I got this message from Pink triangle Services, Help out people!

Pink Triangle Services is Canada's oldest registered LGBT non-profit.  They are located in Ottawa.  If you can spare a few dollars or a lot, you will be doing some good this Holiday Season.  They have a Queer Thoughts seal of approval! 

I would like to thank you for your past support of PTS. Your contributions have made it possible for us to serve tens of thousands of people in Ottawa’s queer community for over a quarter of a century—and that’s a history worth celebrating!

This November we launched our 2010 holiday fundraising campaign in support of the important work of the agency—and we need your help to continue meeting the needs of our community.

PTS aims to respond to the varied needs of our community in new and effective ways. In the next month we are excitedly anticipating the launch of an interactive, community-driven website featuring an up-to-date resource directory and user-driven community calendar. With the help of our supporters, we are growing along with our community.

This past fall we witnessed a whole range of high profile issues that were related to our community's needs. From the suicides of our youth to the rejection of educational reform on sexual health; these issues highlight the necessity for organizations like PTS to continue and to thrive. 

Our peer support groups, our library services, and our educational programs reach more people on a continuing basis than ever before. With your support we have helped to make positive changes in the lives of more than 3,900 people in 2009/10.

It is with this in mind that I ask you to consider making a donation to PTS this holiday season. As an added thank you for your generosity, supporters donating $25 a month (or $300 for the year) will receive a complimentary invitation to our 2011 Gala.

Giving is easy. Simply visit: www.canadahelps.org, search for Pink Triangle Services and provide your donation online. Or send your one time donation or void cheque to: 251 Bank St, Suite 301, Ottawa ON K2P1X3 made out to Pink Triangle Services.

Here are a few more reasons why PTS needs your contribution:

1. By promoting and facilitating change at all levels of education, and in diverse venues both inside and outside school systems, we are helping youth stand up for themselves and are ensuring that the teachers and administration listen. Our newest program - Creating Safer Spaces works to achieve these goals. We are working with community partners like Youth Services Bureau to achieve the greatest impact possible – partnerships which help make it better for the youth in our community.

2. We provide a variety of support programs to help youth and adults alike. Our programs work to engage those who are just coming out and give them the resources to live healthier lives. It's also an opportunity for established members of our community who want to give back and help others overcome personal challenges.

3. We have identified a need for free, queer-friendly counselling services, and in response to this need we are looking into community based counselling services. We have seen this need for years now, and with your support, we need to make this a priority to see these services realized.

With your support, we will continue working towards positive change and making a big difference in the lives of people in our community. 

There is still time to make your holiday gift to PTS. Visit: www.canadahelps.org and search for Pink Triangle Services.

Purple in Spirit all the time.

Queer thoughts is purple all day today. Then again, aside from the colour being purple today, we are purple in Spirit all the time.

Today collectively we are wearing purple. Its about making bullying visible and remembering those that have suffered at the whims of bullies. Anyone young or old can be bullied. It is particularly hard on young people in high school.

In high school we are learning how to socialize, we are on our own away from our parents and make many more of our own decisions. Sometimes we don't fit in. If you are different then you can be the easy target of a bully. Homophobia is one of the causes. Kids do not innately become gay haters. They learn that behaviour. They hear their parents talking about fags, at church they hear the preacher telling you gays are going to hell so don't be gay. In our workplaces, sporting venues, our laws and our culture, we have demonized gay people.

You don't have to be gay to experience homophobia. Someone just has say you look gay, you must be gay, or you have gay friends, or you don't fit in, presto, you're not like us so you're gay.

Today things are better for gay kids collectively, laws are slowly eliminating legal discriminations from Marriage to adoption to the workplace. Individually that's not so much the case. Being bullied today because you are gay or are thought to be gay, hurts just as much as it did when I was bullied in school 35 years ago.

There is no excuse today. Adults in authority must be responsible and take action every single time they see bullying. Imagine if you were a boy sitting in the stands in Ohio last week and all the boys around you stood up and started chanting "Powder Blue Faggots" over and over. Would you remain seated, would you stand up? Would you join in the chant? Heady questions when you understand that your actions may result in being called a fag yourself, or worse beaten and or taunted all the time. Just because you didn't join in the ritualized chant.

Kids learn to be bullies, kids learn from you and me...



Its not easy being different, especially when you yourself may not know why you are. It shouldn't be easy to bully either.

Marco 13 - Takes on Bullies

After seeing the video of the Ohio high school supporters taunting the opposition with anti gay slurs, I was so happy to see this story via my twitter account.

