The responses were taken from the organization’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People which made the following open-ended request to respondents (who were between the ages of 13 and 24): “We would love for you to share a message of advice or encouragement to other young people in the LGBTQ community.”
“I walk around my city, and I see businesses that have gay pride flags and pride flags in their windows,” one gay man said.
One respondent wrote, “Finding a sense of community helps so much, whether it’s online or in person. Just find a place where you can ask questions and read about other people’s experiences.”
Another stressed the importance of envisioning a better future and doing what one can to cultivate community support now.
“Find your group and work towards where you wanna be in life and you’ll make it there,” one wrote, as other offered encouraging words like, “Keep pushing,” “Keep going for another day,” “Just keep going, please,” and “Please keep strong.”
Another urged resilience and perseverance. “Be yourself always,” they wrote. “You may lose connections along the way but trust, there’s someone out there who will love you.” Another respondent agreed, writing, “Just look for the people who love you no matter what.”
Others urged self-compassion and patience as young people figure out their identities. One such message said, “Don’t rush finding your identity. Take your time to explore, and don’t be afraid to take up labels if they feel right at the time.”
Some respondents suggested repeating self-affirmations like the following:
I love you.
I believe in you.
You got this.
You are so strong and you are deserving of love always.
“Wake up everyday, and tell yourself you love yourself — until, one day, you believe it,” one young person wrote.
Other respondents acknowledged the adversity faced by young LGBTQ+ people, whether in politics or unaccepting homes.
“[It’s] very easy to think that the entire world [despises] you for who you are when your home environment conveys that,” one wrote. “You might not feel safe and happy now,” another wrote, “but hopefully, there will come a day when you find your home.”
“Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel,” one respondent wrote.
Another added, “I know things look down right now and it’s hard to see past the hate that’s being spread but it always helps to remember that most people don’t hate us and that there are tons of us out there that are willing to help.”
“We’ve always been here. And we always will be,” another wrote. “They cannot erase us.”
Other respondents advised doing things to lessen negativity.
“Ignore the Idiots and cut people off if [you] have too [sic]. Life is too short to care what people think about you and they don’t even have to live your life and experience the things you do.”
In the same vein, another respondent replied, “Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel.”
“Peer support is associated with lower levels of emotional and behavioral distress among LGBTQ+ young people,” the Trevor Project wrote. “However, not all LGBTQ+ young people have consistent access to peer support, especially LGBTQ+ young people who hold multiple marginalized identities.”
As such “hearing words of encouragement and advice from fellow LGBTQ+ young people has never been more needed,” the group added.
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Randy sent me this. This is what I have been talking about. I hope you will take the time to watch the short one and the 3:31 minute video. Not the most riveting I admit. But it is designed for little kids. Did you spot any mention of the sex of the penguins? In all the book there is only one small hint and little kids won’t notice it. I went looking for it because I wanted to know how so many people were sure the penguins were a same sex couple. One word, one made up word not even in the writings or spoken in the video. Hint it is on the cover of the book. The name of their home and where they baked the cakes. Pengrooms. One other clue is the rainbow colored boards on the tree. Yup for that the book must never be seen or read ever. It is a sin, a horror for kids to see or hear. It is a cute little kids book. Randy informed me that enough people contacted Amazon about the fake negative comments that they were removed.
See it is not about protecting kids, it is not about sexualizing kids, it is not about confusing kids that these people fear and hate. It is about acceptance and tolerance of something different from them that they don’t agree with. To them there is no live and let live. There is no you do your thing and I will do me. To them the world and all in it must be just as they are, do as they do, believe as they believe. And most important worship who they worship. They demand a bland world where only the things they celebrate are seen and heard, where their way is superior to all others.
