The Bottom Line- Safe and Supportive

December 21, 2011 | by Joseph Brownell

Being an LGBT youth isn’t always easy. It seems everywhere we turn there’s another report of a gay teen committing suicide. Additionally, a 2011 CDC report shows that gay, bisexual and questioning teens are more likely to have current drug use habits than heterosexual teens. The CDC correlates these high risk behaviors among sexual minority teens with a lack of “safe and supportive environments.” As organizations and businesses within our community plead for donations to keep their doors open, it’s imperative to recognize the need for safe and supportive environments for LGBT youth.

The release of Amy Winehouse’s posthumous album earlier this month once again spotlights the results of addiction. Sure, we could reflect on how coincidental it was that she passed at the same age as Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin and Cobain thus immortalizing her as Forever 27 or we could insert Rehab jokes here, but when will we stop trivializing the nature of addiction and have an open and honest discourse about it?

Winehouse had issues, issues that go beyond my non-licensed 500-word column, but one thing is clear -she needed HELP. While I’m not familiar with the intimate details of Winehouse’s life, it wouldn’t be surprising if during her rehab stints there was someone at the record label thinking about album sales pushing her to get back in the studio and record her third album. Winehouse probably didn’t have a very safe or supportive environment.

It may have been out of our reach to do something for Winehouse but it’s not too much to do something within our own community. Environmentalists have long espoused the ideal to think generations ahead and politicos are currently debating the national debt and its effect on our nation’s future generations. The changes that have happened in our communities over the last 20 years will be carried well past our generation by those coming behind us.

Our LGBT youth need places and services that support them and help them become productive members of our community. Amy Winehouse can serve as a wakeup call to the realities and effects of addiction for the youth of the LGBT community. Help YouthPride today so that the next time a youth in our community is saying no, no, no to rehab, it’s not because they don’t want to go, but because they don’t have to.