Marco says he's been bullied since the school year began. Mostly verbal assaults, but once he was pushed down and hit his head. Marco said, "It makes me upset ... not that upset to where I want to kill myself ... but upset to where I want to make a difference to help people who are getting bullied and keeping quiet and to the people who are the bulliers."

Its amazing what each of us can do on our own.  This 13 year old boy with the support of his parents is taking direct action. It would be a good idea if others in his area went out to help him.  Marco Melgoza goes to Desmond Middle School in Madera County California.


Here is a video of an interview he did with KFSN, the local ABC affiliate.

Ohio - Powder Blue faggots

High schools are dangerous places for many young people. Especially if you are gay. Watch the video below. Its a high school football game and some 300 students are taunting the opposition team, chanting Powder Blue Faggots.



The game officials did nothing. The chant went unchallenged. The school says they students have learned a life lesson, that is until they are at the next game.
Former North High student Heather Ike took the video. "I sat there for a little bit thinking it would stop, and it happened again, and it happened three times," Ike said, adding that she left the game after a few minutes, disgusted.

All of this occurred after world wide attention on the suicides of several teenagers caused because they were being bullied because they were gay and or perceived to be gay.

Its clear to me, after three separate chants, the school has decided to do nothing. The game should have been halted. The offending students evicted. If it kept up, then the team they are supporting should be banned from playing football for the rest of the year.

Get serious. Adults are abandoning their responsibilities here. Teenagers are bullying because they know nothing will happen. And just maybe, they know some of the adults like what they hear...

You are not alone. #stayalive

Shamelessly take from the Youth Blog and reposted here

From Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line

I’m not sure if folks are aware of this, but in the past month, five teenage boys in the United Stats have committed suicide related to anti-gay bullying.

On September 9th, Billy Lucas, a 15 year old from Indiana killed himself over anti-gay bulling.
September 13th, Cody Barker. He was 17, in Wisconsin. Again – over anti-gay bullying.
September 18th, Seth Walsh, from California. 13 years old. He hanged himself over anti-gay bullying and was pronounced dead on September 26 after ten days on life support.

On September 23rd, Asher Brown, 13, from Texas, killed himself over anti-gay bulling.
And on September 29th, Tyler Clementi. He was 18 from New Jersey, and is presumed dead after jumping from the George Washington Bridge after being humiliated online for his sexual orientation.
That’s 5 since school started in the beginning of September.

Five.

Now, I know this is happened in America, which may seem ‘way over there’ to some, but it affects all of us in the LGBTQ community and it’s definitely an issue in Canada, too. Many of us have also faced bullying due to our gender or sexual orientation (or just bullying, for whatever the reason); we’ve all faced isolation and feeling alone. We all know what it’s like to be queer without support systems in place.

Call the number above if you need help or know someone that does. The blog is here

It gets better - for all lgbt youth

Here is a good video from the "It gets better" project

13 year old boy dies after bullying

Another boy takes his life due to bullying. Seth Walsh, the Tehachapi 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his back yard after years of being bullied, died Tuesday afternoon after nine days on life support. See story here.


Here is a video posted shortly after Seth was taken to hospital, made by one of his friends...

Homophobia killed Asher Brown

Have a look at this face. You see a boy. I see a boy... He should be thinking about meeting up with friends, going camping, maybe dinner tonight with his parents

He was bullied to death. He is dead.

Asher Brown, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Hamilton Middle School outside Houston Texas.

He was bullied because he was small, because he was gay.

The story is here

11 year old cheerleader called "sissy" and has his arm broke

A young boy gets beaten by two boys who end up breaking his arm.  The boy is 11 years old.  He was beaten after being taunted and bullied for joining a cheer leading squad for a local football team.  The boys in his school called him a sissy and queer. 

This really pisses me off.  The boys who did this were not just being "boys".  They purposely bullied their classmate.  For all of those people out there that say we don't need strong and effective anti-bullying programs along with anti-homophobia instruction have a look at the video below.

This boy likely does not know if he is gay or not.  His arm was broken because some boys thought it was okay to beat the crap out of another boy they assumed to be gay.  Homophobia does not only affect queers, it affects all of us.

Due to many advancements in legal protections for gays, many people think its much easier in school today.  This story says otherwise.  Kids that appear different or do different things are cast out by those that feel its their right to do so.

These kids are not doing it on their own.  They are being taught these behaviours.  They may be modelling their parents, siblings, or their church preacher when they attack someone that does not appear to conform to the norm as they have learned it to be.

From grade 10 on I was the victim of bullying and homophobia, much before I learned myself that I was gay.  It was okay then to beat the crap out of a homo, queer, or fag.  Its still okay today as you can see.  We have a long way to go before every child is afforded a safe healthy experience in a public school.



