Letter From the Editor

OutWrite is family.

Say What!?

“And what would be practical, Theodore? To get married and move to the suburbs and become a home-loving, child-raising, god-fearing, imitation heterosexual? And for what? So that I can become another dead soul going to the mall and dropping my kids off at school and having barbecues in the backyard? That’s their death, not mine. I’m a cock-sucker. I’m queer. And to anyone who takes pity or offense, I say ‘judge yourself.’ This is where I live. This is who I am.” -Brian, Queer As Folk

“Homosexuals represent a threat to the community in that when they commit suicide by jumping from buildings, they sometimes hit passers-by.” -The FBI Training Manual, 1968

“If you wanna hit me, go right ahead, only I’m not gonna cry like some little faggot. And if you wanna send me away to school that’s all right too because I bet more butt-fucking goes on in boarding school than in the backroom of Babylon. But whatever you do, it’s not gonna matter because I’ll still be your queer son.” - Justin to his father, Queer As Folk

“[on coming out] Why tell anyone? Why lose everything when it can just be your little secret? You see, it was different for me. Everyone could tell who I was from the start and it didn’t make my life any easier. I’ve been beaten up, cursed at, spit on, ignored... but in a way it was worth it. Because I have never had to live a lie and I’m not about to start now. Not for you, not for anyone.” -Emmett, Queer As Folk

“I’m the man that I want to be... If you can’t be proud of me for that, that’s your problem.” –Justin to his father, Queer As Folk

(referring to the word “dyke” spray-painted on Peyton’s locker)
Brooke: Nobody’s taking this seriously.
Peyton: Really? Because half the girls in P.E. wouldn’t change in front of me.
Brooke: That’s because you look better than they do naked.”
-One Tree Hill

“…it’s not about who I am, okay? It’s about who they are. They are people who hate, and they divide, and they feed off of people who don’t fight back. Yeah, I could laugh this off, but what about the girl who can’t? Who’s gonna help her? Silence only makes them stronger.”
-Peyton, One Tree Hill

News Updates

Maine Repeals Same-Sex Marriage
On November 4, voters in Maine repealed a law that legalized same-sex marriage. Nearly 53 percent of voters backed the measure which repealed a law passed by the state legislature in May. The passage of Proposition 1 signified a major setback for proponents of gay marriage and highlighted a discouraging trend emerging across the nation – same-sex marriage has been defeated in all 31 states in which it has been put to a popular vote.  But LGBT advocates are standing strong. “We’re in this for the long haul,” said Jesse Connolly, manager of the pro-gay marriage campaign in Maine. “For next week, and next month, and next year — until all Maine families are treated equally.”

Obama on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
President Obama, during a speech made at the Human Rights Campaign banquet on October 10, stated firmly, “I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’” In the face of criticism regarding promises he made during his Presidential campaign, Obama still did not make it clear just how or when he was going to accomplish this goal.  Yet the President was nevertheless greeted with applause and a standing ovation at the events suggesting that Obama still provides hope for those seeking equal rights for the LGBT community.  “I’m here with a simple message,” said Obama, “I’m here with you in that fight.”
Girl Not Allowed to Wear a Tux in Graduate Photo
When 17-year old Ceara Sturgis wanted to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook graduation photo, school officials at Wesson Attendance Center in Mississippi said no. The American Civil Liberties Union stepped in by writing a letter asserting that Sturgis, an openly gay student, has every right to have her photo published in the yearbook.  They demanded that the school comply with publishing the photo by October 23 or face legal action. As of the specified date, Wesson Attendance Center has rejected the ACLU’s request.  The lawsuit is currently pending.

Harvey Milk Day
On October 11, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a measure designating May 22 as Harvey Milk Day. While the governor vetoed same measure last year, President Obama’s awarding Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and an Academy Award-winning film about Milk’s life moved Schwarzenegger to sign the bill, spokesman Aaron McLear said. The Governor also signed into law a measure giving same-sex couples married in other states all the rights of marriage in California.

Same-sex marriage on ballot in 2010?
Nearly 60 percent of California voters don’t want to place the same-sex marriage issue back on the ballot in 2010 according to a Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California poll. A small majority of voters still support the right of gay couples to marry but the poll demonstrated voters’ reluctance to revisit the issue so soon after the 2008 passage of Proposition 8. The survey interviewed 1,500 registered voters from Oct. 27 through Nov. 3.

