In the United States, even as teens are commercially sexualized at an early age, witness Britney Spears, we pretend there is problem. No, the problem is not teen sex. The problem is our society's hypocrisy in the face of it: how we sell out our youth to a consumerist approach to their bodies, their self worth, and their sexuality. And while we flaunt young semi-nude bodies on TV and in magazines, in programming and advertising, we play the puritan when it comes to really talking about it seriously. Case in point: A report released Friday by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services estimates that New York City is home to more than 2,000 sexually exploited children under 18. The researchers who compiled the report were surprised how many were male or transgendered. Hell, that seems like an underestimate to me. According to a 2006 study conducted by the National Runaway Switchboard, 42% of the 15,000 to 20,000 homeless youth in New York identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. And I can do the math.
In Britain, they are not afraid to talk about this in commercial media. There is a campaign to reach out to teen runaways who may be surviving on the street through prostitution. It actually speaks from the
understanding that many of these teens probably left home due to abuse or because their sexuality made them less than welcome at home.
It speaks from an understanding or reality. And the visual is way too shocking for a bus shelter on Broadway. But for the kids in the shelters this is an image that is simply everyday life.
Hell, in some shelters, they know this is how you get preferential treatment. Some of us still remember the scandal of Bruce Ritter at Covenant House.
YES, NYAC, and The Ali Forney Center and MCC's shelter named for the fierce Sylvia Ray Rivera all do what they can to provide safe space. But they don't have the beds, the money, the full resources themselves to address the sheer numbers.
And in fact, the recent report wasn't really about homeless youth, it was about young people who feel they have no other way to earn money, no other value or way to contribute to their family (especially when abuse begins at home).
This is where poverty, racism, religio/spiritual abuse, homophobia and our culture's commercialization of sex all come together in a very smelly stew. There are those in the GLBT community who prefer to keep their activism focused on GLBT equality issues. But an issue like this shows how really everything is ultimately related. The new activists of the Queer Justice League might take note and consider ways in which their activism would serve one of the most under-served and despised communities in the city. And when you consider it, the community that lit the fires at Stonewall, since the riot was started by people like Sylvia Ray Rivera — homeless, poor LGBT youth, often of color.
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