Link to Fox 8 News story - Findlay Ohio

Recalling a "fag" beating in highschool

Warning, Not a "fun" read...

My own story of school is not unlike the topic in which Simon in Montreal posts about on his blog and the post below this one.

I have mentioned a few times what happened to me as a teen in high school. It was pretty much hell a lot of the time. That's not to say I did not experience good times as well, I just wonder how many others were faced with having to hide behind pillars so bullies wouldn't see me, or wait for the bell to ring and the halls were empty to go to my locker. That made me a couple minutes late for class and often a lecture from the teacher.

As awful as being called out in front of the whole class for being late again, it was better than the likelihood of being caught out in the hall and called fag or dicksucker or worse by people that had no reason to think such things of me. I didn't even know I was gay myself.

I had excelled in high school early on, I was a good athlete in soccer and rugby despite being the smallest guy in school. I didn't like gym, climbing ropes, chin-ups etc. I did them but not without a great deal of fear of failing at them.

In grade ten I became more than someone that was "simply" the subject of name calling and being pushed around, tripped or pushed. I was attacked in an ambush.

Ten boys from my school stood and waited for me and my friend to walk down town for lunch through a church yard. As we approached the end of the church property they stepped out from behind the trees and blocked our path. They asked me where I was going. I told them and started to walk around them. They blocked us.

They were only interested in me, my friend was the high school basketball star. One guy grabbed me and started pushing me to the ground. I refused to be pushed and that is when he hit me. He swung his open hand and slapped me in the face, telling me I was a faggot. My nose was bleeding and my friend said cool it guys but was held back by two or three of them.

I kicked from behind. It was unexpected and caused me to fall. When I fell a guy jumped on me to keep me on the ground. He was slapping my face, demanding I admit I was a fag. Each time he would demand it, I kept my mouth shut. When I did not respond he started slapping me on my face, the back of my head, sometimes pulling my hair, raising my head off the ground.

This went on for several minutes and those around me started yelling insults. Some were not satisfied. They started kicking me in the side, on my legs. One guy kicked me in the jaw. They were laughing, demanding I tell them I was a fag. All this time they held my friend back.

I did not know I was a gay, I wondered what made them think I was. The attack kept up, until the lunch hour was almost over. They left us there, me bleeding from the nose, mouth and cuts on my head, arms and soon to be bruised all over.

We made it back to the school. I went to a washroom and cleaned up as best I could. I felt embarrassed that this happened to me. I needed to be tough. I knew that if I had admitted I was a Fag, these boys would never let up on me. I admitted nothing, said nothing. In the classroom after i was cleaned up, bruises started to appear and my face swelled up. My teacher was very concerned and asked what happened.

I refused to talk. I felt i was inferior for some reason, I could have avoided the beating some how. The teacher was persistent, I told him I was beat up by some guys. He wanted to know why, I said I didn't know.

No more attacks like that happened to me in school. It made me very weary of those around me. I was always watching out for those that had attacked me. I became very good at staying out of sight, out of the way. Nothing happened to these boys as a result of attacking me. Several of them turned out to be decent people when they became adults, three of them had problems with the law for years to come. Four of the attackers I know nothing more about.

I went to the library to look up Homosexual. I found it in a dictionary. It said something like "Homosexuals were sexual deviants, a psychological disorder." I don't recall exactly what it said today. The school had no place for me to go, no one to talk to about this. I certainly wasn't going to talk to a school counselor if he would think I was a pervert.

The word fag is used as a put down for anything bad. It is used to degrade, to hurt others gay and straight. Today some schools have GSA's. Gay Straight Alliances. Places youth can go for support. Not all schools have them. In fact most schools do not have them. Why no pressure from government to make it happen?

Homophobia is alive and thriving in our schools. As long as authorities and peers allow this behavior, all the rights in the world will not keep youth safe. More stories like mine will occur, and sadly, worse things will happen.

In the interim, the boys and girls that live through each assault lose a little more of themselves every time.

Canada is changing

Canada is changing

Good news for progressive folks...

A new poll shows youth will bring positive change in the years ahead, especially if they vote...

The teenagers of Metro Vancouver are a remarkably international and inter-cultural bunch. Metro Vancouver teens are by far the most likely in Canada to have inter-racial friendships. And the extensive foreign connections of B.C. teenagers affect their values -- how they see everything from war to homosexuality, global warming to God. According to ground-breaking new polling by Canadian sociologist Reginald Bibby, only 24 per cent of Metro Vancouver teenagers, or one in four, have parents born in Canada. Thirty-seven per cent of teens in Metro Vancouver were actually born outside the country, typically in Asia. - Vancouver Sun Douglas Todd

Just as gay marriage is gaining public support in the USA, Canada is seeing a growing change from the bottom up. Younger people are more likely to be supportive of the environment, human rights, gay marriage and being good worldly citizens.

