'You Are No Longer My Child' - LGBTQ Youth & Living In The Shadows

By Brody Levesque | Washington DC-- While a principal focus of many western LGBTQ activists is battling the theocratic political ideology of conservative societies in nations, which by and large are of a majority Christian nature regarding workplace and marriage equality issues, there is another grouping of queer persons demonised by religious doctrine- queer youth, who reside in these same societies and are often overlooked or just ignored.

In the United States, particularly after a rash of adolescent suicides in late 2010 by queer youth, a heightened sense of public awareness was created resulting in the onslaught of publicity and news coverage of those deaths.

Seattle based columnist Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" campaign, designed to combat those deaths with preventive messages of hope and inspiration, garnered the attention of Americans from all walks of life and sexual orientation to include the President of the United States, Barack Obama, who contributed his own video taped message telling LGBTQ youth that it does indeed get better.

Unfortunately, even with such proactive campaigns to assist and empower queer youth, there remains a vacuum in the American culture that allows thousands of queer youth to be kicked out of their homes and families simply because of religious based bigotry.

Carl Siciliano, the executive Director of the Ali Forney Centre in New York City, which provides temporary housing, food, educational programmes and counseling wrote last December:

"In New York City, there are 3,800 youths who sleep on the streets every night. Over 1,000 of these youths admit to being LGBT. There are only about 250 shelter beds for homeless youth in NYC, so the great majority are left stranded on the streets. LGBT kids from all over the country flock to our drop-in centers for the food, showers, medical care, mental health treatment and other forms of support we provide.

Our case managers work valiantly to help find shelter for these kids, but the reality is there are so few safe options for LGBT youth that we are often forced to advise them on how to survive while sleeping in places like subway trains, parks, abandoned buildings and construction sites as they wait for one of our beds to open up. 

Yesterday one of our case managers described spending the afternoon trying to find shelter for a girl who had just come to us. When his efforts were exhausted and he had to tell her that she would be out on the street for the night, she sat in his office and cried.I hate what I see our kids going through. 

So many thousands of vulnerable kids being cast out of their homes for being gay, deprived of all family support, and forced to fend for themselves without the resources to survive. I hate the way they suffer violence and degradation on the streets, the way they get gay bashed in mainstream shelters, the way so many have to survive through prostitution.I hate seeing youth be so deeply traumatized. 

This phenomenon of thousands of LGBT youth being thrown out to the streets by parents who will not accept them is the most terrible face of homophobia in our time. Is there is a greater wrong being perpetrated against our community? 

I do not understand why protecting our terribly violated and abandoned youth is not the top priority of the LGBT movement. I do not understand why our advocacy organizations are not fighting to make certain that our tax dollars are allocated to supporting these abandoned kids. It is a nightmare that there are so few resources to protect these kids."

Queer youth advocates angrily complain that what they derisively refer to as "Gay Inc.," the large well funded organisations fighting for queer equality rights, oft times deliberately overlook LGBTQ youth, instead channeling all of their combined funding and publicity efforts into orchestrating workplace and marriage equality legislative victories.

Raising awareness is difficult as photojournalist Samantha Box noted in her critically acclaimed photo-essay: Invisible: The crisis of LGBT Youth Homelessness. Box writes:

"By being homeless in a society that discriminates against LGBT people, these young people have been rejected twice: first by their homes, families and communities, and then by the services and systems that are supposed to help and protect them. Caught in the intersection of race, poverty, gender expression and sexuality, these young adults fight to find their way through a society that chooses not to see or help them."

Published statistical data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the number of homeless and runaway youth in America ranges from 575,000 to 1.6 million per year. It is conservatively estimated that between 20 and 40 percent of those youths identify themselves as LGBTQ. 

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School’s Center for Adolescent Health in Baltimore, Maryland, have found that it is nearly impossible to facilitate the needs of these queer homeless youth because they are for the most part off the radar of government and relief agencies.

Americans rarely will acknowledge the thousands of homeless youth hiding in the shadows of society, struggling to survive in today's competitive economic system. These youth often lack skills necessary to support themselves and are disconnected with adults willing to make a long-term commitment to their protection. Independent homeless adolescents are left to fend for themselves on the rough streets—finding their own food, seeking protection from harsh weather, and dealing with their own psychological and personal issues.

One youth activist lamented that the greater community of queer adult's political interest seems to narrow to highly visible marriage and workplace related issues without regard to the future generations that are living on the streets currently and may not survive to reap the benefits of that advocacy. Providing for queer youth is also coming to the forefront of political actions by advocacy groups that are focused on assisting queer youth as budgetary cutbacks and scaling down of government funding threatens much needed services.

In western European nations, invisibility becomes a greater problem for young queer adults particularly effected by religious based bigotry by the Islamic faith.

For example, in France, the charity organisation Le Refuge is a lifesaver -- literally. Since 2003, the organization has helped hundreds of desperate LGBTQ youths, most of them from Muslim families, who have been rejected by their families and forced onto the streets. But the charity is overwhelmed by the number of people seeking assistance.

In a recent March 2011 article in the online edition of the German publication Der Spiegel, writer Annika Sartor tells the story of a young 23 year old Gay muslim, Amine. (Not his real name.)

Amine had told his parents that he was Gay and now cannot forget the last words he heard from his father. Six words that destroyed his life. "You are no longer my son."
That night, the 23-year-old couldn't sleep. At dawn, as his family slept, he slipped out of the house. He didn't say goodbye to anyone -- not to his mother, or to his sisters. At 7 a.m. he stood with a packed suitcase at the train station, waiting for the train to Paris.
Amine's father had rejected him because he is gay. There was no way back.
Newly arrived in Paris, Amine wandered through the street, not sure where to go. On the Internet, someone finally offered him a place to stay. But it was dirty and stank. And as Amine went to sleep one night, the stranger forced himself into his bed.
Three days later, Amine moved out, and was on the street again. Exhausted, he spent the night on a park bench. When he woke up the next morning, he realized someone had stolen everything from him: his wallet, cell phone, passport and money.

Le Refuge's founder, Nicolas Noguier, says that the organisation has cared for about 400 young people, including 80 in the last year alone. According to Noguier, about 70 percent of the people living there are young men. Most come from Muslim families.

Le Refuge, is France's only shelter for gay and transgender youth who are abandoned by their families. With its main office in Montpellier, the organization also operates in Paris, Lyon, and Marseille.

With the help of psychologists and volunteers, Le Refuge works to reestablish stability and structure in the lives of fallen youth, as well as to resolve conflicts within families. Unfortunately, however, the headquarters is currently under the threat of closure, reports Spiegel. At the end of 2010, the organization had a budget shortfall of €70,000 ($97,000).

Experts state that unless more immediate attention is paid to directly addressing the collateral damages caused by religious bigotry coupled with a pervasive attitude of indifference among adult LGBT persons and community leaders, there will continue to be high rates of suicides and drug abuse leading to death or health issues for queer youth.