It is about removing all mention of LGBTQ+ from society. It is about removing everything not straight cis from media of any type. The misnamed one million moms who is one lady with a computer and a printer along with a few thousand followers on social media complains bitterly about any commercial that has even the hint of a same sex couple in it, even a hint. It is hurting the children see. The goal is making sure LGBTQ+ kids, and yes there are LGBTQ+ kids, don’t see or know anyone like themselves anywhere. It is so they don’t feel accepted. They feel they must hide who they are and tell no one. They want those kids who are born different and feel that difference to be deep in the closet and stay there, never to come out and be happy as their true selves. These groups pushing this hate want no anti-bullying programs as they want kids who are different to be picked on, harassed, and beat up. They do not want them accepted by their peers, teachers and fellow students. No they want them beaten up. I know this because one of the co-authors of the Florida don’t say gay bill said it was why he helped write the bill. That gay kids, that trans kids could be accepted by classmates and treated fairly drove him to tears. Yes tears. I saw him weep as he spoke of those kinds of kids finding acceptance in the classroom.
One guy using social media has already gotten a dozen big name companies to roll back and remove their DEI programs and support for the LGBTQ+ including pride merchandise and parades. Because he and the others like him threaten these companies with the threat of accusing them of harming kids and trying to hurt their businesses they give in. One guy is spearheading this but there are others. They are driven to remove us from society, in this guy’s case so his god will love him and give him an afterlife. We need to stand up against this guy and these haters. We have to do that. We must not let them drive the country back to 1950 not even to 1980. We must remain visible and fight for the rights of all of us. We don’t drop a letter here or there from our community to please the haters. We have seen in history they never stop with just the one group, they work to get rid of them all. We must get vocal, we must fight back. Hugs
I am sorry but how does this protect any student or adult … it also includes higher education. Notice this part … About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is in a country of 337 million people.
This is only a hate bill based on the absurd idea that trans women want to assault girls. Notice it is always trans girls / women they talk about never trans boys or trans men. It is a made up problem that never happened so they have to destroy a small minority of people’s lives to prove a point of their bigotry. I am so sick of this posturing on the part of republicans trying to do to trans what they couldn’t do to the gays 30 years ago. It is the same tactics and hate they promote. If you want to know the real cost listen to the trans students who quit school because they had nowhere to go to the bathroom, or the trans students who were given approved bathrooms so far from their classes that they missed some and got bad marks for simply needing to pee before the class started. These bills have real world consequences for young people in every state. It is not just the bathroom issue but it makes a trans person a target even if there is a “trans bathroom” assigned. It means any student using it is outing themselves to the ones that want to target them for abuse.
Again this solves no problem but does promote hate and bigotry … and it is driven by religious bigotry because of the fundamentalist belief that their god created them male and female only. They are demanding we run our society, or 2024 understands on the book written by religious leaders 2,500 years ago. Think about it, these people had no idea of everything we take for granted today, yet the fundamentalist who demand we ;deny rights to trans people do it based on that book of people who did not even understand germs! These bills are designed to promote a religion and a religious view of life / morality in the public life. I am an old gay man, this still affects me. Because bigotry against one group’s rights is bigotry against all people’s rights! If these people get the right to exclude trans people from bathrooms what is next? Gay people on the same idea that we are a threat? Or hell watch about the old segregation idea that blacks are a threat to whites in bathrooms? See this is the same playbook. This is not different from black people shouldn’t be in white people’s bathrooms. Hugs
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law banning transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match up with their gender identity.
The law requires people at Ohio K-12 schools and universities use the restroom that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. It also bans students from sharing overnight accommodations with people of the opposite sex from their assigned sex at birth at K-12 schools.
This does not prevent a school from having single-occupancy facilities and does not apply to someone helping a person with a disability or a child younger than 10 years old being assisted by a parent, guardian or family member.
The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.
Several transgender Ohioans, allies and educators called on DeWine to veto the bill. The Ohio Capital Journal recently talked to a family who plans on moving out of Ohio because of anti-transgender legislation at the Statehouse.
The bathroom ban (House Bill 183) was added to a bill that revises College Credit Plus (Senate Bill 104) in the eleventh hour of a House Session at the end of June before the lawmakers went on an extended break.
The American Medical Association officially opposes policies preventing transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities consistent with gender identity.
Slightly more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in Ohio considered suicide in 2022, according to the Trevor Project.
