Support Our LGBTQ Youth!

Next spring will mark twenty years since I came out as bisexual during my third year of college. I was extremely lucky to have several supportive friends and family members to help me through that time, and overall my coming out experience was easier than what most people face.

I was also 21 years old, doing well in college, and was in a relatively stable position with regard to my life. More and more young people--in middle and high school--are coming out today, and doing so in the face of incredible opposition. This might come from family, peers, teachers, local communities, even the hateful messages they hear in our media and political culture. 

I am walking for The Trevor Project to make sure that these young people have advocates. Amid a crisis of homeless Queer youth, record levels of violence against Trans* communities, and calls for harsh anti-LGBTQ laws, suicide and depression have taken a serious toll on the community to which I belong. 

Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award®-winning short film TREVOR, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24. (The Trevor Project website) According to its strategic plan, The Trevor Project supports four strategies for helping LGBTQ youth:

1. Provide crisis counseling to LGBTQ young people thinking of suicide.
2. Offer resources, supportive counseling and a sense of community to LGBTQ young people to reduce the risk that they become suicidal.
3. Educate young people and adults who interact with young people on LGTBQ-competent suicide prevention, risk detection and response.
4. Advocate for laws and policies that will reduce suicide among LGBTQ young people.

I hope you will consider giving to support their incredible work. For those who come to this site because they know me, please imagine for a moment how I might have felt without the support of an incredible group of people nearly two decades ago. Work with me to make sure that no LGBTQ youth has to feel that way ever again.