Campus

UCLGAY

by Krystal Rincon

Everyone has a family. Whether they’re a close family, a distant family, a large or small family, everyone has a group of people who they’re attached to... whether they want to be or not. For most people, these families are the kind that one is born into, families in the traditional sense of a mom and dad a brother and a sister.
In the LGBT community, family can take on a whole new meaning. From the day they come out, many LGBT individuals run the risk of compromising their position in their traditional families so they can live their natural queer lifestyles. When they are met with rejection from their traditional families, queer people need some shoulders to lean on. This is when we develop our queer families.
A queer family is much like a normal group of friends. It’s a community where someone can be all degrees of themselves in all moments of time. A space filled with people who love and care about their self because they are queer rather than merely ‘dealing’ with it. It’s a space where there is never an argument about who you are or why you are the way you are.
When I first got to UCLA, I was very hesitant about searching for a queer family. First of all, being part of such a thing required that I be completely out and okay with myself, and I wasn’t there yet. I had plenty of friends who knew about and accepted my sexuality, and I thought that that was enough. My sexuality didn’t need more attention, and it definitely didn’t need its own family.
But, as I’ve come to realize, sexuality does need attention. Humans are not purely sexual creatures but, let’s face it, sexuality is immensely important in our lives. Who we’re attracted to and why plays a huge part of our day-to-day conversations and thought processes. Even though some people may think about it more than others, everyone needs some time to express their sexuality. 
When I finally ventured into the UCLA queer community, I discovered what an impact a queer family can have on identity. I wasn’t the token lesbian in a group, I didn’t have to think twice about complimenting a woman, and I could joke about sex and relationships - all without running the risk of making anyone around me uncomfortable. It was identity liberation.
It’s the people I surrounded myself with that are responsible for this liberation. My fellow Bruins created an openness and sense of freedom on this campus that I have yet to find anywhere else.
Cole Humbert, a member of the gay and bisexual fraternity on campus, has had a similiar experience with his queer community. “UCLA definitely encouraged me to be out and proud. My hometown was very conservative, as were my parents, which made UCLA seem like the safest haven that could ever be out there.”
Much of the credit of creating these “safe environments” for the UCLA queer community goes to queer student organizations. At UCLA, there are 13 student organizations oriented towards the queer community. That’s at least 13 opportunities to find or create a queer family of sorts. Though each may have its own tagline, mission statement, and crowd, all are united in the sense that they create spaces for queer people to be queer people.
“My fraternity for gay, bisexual and progressive men, called Delta Lambda Phi, would be my queer family on campus,” explained Cole.  “They introduced me to my first gay club, my first relationship, my first break-up, etc.”
And it’s as simple as that. Many queer student organizations generate these social spaces to stabilize the queer experience. Being surrounded by people who share the same emotions or similar experiences can shape self-identity and acceptance much more than most realize.
Although student organizations are the safest and most direct way for queer bruins to start to develop their queer family, there are other avenues. Allies on campus have created an excellent queer family for those who choose not to participate in organizations.
Justin Yu is a student who created a queer family without any set organization. “UCLA is a great environment because it is very accepting. You don’t feel like you are alone because there are so many other people like you,” says Justin Yu. “I joke that I have a ‘gayru’ (guru) and a faghag. I’m glad that the lines can blur between hetero and homosexual friends.”
What makes a queer family so powerful is its ability to both embrace and ignore being queer at the same time. You can be part of the family because you are queer, but being queer does not define your position in that family or anywhere else.  “My favorite thing about my queer family is that being gay is not the most important thing about me. I’m their friend first, their gay friend later,” explains Justin Yu.
This acceptance in the UCLA community creates a unique and appreciated environment for our queer students. From encouraging student organization to supportive peers and allies, UCLA students have done a great job in creating safe spaces for an entire community of students who are often marginalized and discriminated against.
Whether it’s Cornerstone, Delta Lambda Phi, Student Coalition for Marriage Equality, Queer Alliance, Gamma Rho Lambda, Won Together,  OutWrite or random peers and acquaintances – Queer Bruins, choose your family here.

Features

Siblings: The Best Support You Can Find

by Rich Yap

    My younger brother, Kyle, was the first person I came out to. I remember it like it was yesterday: it had been a week since I had graduated high school, and I decided that I was at a point in my life where I did not want to keep hiding who I was from the world. There was nothing remarkable about the way I told him. We were hanging out in my room and I just blurted it out. The news did not shock him.
    I had anticipated him feeling confused, maybe upset, and definitely full of questions. Instead, I ended up being the one confused and full of questions. I didn’t understand how he could be so calm about the whole thing when I had been agonizing over how I would tell him. But the fact of the matter was that he had suspected it all along.
    “I didn’t really think too much about it,” he said, concerning how I came out to him. “I mean, I wasn’t surprised, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. You weren’t like other dudes. I don’t know, I somehow just knew.”
    My sister Jane, on the other hand, had no inkling that I might be gay. I came out to her a couple of years after I had told my brother. She was driving us to go shopping, and when I told her I was gay, she nearly crashed the car.
    “I was thinking—,” she recalled, “—is this a joke? Because it’s not funny. And I was thinking, how can you be gay? Are you sure it’s not a phase? I was in shock and worried about how Mom and Dad would react. And I was kind of upset that Kyle knew a couple of years before I did.”
    I never meant to hurt anyone by withholding my sexuality. In fact, I always feared that the truth about my sexuality would cause more harm than good. I was scared shitless from the coming out horror stories I had heard and was not ready to face such animosity or hatred. I knew that if I came out to my friends and they did not accept me, the worst that could happen would be that we’d no longer be friends (that was a bearable possibility seeing as how I could always make new friends). If I came out to my family, I risked being kicked out of the house or getting written out of some wealthy relative’s will.
    Thankfully that didn’t happen to me (yet) because I chose to come out to my siblings first. But at the same time, I never really knew how my coming out affected my siblings. Although they showed their support for me right from the get go, I never considered the ways their lives may have changed now that someone related to them is gay.
    Upon interviewing them, I learned that they each dealt with it a bit differently. My brother, who had always suspected that I was gay, felt as though nothing had changed. He has been one of my greatest allies even before I came out to him.
    “I’ll call people out on being homophobic,” he boasted. “I’ve always felt that other people shouldn’t care because it’s none of their business and it doesn’t affect them. I’ll basically make an ass out of someone if they make homophobic comments.”
    My sister on the other hand, never suspected it even though she had a few gay and lesbian friends in her social circle.
    “I was fine with it,” she said, of her views on homosexuality prior to my coming out. “I feel that we should let people be, and as long as they are happy, we should leave them alone. I mean, I have gay friends and I’m cool with them, but it’s different when it’s your own sibling because it changes the family. I think it has brought us closer because now I know the real you, and you’re not hiding anything from me now.”
    It was comforting to know that both my brother and sister have always been supportive of the queer community, however, the way they demonstrated that support changed after I came out. For example, the passage of Proposition 8 last year hit very close to home for my siblings.
    “I thought it was a stupid proposition,” said my brother. “Why should marriage be about gender? It should be about love.”
    In spite of my brother’s sentiments on the issue, he was not of voting age at the time and was denied the opportunity to fight alongside me and my sister at the polls. My sister’s views on the institution of marriage changed with the passage of Prop 8. In my interview with her, she shared with me that she felt “marriage is just a title, and it gives you legal rights, and it’s just not fair that you can’t get married. You should be entitled to the same legal rights that I am.”
    Despite their support, I learned that my siblings also had concerns about how my sexuality would affect the rest of the family. For the few years that the secret of my sexual orientation was shared between me and my siblings, my brother found no difficulty in keeping my sexuality a secret from the rest of the family.
    “It wasn’t that hard for me to keep a secret, but I did always wonder how they didn’t see the signs.”
    Eventually, I did manage to come out to my mother, who thankfully accepted me, leaving my father the only member of my immediate family outside the inner circle of my sexuality. For the time being, I find it challenging to come out to my Dad because I worry that he might have a hard time dealing with the fact that his first-born son is gay. Due to this situation, my sister feels uncomfortable and worries about how this will affect the family dynamic.
    “I think that is pulling you further apart from him because he doesn’t understand you,” she explained. “And I think you’ve put Mom in an awkward position because she’s his wife and they’re supposed to tell each other everything. And I worry people might judge our family because they don’t understand homosexuality.”
    In the aftermath of coming out to my family I learned first hand why coming out is important and why we advocate coming out in the queer community. Coming out allows queer people to debunk the negative stereotypes that have historically plagued our community, and thereby combat homophobia.
    “After you came out I was more supportive of the gay community and the movement, because now it became personal—someone in my family is affected by the prejudice and discrimination that you all face,” my sister said. She confided in me that she is in an unofficial support group at her school for students with queer siblings while my brother continues to be vocal against everyday forms of homophobia. As for my mother, she has made tremendous progress as she has since changed her views against same-sex marriage, though she still has a lot to learn about what it means to be an ally.
    Looking back, I realize that I had a relatively good coming out experience, and for that I am grateful. But I realize this is not always the case for the rest of the queer community. Perhaps I got lucky because my siblings and I were not raised in a conservative or religious family, which made it easier for them to support me.  It was through their support that I eventually found the courage to come out to my mother, and I will be relying on that support again when I prepare myself to come out to my father. Even so, my siblings agree that they would not have taken the initiative to stand up for the queer community had they not known that I was gay. Of course, when I initially came out, it was never my intention to don my activist hat. I just wanted to stop hiding from those who were closest to me. But with coming out I also opened up the door to my struggle as a queer person with them, and in return, my siblings came out to me as well, as some of the best allies I could ask for.