About a third of LGBTQ+ students were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender and slightly more than a quarter were stopped from using the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to Ohio’s 2021 state snapshot by GLSEN, which examines the school experiences of LGBTQ middle and high school students.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives his 2024 State of the State address in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday afternoon. (Pool photo by Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Dispatch.)
Forty-two percent of transgender and nonbinary students were unable to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender and 36% couldn’t use the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to the Ohio GLSEN report.
Transgender youth who can’t use the bathroom that aligns with their gender are at a greater risk of sexual violence, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Pediatrics.
Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Tennessee’s laws have all been challenged. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Idaho’s law last year.
North Carolina made history in 2016 by becoming the first state to ban bathroom access to transgender people. The law was quickly appealed in 2017 and settled in federal court in 2019, but the state ended up losing hundreds of millions of dollars as the NBA All-Star Game and NCAA events were moved out of state.
This is a completely different video than the one I posted before. I am sorry that I posted that one. I hated the glitches in it. So I trashed it. I did it before I looked to see if It had comments. If you left comments please put them on this one. This one is longer and more in depth, but done with a higher resolution and done at 3 am this morning so I sound better and more coherent. There are no glitches of either video or audio that I could see / hear. I hope you will enjoy it. Today I am going to dump both computers starting at 12:30 pm. I have the laptop running if I need it. Hugs. Scottie
I read a bunch of headlines I have in open tabs and I talk about the stories they pertain to briefly. Nothing in depth, just generalized information in the public sphere of information. If there is a topic you wish me to cover in more detail please mention it in the comments. Hugs
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joins Meet the Press to discuss his criticism of the Democratic Party and what’s next for Democrats after Kamala Harris’ projected loss.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump walks from the podium after speaking at a campaign rally at Lee’s Family Forum, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Henderson, Nev. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
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FILE – Protesters advocating for transgender rights and healthcare stand outside of the Ohio Statehouse, Jan. 24, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Orsagost, File)
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FILE – Jude Armstrong and fellow Benjamin Franklin High playwriting class students perform their play, “The Capitol Project,” on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol in Baton Rouge, La., March 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
We knew he was going to go to this, but remember the only one talking about trans people was the republicans. Harris never mentioned them. This is totally a manufactured outrage. No one cared before a few religious republicans got talking constantly about it. I think you all need to ask yourself how trans people affect your lives? There are what 1,400 trans people in the country? There are 5 trans kids in sports? There has never been a trans woman sweep the awards at any event yet that was the constant talking point. Trans women who they mistakenly call men / boys are going to steal your daughter’s trophy. But it never happened and they couldn’t show it. How was this something people voted to switch the election on? Think on it right wing voters on how you were played. So silly and stupid. Plus the religious people now in charge of the military intend to remove trans people and gay people. That will not only harm readiness because the military keeps saying it doesn’t affect the readiness at all. I know from experience that if you remove the LGBTQ+ from the military, it will gut the military entirely and that will harm readiness. Hugs
Transgender youth in the United States have been flooding crisis hotlines since the election of Donald Trump, who made anti-transgender themes central to his campaign. Many teens worry about how their lives could change once he takes office.
During his presidential bid, Trump pledged to impose wide-ranging restrictions and roll back civil rights protections for transgender students. And his administration can swiftly start work on one major change: It can exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms.
One ad that aired over 15,000 times crystallized Trump’s stance on rights for transgender and nonbinary Americans: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
For one Alabama teen, the ad seemed to paint transgender and nonbinary people as a threat to society. The weekend before Election Day, the 16-year-old teen, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns “he” and “they,” called a crisis hotline at the Rainbow Youth Project. The group that serves LGBTQ+ young people has received more than 5,500 calls to its crisis hotline in the past 10 days, up from the 3,700 calls it typically gets every month.
The teen was in despair and struggling with suicidal thoughts, according to his mother, Carolyn Fisher. She said she hadn’t realized the depth of her child’s depression and how painful it was for him to see political ads that felt like a personal attack.
With the help of crisis counselors, Fisher said her teen has begun feeling better. But bullying at school has gotten worse, with some students telling her child Trump is going to make him “go back in the closet,” Fisher said.