DR. REGINALD W. BIBBY website

School Safety for Whom

School Safety for Whom

The Reality of Homophobic and Transphobic Violence in Canadian Schools

LIVE BROADCAST

Tune in on Wednesday, April 1, 2009
5:30 to 8:00pm.

The School Safety for Whom panel will be broadcast live at the following link:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/school-safety-4-whom

The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto in conjunction with Egale Canada, Elementary Teachers Federation of Canada, The Centre for Leadership & Diversity, OISE The Centre for Urban Schooling, OISE, Central Toronto Youth Services, Griffin Centre, Rainbow Health Ontario, Triangle Program

Presents:
School Safety for Whom?
The Reality of Homophobic and Transphobic Violence in Canadian Schools
April 1, 2009
OISE Library, 252 Bloor Street West
5:30 – 8:00 pm

A panel of educators, policymakers, researchers and students responding to Egale Canada’s First
National Climate Survey on Homophobia and Transphobia in Canadian Schools

Please RSVP: sexual.diversity@utoronto.ca

Daily Shame #5

Daily Shame #5

BC refuses to make new course compulsory or even an elective...
Homophobia - licensed to pursue in BC
First Quebec and now British Columbia gets in on the act (part way) and the religious right is up in arms on Pacific as they are on the St. Lawrence. The Ministry of Education is offering an elective course which school boards and can choose to offer or not. The BC minister of education has stated the course would not be compulsory as a similar one in Quebec is.

At issue is a course the ministry developed after they lost a human rights complaint. The resulting settlement agreement was that a course be created addressing diversity, respect and tolerance for BC school children. The course is called MAKING SPACE, GIVING VOICE.

The school system therefore strives to create and maintain conditions that foster success for all students and that promote fair and equitable treatment for all. These conditions include;
• equitable access to and equitable participation in quality education for all students
• school cultures that value and honour diversity and respond to the diverse social and cultural needs of the communities they serve
• school cultures that promote understanding of others and respect for all
• learning and working environments that are safe and welcoming, and free from discrimination, harassment and violence
• decision-making processes that give a voice to all members of the school community
• policies and practices that promote fair and equitable treatment for all.
(Diversity in BC Schools: A Framework, 2004, p.

Alas the BC government has not made the course mandatory as an offered elective. Each school district can choose to make it available or not. That's why this has hit the news. A BC couple, Murray and Peter Corren, have taken the School District in Abbotsford to the BC Human Rights tribunal for failing to offer the elective course even after 90 students have signed on to take it.

Murray Corren said... 
"We have waited long enough for the Board to reconsider its decision,
and now we feel the students are entitled to the learning opportunities
afforded by Social Justice 12, as opposed to the replacement watered-down
course offered by the Board. In fact, the students and their parents were
fully aware of the content of Social Justice 12 and were looking
forward to what it had to offer."The National Post says... 'The Education Ministry, Social Justice 12 is not
a course on homosexuality, but one meant to "raise students' awareness of
social injustice, to enable them to analyze from a social justice perspective,
and to provide them with knowledge, skills and an ethical framework to
advocate for a socially just world."'

Class discussion varies from a range of topics affecting society's aggrieved, including homophobia, ageism, consumerism and even species-ism -- the mistreatment of animals.

The class is expected to discuss a wide range of issues. One of those that has the ire of the religious right, such as the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL), is about those people that have sex with the same sex. You know who they are, all those fags, gays, queers, lesbos, trannies.

It seems CCRL have still not accepted the rights of all Canadians, just those that agree with them. I can hardly wait for us to get the public money out of the discriminatory Catholic school education system here in Ontario. That will take time I expect as the Premier of this province won't rock the boat at least not until after the next election.

The Shame here is largely however with the BC Minister of Education and the Gordon Campbell government. They have consistently shied away from moving forward on equality issues. In 2000, the then BC NDP government joined the court fight for marriage rights of same-sex couples. The Campbell government, soon after being sworn in withdrew their support of the effort.

The BC Govt could at least have some of the moxie displayed by the Quebec government. Ensuring this course, "Making Space, Giving Voice," was an available elective in BC schools is the least the Campbell Government could do. Their failure provides a license to promote homophobia as the unofficial official school policy.