Queer Procreation: Bypassing Biology

by Stephanie Gilbert

If you even once turned on a TV in the 90s—the decade of “7th Heaven,” “Full House,” “Boy Meets World,” and so forth—you are quite familiar with the concept of the ‘traditional family.’ There’s a man and a woman who fell in love, perhaps they were high school sweethearts, or perhaps they were set up on a blind date, but either way, they eventually got married, had some kids, and for unclear reasons named one of them Topanga.
So let’s recap: man and woman plus love plus time leads to children. Nothing queer so far. Now suppose we edit just one detail of the story (…can you guess?).
For same-sex couples looking to start a family, the process is quite different than their televised counterparts. Despite having a loving relationship and the commitment it takes to start a family, same-sex couples simply cannot procreate using just their bodies. But wait…this story does have a happy ending. With a bit of creativity and some careful thought, same sex couples can successfully build loving, happy families.
To shed some light on the complicated process of conception for same-sex couples, I interviewed Todd Presner, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Jewish Studies, who chose to adopt his son, and Gil Hochberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Director of the GLBTS program at UCLA, who chose the method of artificial insemination. Both Professors Presner and Hochberg have experienced the complications of conception for same-sex parents, and their stories follow.

    Which method of conception did  you and your partner use and why?

Todd: With gay male couples, you have three choices: surrogacy, domestic adoption, and international adoption. We chose open adoption, in which you know the mother, and she knows you, and you stay in touch after the child is born. Open adoption is usually considered best for the child should he have questions at one point, and also you’ll stay in touch with the mom and develop a trust between the adoptive family and the biological mom.
Gil: In our case, we felt lucky to have my partner’s brother volunteer [to donate] his sperm and I was pregnant two times—we have two children— and we felt that this would be a nice way of keeping it in the family, so to speak.

Can you explain the actual process of becoming parents?

Todd: The mom wanted to know very early on in the pregnancy that [her son] would have a family to go to. We were with her for basically seven months of the pregnancy and were there when he was born, literally a foot away, and even saw his head come out. He left the hospital 48 hours later and came home with us. We had to actually stay in Colorado [where the birthmother lives] for three weeks because there is an issue about bringing children across state lines but he has been with us every day since he’s been born. We stay in touch with the mom and talk to her pretty frequently—about once a month—because she cares that he’s in a safe and nurturing environment and she can ask questions, we can ask about family/medical history and if he has questions one day, he can ask. We are two guys raising a baby, obviously there was a mother at some point.
Gil: I don’t know if it is a California law but at UCLA, they do not use fresh sperm unless you are a married couple. We had our moments of feeling upset about that because fresh sperm increases the chances of getting pregnant…but that’s their policy. We had to have my partner’s brother freeze his sperm and ship it to a bank here, and then they stored it for three months to run the HIV and STD tests. When they inseminate you, they need to know it is safe. Then you go to the doctor when you’re ovulating and undergo a process called IUI [Intra-Uterine Insemination]. They use a tiny tube to insert the sperm, called a “wash sperm” and they put it inside, end of story.

    Did you encounter any difficulty obtaining legal rights for both partners over the baby due to the fact that you are a same-sex couple?

Todd: We are domestic partners in California. Colorado has the same laws as California in terms of adoption. Once we were actually in Colorado, at the hospital, they were totally cool with it. And here as well. But up until the point where the judge rules in the state of Colorado and the state of California [that the baby is legally ours], the mother could decide she wants the baby back, so open adoption is pretty precarious.
Gil: The minute a man donates the sperm, he is a donor, and so he has no parental rights, so you don’t have to deal with that. Supposedly, since 2005, the law is that if you are a domestic partner, which we are, a child born to one of you is automatically adopted by the other, so in the birth certificates of the children, we both appear as parents. It was a real headache, though, because we got written time and again one as mother and one as father and it’s funny because although I gave birth to the children, they wrote me as ‘father’ and I told them that if that were the case, UCLA would really be in the news. We consulted with a lawyer who advised us nonetheless to go through the formal process of adoption because these laws are not permanent and its not clear what happens if you step out of California.

