In wake of Columbine
White House excludes gay youth from 'summit' on
violence
By Sarah
Sloan
On April 21--the day after two white-supremacist teenagers
killed students, a teacher and then themselves at Columbine
High School in Littleton, Colo.--75 lesbian, gay, bi and trans
youths gathered at the Rain bow Alley in Denver, about 15 miles
away.
Many of them came to talk because they were afraid to return
to school the next day.
Mike Smith, the executive director of the Colorado Gay,
Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Services Center, which runs the
Rainbow Alley, said he expected the shootings to seriously
affect lesbian, gay, bi and trans young people across the
country.
But when President Bill Clinton called a "White House
Strategy Session on Children, Violence and Responsibility" and
invited 56 representatives of a variety of organizations, he
failed to include anyone representing the lesbian/gay/bi/trans
communities.
According to a May 7 New York Blade article, studies in
Vermont, Massachusetts and Washington schools found that
lesbian, gay, bi and trans students are four times more likely
to be injured with a weapon in school than straight students.
The 1995 Massachusetts survey found that this had happened to
67 percent of these students.
A 1997 book entitled "Lesbian and Gay Youth: Care and
Counseling" by Caitlin C. Ryan and Donna Futterman reported on
the high rate of violence against lesbian, gay, bi and trans
youths.
In a study of gay males ages 15 to 19, over two-thirds said
they had been verbally or physically abused in school.
Four-fifths of these youths started performing worse in school.
Two-fifths had skipped school at least 10 times in a year. And
28 percent dropped out of school.
A never-released 1997 New York study found that there were
15,000 to 30,000 homeless youths in the city. Some estimates
say that nationwide, 25 percent of homeless youth are lesbian,
gay, bi and trans. In Los Angeles it's 25 to 35 percent, and in
Seattle over 40 percent.
A study of the New York child welfare system found that 70
percent of lesbian, gay, bi and trans youths in the system had
been violently attacked and that 56 percent stayed on the
street because they felt safer there than in group or foster
homes.
To discuss issues of youth or violence and not include these
youths and their issues is itself a blatant act of anti-gay
bigotry.
But despite this terrible rate of brutality--including
violence at the hands of cops and prison guards and that
fomented by politicians--the lesbian/gay/bi/trans movement is
strong and growing.
On May 24, in a five to four split, the Supreme Court ruled
that Title IX, which addresses sexual harassment under the
federal Education Amendments Act of 1972, doesn't offer redress
only to students who are harassed by administrators. It also
covers the school's responsibility to stop student-to-student
harassment.
This decision may be helpful to lesbian, gay, bi and trans
students because of a previous ruling that said sexual
harassment includes anti-gay harassment.
Legal advances such as this one within such an anti-gay and
anti-trans system are a product of a strong, grassroots
movement in the streets that is fighting back.
Since the Columbine shootings, while discussing issues of
violence, Clinton has completely failed to address issues of
anti-gay and anti-trans violence.
He has also failed to address the more than two-month-long
violent war the United States is waging in Yugoslavia. That's
because politicians have no interest in showing that the U.S.
military killing machine and police brutality are the true root
of this type of right-wing youth violence.
And by manipulating people to focus on guns and Hollywood
rather than addressing the real issues of war, racism, lesbian/
gay/bi/trans oppression and sexism, these problems are
intentionally perpetuated.
The writer is a youth organizer
for Millions for Mumia and the
International Action Center and
a member of Workers World Party.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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