See Montreal Simon: Bullied Children and the Gay Bashers

Gay writer uninvited to New Brusnwick schools

Young and alone...

Alex Sanchez was invited to speak to students about gay youth and their struggle to find acceptance after going through his own struggles as a teenager in high school.

Excerpt from Rainbow Boys ...

"...He'd read about the group for teens in his school newspaper the previous spring. He'd torn out the phone number and carried it in his wallet for weeks. Every so often he would unfold it, stare at the numbers, then fold it up again -- until one evening, when his parents and sister were out and he was home alone, he uncreased the scrap of paper and dialed the number.

A man answered: "Rainbow Youth Hot Line." Jason slammed the receiver back into its cradle and jumped up. He couldn't believe he was actually going through with this.

After a while, his breathing slowed and he called again. This time he stayed on the phone. The voice on the other end of the line was friendly and warm, not at all what he expected.

"Are you gay?" Jason asked, just to be sure. The man laughed. "Of course."

Charlotte County schools in New Brunswick decided against having a gay writer speak to high school students after a protest from a few parents.

His break out book was Rainbow Boys...

"An important, groundbreaking book, Rainbow Boys takes an honest look at gay teen life today. The characters are enormously appealing and the situations as contemporary as the evening news. This is a book that could change thinking--and could very well change lives." - James Howe, author of The Watcher

Principals from the local schools were not comfortable allowing him to address their students after hearing from some parents. There does not seem to have been a ground swell of parents protesting the planned talks with students at several high schools.

Jay Remer, a spokesperson for one of the sponsoring groups, the Charlotte County Rainbow Support Group, told CBC, "Sanchez is a terrific public speaker whose message is about tolerance..." Remer added, "Sanchez’s mission is 'to help the gay youth in the community to feel less isolated and more part of the community as a whole.'"

The school district superintendent, Keith Pierce said he changed his mind about allowing the author to speak in area schools after meeting with school principals. "A few of them were getting pressure from a few parents, and they just weren’t comfortable going in that direction," Pierce told CBC.

Lifesite news reported that the principal of Fundy High School in St. George, Lynn Farmakoulas stated...

"We made a decision that we couldn't take any more time away from the learning of students. That was the reason we decided not the have the speaker in."

It seems to me that this is learning, its about making schools safe for all and its about understanding and tolerance. That is part of learning. This is an issue that schools in many parts of Canada fail. They fail all of their students, not just those that are queer or questioning their sexuality.

It is stories like this one that tell me we are a long way from acceptance and understanding what queer youth face in school. It's not good enough to say you support queer youth if they still don't feel safe or unable to be who they are without being subject to ridicule or abuse.

Sanchez's two New Brunswick appearances are listed below...

Mon Oct 20 - 7pm
Wesley United Church
77 William Street
St. Andrews, New Brunswick

Tues Oct 21 - 7 pm
Mary Oland Theatre
New Brunswick Museum
Saint John, New Brunswick

Charlotte County is located in the South Western corner of New Brunswick. You can contact the school district with this information:

Keith Pierce, Superintendent
School District 10 Main Office
11 School Street
St. Stephen, NB E3L 2N4
Phone: 506-466-7301
Fax: 506-466-7868
website: http://www.district10.nbed.nb.ca


recommend this post

Notwithstanding a few rules and a new supply of fresh meat

Can it be?

The Harper proposal to significantly change youth justice has some big hurdles to climb. Did the Conservatives know this? If they did they are playing with us again.

Aside from the stark truth put out by Mr. Duceppe who stated that teen-aged criminals sent to prison under Mr. Harper's plan to crack down on youth crime would be “fresh meat” for the perversions of adult inmates, the Conservatives Youth Justice Reform proposal is a likely violation of the Charter if passed by Parliament as is.

A bright sparky blogger has found a hole in the Conservative Justice Reform bill, suggesting Mr. Harper would have to invoke the Charter's Notwithstanding clause, not once but twice to make the proposal law...

Now my questions is, does anyone out there think that if Harper had a majority, that he would not use the Notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights to achieve his political agenda?

Coming out still hard

ONE month before Zach O’Connor, a seventh grader at Brown Middle School here, came out about being gay, he was in such turmoil that he stood up in homeroom and, in a voice everyone could hear, asked a girl out on a date. It was Valentine’s Day 2003, and Zach was 13.
“I was doing this to survive,” he says. “This is what other guys were doing, getting girlfriends. I should get one, too.”

He feared his parents knew the truth about him. He knew that his father had typed in a Google search starting with “g,” and several other recent “g” searches had popped up, including “gay.”

see Accepting Gay Identity, and Gaining Strength