GBLT YOUTH_GBLT HOMELESS YOUTH

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For More Information About Street Kids, Please See My Deviation On Street Kids Need Help.

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The Attached PDF has excerpts taken from the:
An Epidemic Of Homelessness – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

In America, Half (50%) of ALL boys who attempt or succeed in killing themselves, are Gay or Bisexual. Two 11 year old boys (Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera) committed suicide in 2009, from harassment at school for being assumed gay. I started figuring out I was gay at age 11. Kids in parts of this country are in a living hell at school.

If you include girls, 30% of ALL CHILDREN who attempt or succeed in killing themselves, are Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, or Transgendered. 85% of ALL GBLT Youth have thought seriously about committing suicide (73% in a 2004 study).

EVERY YEAR, about 640,000 GBLT Kids, as young as 12 years old, go onto the street, and 39% of those were thrown out of their homes after “Coming Out” or discovery of their homosexuality or bisexuality, because of conflicts with moral and religious values. The vast majority of those parents are Christians.

A gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender and/or questioning youth commits suicide every five hours and 48 minutes.

50% of gay males experienced a negative parental reaction when they came out.

GBLT Youth become an easy target for adult caretakers. More than 30% of lesbian and gay people have suffered physical violence at the hands of a family member.

GBLT Youth were more likely to report symptoms of a major depressive episode than heterosexual youth, with gay males significantly more likely to meet the criteria for a major depressive episode than heterosexual males (42.1% compared to 24.4%). GBLT adolescents were also more likely to have posttraumatic stress disorder.

For GBLT Youth, short of a guarantee of parental acceptance and ongoing financial and spiritual support if they come out, SECRECY seems like the best option in order to remain at home. They want to tell their parents the truth, but fear the consequences of doing so, and are forced lie about what activities they are involved in and with whom they are involved. This can make you feel unloved and an outcast. If there are strong family religious homophobic beliefs, this can sometimes result in internalized homophobia, and feeling that you are inherently bad, a degenerate, etc. Stress can be incredibly high and self-worth incredibly low.

Gay and Lesbian youth are less assertive that Bi-sexual and Heterosexual youth, particularly in communication skills. This has a significant impact on Safe-Sex practices. GBLT Youth are less likely to insist of protection for sex, and less likely to say, “no,” when they want to say, “no,” to sex or alcohol/drug use. By being aware of this, you can choose to be more assertive.

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In a report by the Journal of the American Medical Association (08-04-2004), a theme issue on "Violence and Human Rights,” found that Homelessness and substance abuse both contribute to a Death Rate among street kids that is 11 times higher than that of other children. Suicide and infection with HIV also contributed to this disturbing reality.

5,000 kids die on the streets of America each year, for an average of 13 Kids dying every day on American Streets (Testimony to the US House of Representatives - June 19, 2007). When kids do seek help from adults, the system, or a police officer, they are opening themselves up to being harmed, exploited, or arrested—again.

OUTRAGE: Street Youth cannot stay in shelter without PARENTAL PERMISSION, leaving most to sleep in the streets, derelict buildings, or exchanging sex for shelter. Getting Parental Permission would tell parents exactly where their kid was.

It is a Felony crime to assist a runaway, to give the child shelter or food.

Once in a Youth Shelter, GBLT kids are badly discriminated against, like having to wear Orange jumpsuits so that they can be easily identified, and having the doors to their rooms removed or locked in the open position. Transgendered youth are forced to look like their birth gender and use their birth name. GBLT Youth are often treated in unfriendly ways. Because more and more shelters are now Christian run, abuses have actually gotten worse, sometimes receiving forced counseling that their sexual identity is a choice they can change through prayer. Some shelters require listening to a Christian sermon and prayers before they can eat.

Of those GBLT Youth who experienced physical assault when they CAME-OUT, 35% of them became runaway youth, 36% became throwaway youth, and 56% of them are in the state child welfare system.

