Queer Connect forms youth leadership team

Posted Sunday, February 23, 2020 7:21 pm

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Queer Connect Inc. has founded a youth leadership team for local LGBTQ+ youth, seeking to empower young people and provide options for meaningful interactions with other queer-identified students and adults.

The new group is known as the Queer Connect Youth Leadership Team, "which we affectionately call quilt," said Lisa Carton, founder and interim director of Queer Connect.

The team includes Carton and youth of various ages, along with college students and volunteers from the community.

"I really think that the young people in our community deserve to have stronger connections with other kids who are younger and older who are also either questioning their sexuality or their gender identity or are struggling with fitting in," Carton said. "It's so validating to get in a group of kids and just know that they can be themselves completely."

The team functions to offer opportunities for youth to interact at broader levels in the community with peers of different ages and from different schools, and with adults in the community, some of whom are openly LGBTQ.

"Which is really important, that they see adults in the community who are living authentic lives," Carton said. `I think the Queer Youth Leadership Team is ultimately aiming to create more safe space to just be ourselves, and be together."

The group has changed from the idea of a structured team Carton originally had, as it seems easier to reach youth by going to them, she said.

"We are doing more reach out and go where the kids are," she said.

Youth can access the team anytime they go to a QYLT-sponsored event.

Those events have already begun, including a queer Dungeons and Dragons team, Carton said.

The team was founded about two months ago after Carton's first attempt to submit for a grant through the Vermont Community Foundation.

The nonprofit Queer Connect received the full requested amount of $4,000.

"I had been brewing this idea in my head, but it wasn't really formulated until I sat down and wrote the grant," Carton said. "And we got it!"

The goal is to reach students of all ages in all schools in the Southshire, "which is pretty ambitious," Carton said.

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Carton said she gets calls pretty regularly from parents, regarding children struggling with their gender identity or sexuality.

"The parents literally don't know where to go to get some support, or get some guidance," she said.

She said she hopes to expand to elementary schools and home-schooled students.

"And to reach more kids that are feeling really alienated, and alone," she said.

The Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey clearly shows there is a "huge need" to help LGBTQ students, she said.

State-level data from the 2017 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows LGBT youth report using substances more than heterosexual youth in the past 30 days from the date of survey, including 25 percent versus 18 percent reporting use of any tobacco products, and 16 percent versus 12 percent reporting use of electronic vapor products.

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The 2017 Bennington County high school data from the Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey show that twice as many LGBT high school students were electronically bullied during the past year compared to their heterosexual/cisgender peers — 32 percent versus 17 percent.

Of the Bennington County LGBT high school students surveyed, 34 percent had made a plan to attempt suicide.

And 31 percent of the state's surveyed middle school LGBT students report "feeling they matter to their community," in contrast to 67 percent for their heterosexual peers.

Carton characterized the leadership team's efforts as "very much like a quilt — a patchwork of connections."

For example, she said, next week, they're beginning a collaboration with the Center for Restorative Justice, which recently opened a free second-hand store, Threads, for teens at 439 Main St.

LGBTQ youth will have the opportunity to shop Threads' offerings privately, with other LGBTQ youth, Carton said.

That program, Threads and Games, will be offered the first Monday of every month from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., starting March 2, and is open to students in Grades 6 through 12.

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"Quite often, LGBTQ kids have a lot of trouble shopping in public .. feeling safe and comfortable to try on new clothes," Carton said.

Registration is not required, and the program and the clothes are free. Besides getting clothes in a safe environment, students can also interact with other kids at Threads and Games, she said.

"That's what the quilt is all about," she said. "Broadening the social network."

The QYLT's first project, which has an opening for a volunteer, involved three students producing public service announcements about the team itself and about Bennington Pride 2020, through a training collaboration with Catamount Access Television.

Local authors and students interning with Queer Connect have also met with students at Mount Anthony Union Middle School to help them with expressive writing skills.

Carton said there's "a lot of room for creativity" in the group's activities, and encouraged those with ideas to contact her at 802-379-5456 or at lisajcarton@yahoo.com.

Carton said Queer Connect plans to apply for the grant again, as it is renewable.

The Queer Youth Leadership Team will be in place through Bennington Pride, and Carton said she hopes to have the team in place each year, probably around this time of year.

Although, she said, she'd also love to get funding to run something through the summer.

"The summer is very difficult for queer kids," she said. "They're often isolated. They're young, so they can't drive."

Bennington Pride will be for a week this year, from June 1-6, with the parade on June 6.

The planning meeting is Sunday, March 1, at 1 p.m. at Two Brews Cafe at 230 North St. in Bennington, and is open to the public, Carton said.

Patricia LeBoeuf can be reached at pleboeuf@benningtonbanner.com, at @BAN_pleboeuf on Twitter and 802-447-7567, ext. 118.