The Triangle Youth Alliance
Safety First for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Young People

Students:

• www.BeRealOrlando.org
• www.GLSEN.org
• LifeLine of Central Florida Teen Hotline:  407-841-7413  (24/7 Crisis Intervention)

Volunteers: 

• TriangleYouthAlliance@TriangleGroup.org (email)

The Triangle Youth Alliance (TYA) strives to build a safety support system for and encourages networking among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people who attend school and/or live in Lake County, Florida.

Specifically, TYA volunteers are endeavoring to work in association with area high schools, middle schools, and the county school district to create safer climates for all students.  Principals, teachers and guidance counselors, as well as GLBTQ students, are encouraged to get involved.

• The TYA is an outreach project of The Triangle Connection, Inc., a nonprofit networking and social organization for GLBT adults in the Mount Dora-Eustis-Tavares area, in cooperation with Be Real, an Orlando-based nonprofit program that provides assistance to GLBTQ students in Orange and Seminole County schools (www.berealorlando.org) .

A key component of Be Real's programming is the creation of "safe classrooms" in public Middle and High Schools.  The rooms are staffed by volunteer teachers and counselors who pledge to be nonjudgmental when a young person needs to talk about issues ranging from bullying to gender identity.  Stickers or magnetic signs are placed on a window or outside an educator's door to identify the teacher as a "safe" participant.  The TYA is working to establish such programs in Lake County schools, and needs volunteers (students, teachers, counselors) to lead the way.

Another component of Be Real's work--as inspired by GLSEN (www.glsen.org), the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, a national organization founded in the mid-nineties--is to assist students in establishing officially recognized Straight-Gay Alliances or Gay Youth Alliances within their schools.  Many schools in Orange and Seminole Counties already have such groups, and liaisons from Be Real and GLSEN are ready to work with the Triangle Youth Alliance to provide support for students and educators who wish to establish on-campus groups in Lake County.

• In numerous Orange and Seminole County schools with such Alliances, hundreds of students and faculty members participated in this year's 12th annual National Day of Silence, which GLSEN sponsors to bring attention to and discourage bullying and harrassment in schools.

The statistics about the effects of bullying on GLBTQ students are truly startling.  One-third of all teen suicides and one-half of all male youth suicides are from the GLBTQ community, according to a study by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.  Other studies have shown that gay teens are twice as likely as their heterosexual peers to attempt suicide.  What's more, 30 percent of gay and bisexual adolescent males attempt suicide at least once.

• Every bit as disturbing, 80 percent of those harassed about their sexual orientation identify as heterosexual, and heterosexual youths are five times as likely to attempt suicide if they are harassed because someone believes they are gay.  About 160,000 young people skip school out of fear of being harassed each day, and teenage students (gay and straight) say the worst kind of harassment in school is being called "gay."

Here's one more particularly frightful statistic:  A total of 27 percent of gay youth say they have been physically hurt by another student.  More statistics on the dangers of bullying, including all of their research sources, can be found on the website www.berealorlando.org .

Safety First--that's the priority of The Triangle Youth Alliance.  All adults working directly with young people are required to have criminal background checks in accordance with the policies of Be Real-Orlando.

In addition to issues of safety in the schools, The Triangle Youth Alliance wishes to serve as a conduit for youth participants to plan their own alcohol-and drug-free social and networking programs.

Persons interested in participating in or assisting with any TYA-related program may drop an email to TriangleYouthAlliance@TriangleGroup.org .

The TYA does not provide crisis intervention or counseling at this time, but encourages GLBTQ persons in dangerous situations to call the LifeLine of Central Florida's Teen Hotline at 407-841-7413.