    Do you have a plan for ‘coming out’ to your children—that is, answering questions         about your family being different than others?

Todd: There’s not going to be any ‘coming out.’ Coming out often means that you’ve lived one life and you’re declaring that you’re going to live a different one. If the life you’ve always been living has been gay, there’s no reason to ‘come out’. For us it’s like: Here’s one model, this is what we are, Becky and Bob are something else and Jennifer is something else and that’s just how it is. The emphasis is not on making us stigmatized but that there’s lots of different ways of being a family and we are one of them.
Gil: We haven’t really had that talk but so far so good. Unfortunately for us, because we would like to know more same-sex parents, most of our friends with children are heterosexual, so I would say that most families that [our children] see have a mother and a father. They do see some same-sex parents. It hasn’t come up as a question: why do I have this and not that? We ourselves have mentioned things like you have two mommies and look, so and so has a mommy and a daddy and everyone’s different. Our 4 year old sometimes says “let’s play that you’re daddy and you’re mommy” and so we play that. It’s whatever she wants.

    Did genetics play a part in your decision of how to conceive of your child?

Todd: We were open to any background. The mom happened to be Jewish and the father was Guatemalan and because [my partner] is Philipino, the mom thought that if we could have a child, he might look like this. And she had other criteria obviously too but that was an interesting observation. We are not sure what we’d do if we had another child. We had also considered adoption of an older child, meaning like 3 years old.
Gil: It’s not like I have a very strong sense that people must know their genetic tree. My feeling was, life is difficult, it is probably more difficult to be a child of a same-sex couple because in any way that you’re different, it’s difficult, and if you can avoid open questions that might make it even more difficult, let’s do that. It’s nice to know where one comes from. I feel that I would like to say that I would not have cared about genetics but when it came to the emotional decision, we did.

    Any additional comments about ame-sex parenting in general?

Todd: It’s a long process; we started the adoption process and the paperwork at least two years before we actually had a baby so it just takes a while in terms of preparations, legal work, fine tuning, etc. You wish sometimes it would hurry up but in the end, things turned out well. Even up to the point that the judge rules, it is very precarious. Ultimately, I think [open adoption] is better for everyone.
Gil: I think that for women, even if you’re a lesbian, by becoming a mother, you in some ways become less queer. Especially the one who, like me, was pregnant; it’s this very strange feeling that you suddenly get this ticket just by being pregnant into this heteronormativity…you are doing what you’re supposed to do. I don’t know how it is for gay guys but I would imagine it is very different…yes we have the new man, but still, the paternal role doesn’t make you into a man. Just putting it out there for further speculation. We drop our child at school and another parent will say ‘what does your husband do’ and I always say, ‘we’re two moms.’ But you do get a lot of ‘what does your husband do?’ ‘Husband’ becomes a very prominent figure in your life the minute you have a child.
   
    Despite the complexity involved in starting a family for same-sex couples, the process can ultimately  lead to a loving, united and healthy family. The best parenting strategies come out of thoughtful planning to establish a strong, clear structure of values. By investing time, money and emotions into having children, same-sex couples ensure their certainty and solidarity in the future as parents. Methods and procedures aside, it is clear that ‘family’ ultimately boils down to a pair of loving individuals interested in devoting their time and love to raising and nurturing offspring to the best of their ability. And from that viewpoint, gender seems almost irrelevant.

Homo Away From Home

by Lina Houston

Imagine that you’ve finally summoned enough courage to tell your parents that you are gay. But when you do, your father’s face contorts with rage and homophobic slurs fall from his mouth while your mother buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. Your father stands up and tells you that you are no longer welcome in their home and suddenly you are left on the doorstep alone and with absolutely no where to go. This is the experience of a staggering number of LGBT youth. The Gay and Lesbian Task Force reports that 26 percent of youth that come out to their parents are kicked out of their house, leaving 115,000 to 640,000 LGBT youth homeless each year.
Life on the streets is especially hard for LGBT youth. Everything we take for granted on a daily basis is stripped away, and these adolescents are forced to survive by any means necessary. According to the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 25 to 30 percent of homeless LGBT youth engage in survival sex, or the practice of trading sexual favors for money, food, or a place to stay. The instances of physical and sexual abuse are astounding, and homeless LGBT youth often get taken advantage of by people posing as non-threatening good Samaritans. Unfortunately, abuse is often not foreign to these youth; many come from domestic situations in which they have previously been abused and the possibility of suffering further abuse on the streets is perhaps preferable to remaining at home.
Amidst all the chaos and confusion, there are places that can help. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center has two facilities that assist homeless LGBT youth: the Transitional Housing Program at the Center’s main location and the Jeff Griffith Youth Center on Santa Monica Boulevard. Megan Cook, the coordinator of the Education Center at Jeff Griffith, says the Center serves 40 to 80 clients a day and caters to youth who were kicked out of their parents’ home or foster home as well as those who are in transitional situations. Although it is impossible to describe a “typical experience” of an LGBT youth who receives services at the Center, there are some general patterns. Many of the youths use drugs as a survival tool related to their homelessness. Cook states that working with the clients “changed her perspective on drug use.” These kids aren’t using drugs recreationally; they are using “to stay up at night to stay safe.” The streets are dangerous and overrun with threats of sexual and physical violence; crystal meth provides a level of alertness necessary for their own protection. When it’s time to come down enough to sleep, youth often smoke marijuana. Fully aware of the drug use going on in the population they serve, the Center offers various anti-drug resources, including a crystal meth support group every Friday morning.
The Jeff Griffith Center has a plethora of resources: three meals a day, showers and all toiletries, clothing and laundry services, and housing referral services. But the Center provides much more than the basics essential to human survival. Building a sense of community and fostering personal well-roundedness is important to the staff. There is space for clients to express themselves artistically, a weekly dance group, job and education services, and a computer center. The Center also provides psychiatric services, including group therapy sessions. Within these forums, it is possible for these youth to confront issues relating to their gender and sexual identity that take a back seat when basic needs are not met. “Our experiences here with clients run the gamut” says Cook, “from the miraculous turnaround to the continuation of the tragic self-sabotaging cycle.” But the staff members at Jeff Griffith are doing their absolute best to create more success stories and therefore early outreach is a major focus; “Once they get comfortable on the street is when it gets hard. We need to get to them before they get stuck in that cycle,” Cook says.
Creating safe spaces for youth struggling with issues of identity is imperative to solving this problem. Both Cook and Janae Hubbard, a case manager at Jeff Griffith, emphasized the importance of crafting secure, nurturing environments in which the youth can, as Hubbard says, “be themselves.” The Jeff Griffith Center serves as a type of pseudo-family for these homeless youth. There is the usual cliquish behavior expected of teenagers and young adults, but the undertone is of respect for one another. And with staff that genuinely care about the safety and complete well-being of the clients, these youth can, perhaps for the first time, experience meaningful, trusting relationships.
The number of LGBT youth rejected from their families and living on the streets is daunting, and their experiences are unimaginable to those of us fortunate enough to have never lived them. But becoming part of the greater solution of providing safe spaces for LGBT youth across the country is simple: be tolerant, be kind. If a friend or relative comes out to you, acknowledge the remarkable courage it took and meet them with love and compassion. Sometimes support or a simple acknowledgment is the biggest, greatest gift you can give.
    Wondering what you can do to help the LGBT youth at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center? Clothing donations are always appreciated and there is always a demand for new underwear and socks and any new or used clothing. For more information, contact the Center directly at (323)860-2280 or visit their website at www.lagaycenter.org.

