Sometimes things happen that trip you up and bring you back to earth with a bang – over the past 8 days two incidents have caused me to reassess my awareness of the lives of young lgbtq people in the area I live. Firstly I was involved in a piece of work where I was supporting young people to work in a setting where they were representing other young people – the day went well , the group appeared to begin to come together and individuals went home ready to come together later in the month.
I then hear from a colleague that one of the young people, a gay young man, had not enjoyed the day as two of his peers had seen a Stonewall ‘Some People Are Gay ….. Get Over It’ poster – and commented ‘ how disgusting that was and bad that the posters were on display’ – he didnt feekl comfortable to challenge and didnt have the confidence to raise it with staff he didnt know that well.
The second incident was the experience of a gay young person in a school who was threatened by five other young men with a stanley knife who said they would scar him if he looked at them in a ‘gay’ way – they couldnt speak to parents as they have yet to come out to them.
While my life as a gay man is settled and reasonably sorted- the lives of some young lgbtq people is far from that as these two experiences indicate – how many other young lgbtq people are experiencing these or similar situations on a daily basis.
Thanks for posting this – it brings home how much work still needs to be done for young LGBT young people and how easy it is to not hear, see or notice what they are dealing with in a day to day setting.