Posts Tagged: youth activism
Content Warnings: Compassion, Not Coddling
Content warning: rape, sexual assault, violence, self-injury, eating disorders It happens every once in a while, more often than I’d like for it to. I’ll be watching a movie or a TV show and it just comes out of nowhere. One of the most recent examples I can think of is Grey’s Anatomy, of which I spent a few weeks watching every episode not too long ago. There’s an episode where a ferry crashes and the doctors and residents go to the scene to help people. Meredith slips and falls into the water and slowly goes under, and as I watched I started gasping for air until I ultimately had to fast forward. I have aquaphobia, the fear of water. It varies in intensity depending on the situation and what kind… Read more »
#DearDebbie, We’re Right Here
#DearDebbie, I must inform you that you have recently committed one of the deadliest sins against millennials by calling us complacent. To us, “complacent” is a synonym for “lazy,” “entitled,” and “apathetic.” None of which are true descriptions of our generation, but are all a part of the “millennials-don’t-do-shit” dialogue that is often used to silence and discourage young adults. This myth of the “complacent youth” is one that we hear time and time again. We’re used to hearing it from our opposition, so pardon us, when we get aggressive hearing it from someone who is supposed to be right on board with fighting the good fight with us. This rhetoric is harmful. When used by our opposition, it is a manipulative tactic used to discredit us and take away… Read more »
Creating Change: Affirming, Empowering, Inspiring
This weekend, I attended the Creating Change conference in Denver, hosted by the National LGBTQ Task Force. There, along with 4,000 other individuals, I spent four days discussing the issues that face queer people in our everyday lives. Prior to this weekend, I had never attended such a large conference, much less one on LGBTQ+ issues. I was constantly surprised, and overjoyed, to see how many people attended the events and how diverse these people were. To me, this was the best part of Creating Change. As a young person, I often feel like I, and my effort in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality, don’t matter. As a queer person, I feel like my identity is not real and recognized by the majority of people. All of that was different… Read more »
