We come from every tiny town, major city, and rural region in the country and the world. We are of every ethnic, racial, and cultural background and identity, of every economic status or class, of every gender. We have many different physical and mental abilities and challenges.
Some of us are in school, some have dropped out, some have finished, and some aren't going or never went. We believe and don't believe in every religion. We've seen every kind of addiction, we're clean and sober, and we use. We live on our own, on the streets, in a shelter, with our parents, guardians, or foster parents, we live in group homes.
We're still coming out. Coming out isn't our thing. We want to presidents. We want to be revolutionaries. We want to be someone's best friend. We want to be in love. We want to have sex. We want to meet other people like us. We want to believe in ourselves.
We are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning youth.
So, if we are all those different things, how can we be a "community"?
It can be both challenging and rewarding to work together as a diverse group of people. The only way it can work is if each of us take personal responsibility for creating and sustaining the community.
The above list includes some common principles for creating a community, but each community needs to create its own rules of respect and communication.
Oppression
We all suffer to varying extents from preconceived notions about given groups or classes of people. These biases grow out of power inequalities that have existed for centuries in this country. In this century in the US, white people, men, adults, heterosexuals and non-transgendered people, people without disabilities, upper/middle class people, people born in the US, people with English as their first language, thin people, and Christians have more power than anyone else not listed above.
No one is born with bigotries about others, but we are taught by our society from very early on that people different than us, especially those with less power than us, are less worthy of respect. We also learn a lot more subtle ideas about the behaviors, attitudes, and abilities of groups different from our own.
These thoughts and feelings are "-isms", including ( but not limited to ): racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, ableism, classism, and religious bigotry. They usually run deep inside us even when we wish they wouldn't be there. It takes commitment and work to unlearn them.
Stereotypes and Realities
Because we live in a society where oppression is a reality, we are flooded with stereotypes and misinformation about who we are. Many of us have what we call "multiple oppressions", meaning we face -isms and stereotypes for other identities in addition to our sexuality or gender identity.
While it is important to remember that each -isms and set of stereotypes is different, we all can learn something about other people's oppression from thinking about our own. We can also think about how to be an ally to those different from us by thinking about what we would want an ally to do in respecting and supporting us.
Stereotypes about homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgendered identities are everywhere in our society. We get these messages from a very early age through our families, peers, schools, religions, and through media. We may hear it through name-calling at recess, we may hear a comedian ridicule us on television, or we may not hear anything but such a big silence that we know it has to be a terrible secret.
No matter how we hear about homosexuality, it's hard to grow up in this country without some kinds of negativity's feelings, images, or thoughts about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. That's part of what makes coming to terms with our sexual orientation as often difficult process.