The F-M in Family

by Kaya Foster

    The support of family can literally mean life or death for LGBT youth.
This is especially true for young transgendered people, who often face more violence and discrimination than gays, lesbians, and bisexuals and are frequently more isolated and misunderstood. This often leads transgendered youth to become depressed, abuse drugs and alcohol, or engage in sexually risky behavior. Yet perhaps most alarming is the fact that transgendered youth commit suicide at significantly higher rates thanttheir heterosexual counterparts. About 33 percent of transgendered youth attempt suicide.
Research shows that the level of support from a transgendered individual’s family plays a crucial role in whether they overcome societal obstacles to become a healthy, happy person, or instead tumble down a road of despair that is often deadly. The Trevor Project, a 24-hour hotline devoted to suicidal LGBT youth, reports that LGBT and questioning youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. The Family Acceptance Project at the Cesar Chavez Institute reports that rejection from family can lead to seriously negative consequences for LGBT youth. Transgendered youth are twice as likely to suffer from depression and four times more likely to deal with the law if they are without familial support. Grim as this sounds, Jacob Rostovsky, an 18 year old transgendered student at California State University at Northridge, is a living example of the difference family support can make in the lives of LGBT youth.
Like most young LGBT people, Jacob had fears about coming out to his mother, Peggy, as transgendered. “I was afraid that she wouldn’t accept me and would kick me out of the house, even though deep down I knew she’d be okay with everything,.” Jacob said.
Supporting transgendered youth poses several challenges that families of LGB youth aren‘t necessarily faced with. Jacob explained that parents of transgendered youth “have to worry about [their children] in a different kind of way. Worry if they’re going to be safe, going to be able to live a completely normal life as the gender they prefer to be.”
In addition to these concerns, families of transgendered youth have to deal with the process of family member transitioning. “I was also afraid that I wouldn’t be allowed to transition,” Jacob said. For Jacob, the term “allowed” was quite literal. He was just 16 years old when he decided to begin seeking hormones and surgery, and being a minor, Jacob was only allowed to begin to physically transition at such a young age because of his mother’s official consent and unwavering support. “If my mother didn’t sign off on the forms, I could not have gotten my surgery and hormones,” Jacob explained.
While not an easy decision to make, Peggy Rostovsky made her child’s happiness a priority. “She realized that the only way for me to be happy was to allow me to transition.”
Prior to transitioning, Jacob said he was depressed and suicidal and that this would cause conflict with his mother. “I would yell at her and tell her she didn’t love me because my transition wasn’t moving fast enough. Or I’d threaten to kill myself if she didn’t allow me to do what I had wanted to do.”
Now a happily transitioned freshman in college, Jacob said his relationship with his mother is “extremely close.” “I think that by coming out I was allowed to be who I truly am and this has allowed me to be honest, open and closer to her.”
Without the support of his mom, Jacob thinks he would not be alive today. “ I was so depressed and so suicidal that I wouldn’t have made it. My mother saved my life.” Jacob urged other parents to understand how crucial it is to support their LGBT child. “The most important form of support and acceptance comes from the family. If you do not support your child, you could be killing your relationship with them, and in some cases, even killing your child.”

Same-Sex Parents: As American As Apple Pie

by Roky Coria

Move over baby boomers—a new American family is emerging, part of a phenomenon known as the “gayby boom.” These new families are challenging and reshaping the notion of family.
In 2003, Texas natives Mike Vega (42), and Chris Gutierrez (35) adopted their son Joe Gutierrez (6) after Joe’s biological mother, Chris’ niece, asked them to care for Joe permanently. Joe was just five months old at the time. Since then, Mike and Chris have cared solely for Joe and in the process have become one of a growing number of same-sex couples that are changing the definition of the modern American family.
Half-expecting to hear tragic stories of discrimination and mistreatment, I instead found stories of acceptance and understanding in their place. And though it may have proved more dramatic, I did not find stories of mobs of angry bigots assembling in front of their home to throw bricks into their window like some Lifetime Original movie. In truth, I had become so accustomed to viewing the queer community solely from the “victim” angle that I had never really considered the alternative: acceptance.

