GMHC launches new campaign "You Matter" for LGBTQ Youth

Launch of new video campaign, "You Matter" for LGBTQ Youth and panel discussion, "Our Self-Portraits: A Community Conversation on Image and Perception of Black Gay Men in the Media"

 

The campaign features three short videos-30 seconds each-that provide vignettes of young gay or transgender youth going through "a moment" that might challenge their identity or sense of worth. The idea emerged when some of the youth from Club1319, a GMHC prevention program, came together with staff and award-winning video director Amy Hart to explore messages that could be meaningful to LGBTQ teenagers.

 

Thursday, August 1, 2013

6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

 

GMHC - 446 West 33rd Street, 7th floor

(between 9th and 10th Avenues)

NYC (Map)

 

"You Matter" is a theme that can resonate with kids whose everyday life is marked by frequent anxiety and fear. It starts with the very real possibility of rejection by their friends and families. LGBTQ kids are often beaten or even thrown out of their homes to fend for themselves on the streets. For youth of color, pressures of poverty and racism impact their daily experience. Unwanted and arbitrary police attention is a constant fact of life for youth of color, and the experience is heightened for LGBTQ youth, whose sexual orientation and expression of identity provide other sources of marginalization.

 

All this adds up to a burden of stigma that is, at times, unbearable for our youth. Depression, drug use, and suicide are commonplace risks in the face of this, but the perils for LGBTQ youth go much further and include contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, homelessness, transactional sex, crimes of survival, dropping out of school, and other actions. In the CDC survey of behavioral risk among American teenagers, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were shown to experience dramatically higher levels of risk than their straight counterparts on over 70 different risk behaviors surveyed; note: the CDC at this time did not collect separate data on transgender youth.

 

At the launch, GMHC will debut the three "You Matter" videos, with appearances by the cast and crew. This will be followed by a panel discussion, "Our Self-Portraits: A Community Conversation on Image and Perception of Black Gay Men in the Media," moderated by Nathan H. Williams and featuring David Bridgeforth, Dominique Crisden, Michael Rice, Frank Roberts and Jack Mizrahi as panelists.

 

After the discussion, there will be an opportunity for people to make their own videos to say that "I matter because ..." The videos will then be posted on Youtube.com.