”The kids who have taunted him are now proud of themselves, and they rub it in,” she said.
Opposition to transgender rights was a focal point of Trump’s campaign: Republican ads attacking political opponents over transgender or LGBTQ+ issues have aired over 290,000 times on network TV since March 2023, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact.
The messaging may have resonated with many Americans. More than half of voters overall — and the vast majority of Trump supporters — said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide.
President Joe Biden’s administration expanded recognition of transgender rights just this year. Interpretation of Title IX, a landmark sex discrimination law, is largely up to the executive branch, although court rulings can affect enforcement.
Originally passed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a women’s rights law. This year, Biden’s administration said the law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but Trump can undo that. Biden’s new guidance had limited implementation in any case: After a spate of lawsuits, courts had issued injunctions pausing the rule in 26 states.
“Title IX will be a top priority. It is emblematic of all the culture war issues that have been created over the past few years surrounding gender identity versus sex,” said Candice Jackson, a lawyer who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the first Trump administration.
Trump also has said he would ask Congress to pass a bill stating there are “only two genders” and to ban hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender youth in all 50 states. Most Republican-controlled states already have banned gender-affirming health care for transgender youth under age 18 or 19, and several have adopted policies limiting which school bathrooms trans people can use.
While Biden’s election-year guidance did not extend to transgender students in sports, Trump has promised to end “boys in girls’ sports.” The administration likely would “approach these issues from a traditional understanding” of what Title IX has meant, “with a biological, binary understanding of sex,” said Bob Eitel, who served during the first Trump administration as a senior counselor to the education secretary.
In the U.S., 3.3% of high school students identify as transgender and another 2.2% question their gender, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released last month.
The survey found 72% of transgender and gender-questioning teens experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in the past year. These teens also reported higher rates of bullying at school compared with peers. About 1 in 4 transgender students said they had attempted suicide in the past year, the CDC said.
LGBTQ+ advocates are mobilizing to address the despair they see rising among transgender and nonbinary youth. The Rainbow Youth Project, for one, has increased virtual peer groups and town halls so LGBTQ+ youth can connect. Another organization, It Gets Better, has focused on reaching young people online through social media platforms like Twitch and YouTube to create supportive environments even if legal protections are rolled back, said Brian Wenke, the group’s executive director.
Across the country, particularly in conservative areas, LGBTQ+ youth are discussing whether it would be safer to live somewhere else.
Jude Armstrong, a transgender high school senior in New Orleans, has led protests against Louisiana laws that regulated pronoun usage and discussions of gender and sexuality in the classroom. With the potential for federal changes on the horizon, Armstrong, 17, said he has thought of going to school in the United Kingdom, but worries about leaving behind the queer culture and history he loves at home.
“How do you feel like you’re protecting your own community when you’re leaving that community and going to another country?” he asked.
FILE – Jude Armstrong and fellow Benjamin Franklin High playwriting class students perform their play, “The Capitol Project,” on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol in Baton Rouge, La., March 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
Alejandro Jimenez, a sophomore at Texas State University, dreams of being a theater teacher in Texas. He knows how important it is for trans kids to see someone like them in the classroom. Now, he’s not sure if he’ll stay in his home state.
Already, tensions have risen on his campus in a way that makes him feel unsafe. The day after the election, two protestors held up signs that said, “Homo sex is sin” and “Women are property.”
“I feel it’s my duty to stay here, but I’m scared of being pushed out,” said Jimenez, who is transgender.
Under the new Trump administration, advocates worry efforts anywhere to accommodate transgender and nonbinary students could face scrutiny. Trump’s platform called for pulling federal funding for any school pushing “gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
“It sounds really dystopian to say that trying to be more inclusive could actually result in punishment from the federal government. But that is a risk,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director for the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
With so much uncertainty, Eli, an 18-year-old trans college student in New York, stressed the importance of community, especially online for youth who feel concerned right now.
“You are not alone,” said Eli, an ambassador for It Gets Better, who asked to be identified only by his first name for safety reasons. “We will come out the other side. There are queer adults who have lived long and happy lives, and you will get there too.”