How did you guys come out to your son? Did he know from the beginning or did you have to explain it to him?

C: No, I mean, he just knows. He sees gay as normal, the way you and me would see our mom and dad. He knows that we are his two dads. Now I think he knows because other kids tried to tease and taunt him in the beginning like, “Oh, you have two gay dads. Your dads are gay.” and he’d be like, “So, I don’t care at least I have two dads.”

When the other kids tease him, how do you react?

M: No. We have talked to him about people in the world that are different, men like women, men like men, women like women. We’ve just told him that people are going to be mean to you because you have two dads. I’ve said that you have to remember that that’s just the way they think. It’s not wrong the way we live our lives, we are a family and you are special because you have two dads. And he understands that. So when kids make fun of him, it doesn’t bother him, to him this is normal.

How do you raise your son in regards to gender roles and sexual orientation?

M: We don’t push sexual orientation on him, but we have noticed that he has an attraction to women and that’s fine. We don’t tell him its wrong, we don’t tell him it’s right; we let him figure out what he is going to be for himself. As far as our gender roles are concerned, we are both his dads, there aren’t male/female gender roles in our relationship.

Did you ever hope he was gay?

C: Nope. We want him to be who he wants to be and to let his characteristics show so that he can grow up whichever way, whether gay, straight, or in-between.

Have you ever felt a social stigma placed on either you or your child?

C: No, not at all. I mean, when I first got him as a baby, I wondered about those issues. You know the stigma of, “okay, he’s going be treated differently because he has gay dads.” Again, I think if we would have stayed in Texas, we would feel that repercussion of that stigma, but because we’re here where it’s very gay friendly, we don’t really feel those issues.

So you’ve never had to deal with homophobic parents or felt like other parents were leaving you out?

C: No not at all. Again, even when he was in preschool we’d send out invitations for his birthday party and the parents showed up with their kids. No problem whatsoever. The one parent that I thought wasn’t gonna show up, in fact showed up with her kid. Her son had told Jojo, “I can’t go to your party because your daddy’s gay.”
M: But he was the first one to show up. And at his party this year we had a lot of kids from the apartments come that were his classmates and their parents also came.
C: Yeah, there’s no issue. We don’t have any wondering from the parents like, “Well, is my kid gonna be safe being in a gay home?”

Why do you think that more and more gay and lesbian couples are having children?

C: Well, first of all, we’ve been suppressed, so I think we feel like we can do the job just as good as our moms and dads did. I just think that because society is more open now, more people want to adopt and, of course, you have your own personal reasons why you want family. As people mature and they want to start a family, they lean towards adoption now because it’s easier and it’s a little more accepting.

There are some who may say that gay couples having children is way of trying to fit in with straight society. How do you guys feel about that?

C: We wanted a child because we were ready to take care of someone. We weren’t trying to ‘fit in’ to be accepted by the heterosexual world. That’s not gonna stop me from providing for and wanting to take care of Joe. I did this because this is a child we’re talking about, a baby that doesn’t know how to take care of or defend himself.
M: As far as my belief goes, I didn’t choose to have a child to fit into any society. I was just at this point in my life where I wanted a child; someone that I could love, nurture, and in the process know that I was doing something for someone else, the way my parents raised me. I didn’t want to conform to what society says should be a normal family because to me, my family is normal.

What is the biggest misconception that straight America has about same-sex families that bothers you the most?

M: My biggest one is that a gay couple is going to raise a gay child. That’s my biggest one.
C: Me too. Again, we go back to the same issue, we got raised by straight people and we came out gay.

Have you faced any barriers/ institutionalized prejudice as gay parents?

M: Honestly, I don’t think we have. I think we were one of the fortunate ones and a lot of people can’t say that.

What would you guys say to the rest of straight America about your family to help them understand your family?

C: We’re as normal as you are, we have our bad days and we have our good days. We try to be the best parents we can be, regardless of our sexuality, and that’s all we can do, that’s all we can hope for.
M: I would like to say…when thinking about families, regardless of whether they’re biracial, straight, gay, whatever it is, first think of the word “family” before you start passing judgment on anybody, and what that really means. To me a family means people who love and care for each other; it doesn’t necessary have to be blood related and it doesn’t necessarily have to have a child involved. A family is people who love each other, care for each other, and are there for each other in the good and bad times. So before you pass judgment on anybody, look and see what family really means to you, and see if the people you’re starting to pass judgment on fit that meaning.

It is refreshing to hear same-sex parents say that their family has been readily integrated into the community. While the Vega-Gutierrez family has encountered some bumps along the way, there is no challenge that they haven’t overcome as a family. Now, more than ever, families like the Vega-Gutierrezes are becoming another important aspect of the American family institution, and adding a little fabulosity in the process.

Creative Writing

Red, White, and Rosalie

by Anna Patton

New York City. Fall, 1927

3:00 PM - 7th Avenue & West 57th

Rain gently glides out of the sky and slides down the window in diamond droplets. A young woman, in her early twenties, presses a delicate pale hand to the glass pane and gazes out at the city, all at once silent. Calm. She presses the palm harder and then pulls it away; a slightly steamy print is left behind. The piano begins to play.  Schumann. Abruptly turning away, her short crop of flapper curls sways as she stretches, stands up, and begins to writhe and dance along with the rest of the Martha Graham company.

Madison Avenue & East 59th

The image of a Degas painting, she leans against the barre, eyes searching out the window through the rain. Though resting, one elbow on the sturdy pole, her back is straight, feet turned out in a perfect first position, toes smarting in their worn pointe shoes. Her spine curves into a thin neck and a tight bun. One stray strand tries to leave the rest of its mates but she tucks it back absent-mindedly. A sharp crack sounds as the ballet master slams his cane into the beaten wood floors. Tchaikovsky begins and she escapes the barre with a leap, a grande jeté into the abyss.