Physical abuse in the home is a consistent factor leading to homelessness, with 40% to 60% of all homeless youth saying it contributed to their no longer living at home.

Other reasons GBLT Youth become homeless are:
- Conflict at home (63%)
- A family that will not tolerate their presence in the home and demand they leave (39%)
- Parental substance abuse (24%)
- Criminal activity (19%)
- The risk of emotional abuse (22%)
- The fact that their sexual orientation specifically is unacceptable to their parent or guardian (7%)

Homeless youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, experienced more maltreatment and lived in more conflict-ridden situations than did their still-housed contemporaries.

73% of gay and lesbian youth left home because of parental disapproval of their sexual orientation, whereas only 25.6% of bi-sexual youth left home for this reason.

3% of heterosexual youth left home because of drug and alcohol use, whereas 26.3% of bi-sexual youth and only 6.3% of gay and lesbian youth left for this reason.

More gay and lesbian youth left home due to sexual abuse, and more bi-sexual youth left due to physical abuse. Overall, females reported more emotional abuse.

For GBLT Street Youth:
35% of have been beaten up at least once,
39% have been robbed,
44% have been threatened with a weapon,
47% of females had been propositioned to partake in the selling sex,
37% of males had been propositioned to partake in the selling sex,
31% of females had been sexually assaulted,
13% of the males had been sexually assaulted.

Gay & Bi Street Boys are using Internet Cafes or the Library to look on Craigslist.org, Manhunt.com and Gay.com for a man to have sex with who will let him stay for the night, which might turn into more than a night if lucky, and sometimes for months.

Several reports indicate that anywhere from 25% to about 33% of all homeless adolescents have engaged in survival sex and that a history of receiving goods for sex was associated with a history of sexually transmitted infection.

Street Youth are five times as likely as domiciled youth (youth living in stable homes) to report instances of sexual abuse as a child.

Homeless youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, experienced more maltreatment and lived in more conflict-ridden situations than did their still-housed contemporaries.

94% of ALL Street Youth report voluntary sex at least once.

However, GLBT youths reported a higher number of sexual partners than did heterosexual youths (means of 24.19 and 12.49, respectively).

GLBT youths were significantly younger than heterosexuals in regard to age at first voluntary intercourse at age (means of 13 and 14, respectively).

Also, GLBT youths reported high rates of unprotected intercourse, (means of 50% and 43% respectively). More than twice as many GLBT youths as heterosexual youths reported that they neglected to use protection during sex “all of the time.”

Once homeless, it is very difficult to return home or get off the street:
- Affordable housing is often impossible to find.
- An incomplete education makes it difficult for youth to secure work that pays a livable wage.
- Lack of ID and parental permission, as well as youth make finding work very difficult.
- Jobs that are accessible despite youths’ lack of complete education are few and far between.
- Drug abuse was cited as a key reason for remaining severely poor or homeless.
- Distrust of authority, not believing that success is possible in a system that they see as broken
- New found independence can be hard to give up, to go back to parental control.
- Going home can be all but impossible, considering the reasons they left.

GBLT Youth are in a trap very hard to escape from. Many end up in the sex trade (including pornography), commit suicide, suffer or die from disease, die of alcohol and/or drugs, die of exposure to cold or dehydration, work in dead-end jobs, and some are both luck and work hard to finish their education, get help into an apartment and get a job. They are all scarred for life, with intimacy issue, trust issues, relationship problems, depression, etc.

New York City is the only place in the United States with a program specifically for GBLT Street Youth. Funding was recently cut and they are struggling.

One thing you can do is give money to places that feed Street Youth, supply them with sleeping bags, backpacks, clean underwear and socks, sweatshirts, etc.

I volunteer with TEEN FEED in Seattle who can use our help, as well as they other charities I listed on the last page of my Deviation on Street Kids Need Help.

Thank you for reading about our GBLT brothers and sisters, especially the ones on the Streets.

Matthew