believed Mugabe was about to visit Brussels. He went there and attempted a second citizen's arrest. Mugabe's bodyguards were seen knocking him to the floor. Later that day, Tatchell was briefly knocked unconscious by Mugabe's bodyguards and was left with permanent damage to his right eye. The protest drew worldwide headlines, as Mugabe was highly unpopular in the Western world for his land redistribution policy. Tatchell's actions were praised by Zimbabwean activists and many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him.

Tatchell has other causes—he’s spoken out against China’s human rights record, fundamentalist Islam, and he’s spoken out for Gaza and the Palestinians and for better treatment of Australia’s aboriginal peoples.

Great job, Tatchell!