1:30 AM - Charles Street & West 4th Street

The beads on her dress sway with her short curls as she downs an illegal whiskey. On the rocks. The red light falls over her pale skin and her eyes sparkle.  A lone clarinet plays, followed by brass, and the beat takes over. There are women everywhere. Smoking cigars and wearing tuxes. There are men too. Dancing with wild abandon. With one another. Smells of cigarettes, bootlegged alcohol, perfumes and sweat fill the club. She looks around, grinning to herself.
A hand slides around her waist, catching the long chain of pearls she has been toying with. The ballerina has loosened her bun. Strands stick to her neck, damp with moisture. She winks.
“Let’s shimmy baby.” 
They grab hands and race to the dance floor.
Outside, the rain continues. The crowd is oblivious, dancing with wild abandon, drunk off the booze. The music slows to a ballad and they pull one another close, letting the jazz ooze through the air, over their skin. 
She moves her hand to the small of her partner’s back and leans in, whispering in her ear, tickling the smooth skin under a loose dark ringlet.
“I love you Rosalie”.
“I love you too, Evelyn.  Always.”
Sirens sound in the distance faintly, quickly picking up in pitch and volume until they are screeching. Chaos. The music has stopped and musicians are leaping over each other. Bright flashlights shine in faces, wielded by large, heavily armed policemen.  Rosalie and Evelyn cling to each other, squinting their eyes against the harsh white light.  Fearful.
“Come on you queers! Tea party is over!” Yells a burly cop.
They squeeze hands before they are pulled apart. They will meet again. Soon.
Separated, a man pulling each by the arm, they are pulled into the rain, red and blue lights flashing. It is hard to say where the rain stops and tears begin. The sky opens up and lets its fury upon the thrashing mass of cops and queers. 
Things fade. The color drains. The movement stills. And all is black, white and grey.


Los Angeles. Fall, 2009.

3:00 PM - Santa Monica Blvd. & North Larrabee

She lounges on a couch, a tattered scrapbook in her lap, one hand playing with her girlfriend’s short brown curls. Her girlfriend wraps an arm snugly around her waist, peering over her shoulder.
“My mom just gave it to me. I guess it was my Great Aunt Evelyn’s scrapbook from her dancing days in New York.” 
“When did she die?”
“Oh years ago. Before I was born. It’s funny though, I had no idea she was so into Martha Graham’s company. She was a ballerina. But look here are tickets from all these premieres and performances...”
She flips through, running her fingers lovingly over the old programs and ticket stubs.
“It is so incredible she got to see these. You know she never married? She died in the city. I don’t know if she was alone. I guess she devoted her life to dance.”
Turning the brown page, a curled picture catches her eye. She gently detaches it from the ancient glue. It is two young women. Probably in their early twenties. One has a stylish short bob and the other a loose bun. They are both in fashionable flapper style dresses, with an arm around each other’s waist. Grinning.
“Who is that?”
“That’s Aunt Evelyn, with her hair up. I don’t know the other woman.”
“Well they sure seem...close, don’t you think?”
“What?  Oh no.  Please. My aunt wasn’t a lesbian!”
“You never know...”
“Rosalie.  Give me a break.”
She grabs the photograph back from Rosalie, laughing as she pulls her down for a long kiss. The scrapbook lays open, forgotten on the floor. 
Evelyn’s eyes twinkle from the photo.

Out

Coming Out Story

by Katie Schowengerdt

I came out just recently, actually. It was through e-mail, and, as much crap as everyone gives me about it, it was the right thing to do. I waited until I officially moved out of the house, so that if the reaction wasn’t what I was hoping for, at least I didn’t have to be surrounded by it. As I was forming my e-mail, the words came freely, but it wasn’t until I reached the “send” button that it got tough. My girlfriend just kept telling me “Do it! Do it! You’ve already done the hard work, this is just completing it.” It wasn’t until after I had finally pushed the button that I realized how scared she was too. We were finally confronting our truths to the people that mattered most in my life. And I couldn’t keep myself from crying. The next morning, my mom emailed me back, telling me she loved me and was so happy that I admitted it. I guess it wasn’t quite the shock to them that I expected it to be. That email set me free, and marked the beginning of the rest of my life.

Ask Dr. Q: Advice Columnist

Dear Dr. Q,
How can you make a long distance relationship work?
Yours Sincerely,
Go the Distance

Dear Go the Distance,
              I once asked the same thing to the person I go to for advice and I was told: “just don’t.” While I like to look at things in a positive light, the truth of the matter is that most long distance relationships won’t work. It’s not a matter of whether they can or can’t work; it’s that they won’t work. Like any relationship, long distance relationships are founded on the pillars of trust and communication. However, unlike most relationships, long distance relationships will put trust and communication to the test every day. I would say that the secret to a good long distance relationship would be maturity and devotion, both traits that are not very well established at a young age. For this reason, I would say that college students in particular shouldn’t put all their eggs into the long distance basket. College is a time and place where you meet new people, and typically grow emotionally and mentally, not just academically. Thus, before trying to make anything work and making a possibly long-term commitment at a young age, truly do some soul searching, and decide if it’s truly worth the effort. Better to have things end on a reasonable note than have people feel betrayed further along the road. If you do choose to pursue the relationship, make sure to keep the paranoia to a minimum. If you trust the person, then you shouldn’t need to worry about them cheating. Make sure to keep in touch. While talking every single day may seem excessive, a text or two a day isn’t so bad; just make sure you make time for each other, especially with school. Aside from that, just follow what you would normally do in a relationship.

-Dr. Q

Dear Dr. Q,
I have come out to my parents, but we haven’t talked about it since. How do I bring it up?
Yours Sincerely,
One Foot Out

Dear One Foot Out,
              I must ask, what is it that you need to bring up? When I try to envision your predicament, it kind of looks like: “Hey guys, remember when I said I was gay a while back? Yeah… still gay…” While maybe you did not get the type of closure that you may have wanted, you also have to keep in mind that people deal with things in their own way. Though I may not know if your coming out experience went well, you shouldn’t assume it’s a bad thing if no one is talking about it. However, if you do want to find an occasion to bring the issue up again, an opportune time would be if there was some sort of update in your love life—for example, if you started going out with someone or if you ended up breaking up with the person you were with. This way, you can bring it up as well as add something new for them to hear. Think of it like bonding. If you read the back cover of the magazine you could find some inspiration to bring it up over the holidays, perhaps come out to someone new, as a means to bring it up again. Regardless, really consider if anything really needs to be brought up at all. Maybe it just needs some time.

