Homeless Among LGBT Teens

In today’s society, when it comes to the subject of anything LGBT, the first issue that comes to mind is the fight for gay marriage. Just in the past two weeks, people all over facebook and twitter have begun changing profile pictures to the Human Rights Campaign’s red equals symbol in support of legalizing gay marriage. And not to say this isn’t an important issue, but could it be overshadowing some more important issues?

There are nearly two million homeless youth in the United States today. And of that number, 20% are LGBT, when only 10% of all youth are LGBT. There is a disproportionate number of homosexual homeless teenagers that have either run away or been kicked out by their family. According to one study, 50% of gay teens experienced a negative reaction from their parents when they came out and 26% were kicked out of their homes. Then, with nowhere to go, they are rejected from many homeless shelters that do not accept gay or transgender individuals.

Once on the streets, or in shelters, LGBT are subject to all the same hardships as heterosexual homeless kids, and then some. There is the increased risk of obtaining mental health issues, substance abuse, and promiscuity—“Survival Sex” is defined as “exchanging sex for anything needed, including money, food, clothes, a place to stay or drugs”. Studies have shown that LGBT were three times more likely to engage in survival sex than heterosexual homeless. They are also seven times more likely to be the victims of crime, including rape.

It is not much better in the criminal justice system. Lesbian and bisexual girls are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system and are forced to live among a population of inmates that are violently homophobic. And gay males in the system are the most emotionally, physically, and sexually assaulted of all inmates. The mentality of the guards is that if a boy is gay, he likes having sex with all the other boys, so why bother protecting him from the abuse?

The government needs to stop funding Faith-Based Organizations (FBO’s) instead of their own homeless youth outreach programs. While FBO’s do some great philanthropic work, their work only targets specific groups of people—namely, heterosexual and non-transgender. This is why more funding should go into the non-private homeless help services, such as Transitional Living Programs or Basic Center Programs, which provide homes for youth or unite them with a family. Due to lack of funding, these programs each turn away 2,500 youth every year, while funding for the discriminatory FBO’s has increased since 2002.

There are many solutions or preventionary actions that could be taken to combat this problem, government funding of shelters being just the first. And while none of them are being put into action, it is clear that something needs to be done now.

Sources:

http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/HomelessYouth.pdf

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/lgbtq.html

 

4 thoughts on “Homeless Among LGBT Teens

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  2. Pingback: Prioritizing Homeless Youth: The Next Step in LGBT rights | Out of the Closet and Onto the Street

  3. Eric Tschantz

    Wow, my reaction to this information is that it is completely ridiculous. I cannot understand how anyone who calls himself or herself a parent could abandon their child in reaction to their kid informing them that he or she is homosexual. It is extremely sad that parents could ever react in this manner. What I find even more despicable is the information that a homeless shelter would reject any child who comes to them for help. All of these claims make me question the authenticity of the information. I could MAYBE understand a homeless shelter associated with a church having a funny reaction to homosexual inhabitants, but I cannot fathom how any non-religious homeless shelter would turn children away. Overall, the entire situation that these kids are put in really is a testimony of how our society can be really despicable.

  4. Darren Slotnick

    You bring up a good point that most of the focus on equal sexuality rights is on gay marriage. I did not know that homosexuals were overrepresented in homelessness situations. It is important that the government helps those that find themselves on the street just because they aren’t accepted by other people in society. It’s a crime that one’s parents would kick them out of the house because of their sexuality. The government should implement regulations or safe houses for homosexuals to go to when they are turned down by their parents and homeless shelters.

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