-Dr. Q

Dear Dr. Q,
I’m completely infatuated with my straight TA. Would it be inappropriate for me to tactfully flirt with him?
--Ima Flirt

Dear Ima Flirt,
    Within your question lies the key to your dilemma. If you are going to flirt with your TA, you had better make sure it’s “tactful.” The only difference between flirting with a TA and flirting with anyone else is that they have control over your grade. So if it works out and you get a better grade, good for you. However, if your TA should become insulted for some reason (or whatnot) keep in mind that there may be repercussions to your actions. As long as it’s tactful, go for it. Try to keep it classy.

-Dr. Q

Arts & Entertainment

Review: Modern Family

by Dan Meyer

The inclusion of a modern gay family in ABC’s new sitcom entitled “Modern Family” is one of the most refreshing LGBT character developments witnessed in primetime TV since “Queer as Folk.” While “Modern Family” doesn’t have the sex, drugs, and hard-hitting issues within the LGBT community that “Queer” did, it does break ground by examining the relationship of a LGBT family with children.
“Modern Family” is the first primetime network television program ever to take a stand on gay adoption rights, featuring a gay couple, Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), with a child. However, the comedy is so over the top that the message of a gay couple raising their child in a normal family unit is missing. The producers seem to be struggling between portraying all the characters as stereotypes (bitchy gays, dads who think they’re cool, Colombian gold diggers) while at the same time maintaining a sense of realism.
Phil and Claire Dunphy have three children; Phil has a subtly wandering eye and thinks he’s the hippest dad in town (He’s not, though Ty Burrell is hilarious in the role), and Claire (Julie Bowen) is kind of an endearing; together they are perfectly balanced.  Jay (Ed O’Neill), the father of Claire and Mitchell, and Gloria Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) make an interesting couple. Gloria is 30 years younger than Jay and she’s also really hot.  Add in Manny (Rico Rodriguez), a 10-year old boy from Gloria’s previous marriage and you have a family dynamic for the ages. Of course, it’s Cameron and Mitchell that we end up caring about most... Behind the humor, however, there isn’t much substance. While these two obviously love each other, the writing portrays them as frequently competing for funniest gay.
In the pilot, when Cameron and Mitchell announce that they’ve adopted a daughter, madness ensues. Cameron raises their newborn baby “Circle of Life” style, complete with the Lion King soundtrack blasting in the background. From that, it becomes evident that the show doesn’t try very hard to curb stereotypes. For example, when Mitchell is scared to bring their new daughter to day care because he thinks Cameron is too flamboyant, Cameron retorts: “Sure, I’ll just put on a polo and a pair of khakis and maybe people will think we’re just a couple of golf buddies who decided to have a kid together”.
Perhaps stereotype isn’t the right word; the actors are good enough to suggest these could be real people, but why make the characters so cliché? As a show the result is hilarious, it’s just too bad that both Mitchell and Cameron are so quippy that it’s hard to see past their dialogue to the overlying message of the show: acceptance.
Despite the family’s cultural and social differences, all of the characters love one another and this ultimately leads to a happy family program that includes new archetypes in television.
Cameron and Mitchell’s relationship could be a major step for LGBT television. The more LGBT-identifying characters are portrayed on the small screen, the more the viewing public can see just how diverse our community is.  While hot topics such as gay marriage and monogamy have already been pursued in shows such as “Queer as Folk” and “The L Word,” gay adoption is one that hasn’t been fully explored on network television. “Modern Family” is beginning to do just that.
The first episode was so focused on the adoption that viewers were led to believe that Lily, the cutest Vietnamese baby ever, would be a star in the show. After three more episodes, however, the use of baby Lily is unclear. Was she merely a ploy for the pilot? Sure, Cameron and Mitchell try baby day-care in the second episode, but the single scene involving Lily does nothing to explore a gay couple with an adopted daughter. In the scene, Cameron wants to participate in the toddler dance party, but Mitchell is so embarrassed that he starts to leave. Another gay couple enters and instantly, the entire circle of toddlers and parents are enthralled with their baby dance. Cameron of course, whether threatened by the hot gay couple or in the mood to spite Mitchell, bumps the couple out of the circle and gets down with Lily in his arms.
But maybe situations like these are the whole point of “Modern Family.” The sitcom is only 22 minutes long and seriously examining LGBT-related issues in raising a family may be too much for a such a short TV program to take on, especially when it’s focusing on two other families as well. As much as it would be nice to finally have a show that really delves seriously into the idea of an LGBT family, “Modern Family” just does not fit the bill. It is always nice to see more and more LGBT characters sharing the spotlight, but Cameron and Mitchell fall too easily into established stereotypes. While the quips about golf and Costco (Cameron: “I’m sort of like Costco. I’m big, I’m not fancy and I dare you to not like me”) exemplify their “fabulosity,” there is minimal action that shows why these two men are even together. In the past four episodes, no quote has really explained their relationship in any way. How did they meet? How long have they been together? What do they do for a living? Does one of them stay at home with the baby? Do they have a nanny? Perhaps the writers don’t feel the need to divulge this information, but hopefully these questions will be answered in later episodes.
While it is disappointing that the LGBT issues that could be explored are not the centerpiece of the show, familial love - with all its ups and downs - takes center stage, and that’s always a good thing. It’s just a shame that the show doesn’t delve a bit deeper into the issues that could make “Modern Family” truly compelling and groundbreaking. “Modern Family” airs Wednesday nights at 9:00pm on ABC.

Final Grade: B-