Tag Archive for "Young People"

Posts Tagged Young People

Chile’s student movement renews protests after negotiations fall apart

Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo (Image credit: Aliosha Marquez/AP)

For the last several months, Chilean students have been in revolt. They’re demanding “free and equal quality” university education for all, and they’ve launched what’s become the nation’s largest protest movement since the days of Pinochet to get it.

Since May, the movement has organized 37 protests, including a kiss-a-thon!, which have drawn up to 200,000 students at a time. More than 100,000 students have boycotted classes, and students have occupied around 200 state elementary and high schools and a dozen universities. These teenagers at a prestigious girls’ school, for instance, jumped the fence of their school one early morning and have barricade themselves inside for the ...

Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo (Image credit: Aliosha Marquez/AP)

For the last several months, Chilean students have been in revolt. They’re demanding “free and equal quality” university education for all, and they’ve launched what’s ...

By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

10-year-old trans girl on being bullied by adults and accepted by her peers

I love it when we get to hear from young people about what’s going on in their own lives. Too often, the voices of those most impacted by youth issues are ignored in favor of adults. So I was glad to read the words of a 10-year-old trans girl in England who returned to school this year presenting her actual gender.

The girl’s mom told the Worcester News (in an article unfortunately trapped in the “trapped in the wrong body” frame, but which does keep the girl’s identity anonymous) that the school administration has been supportive of letting her daughter present as a girl, but some parents have walked by them muttering, “That’s that freak family. That’s that freak ...

I love it when we get to hear from young people about what’s going on in their own lives. Too often, the voices of those most impacted by youth issues are ignored in favor of adults. So ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection

Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by developmental psychologist Niobe Way is a must-read for anyone concerned with the so-called “boy crisis,” anyone who is raising a boy in the U.S., and anyone who doubts that feminism can—and should—improve the lives of boys and men.

In this richly-researched book, based on in-depth, one-on-one interviews with teenage boys in the U.S. as they progress through high school, Way debunks the cultural myth that boys don’t have, need, or desire close friendships. By attempting to truly listen—through the distracting noise of our own assumptions and expectations—to what boys themselves are actually saying, she paints a reality that is both more heartbreaking and more hopeful than the myth. ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

New study on young people’s views on abortion

Last week, the Public Religion Research Institute released a new study focused on millennials’ (18-29 year olds) views on abortion entitled “Committed to Availability, Conflicted About Morality: What the Millennial Generation Tells Us about the Future of the Abortion Debate and the Culture Wars.”

One main take-away from the study is that attitudes on abortion and same-sex marriage have become increasingly “decoupled.” Support for marriage equality is increasing while support for legal abortion has remained remarkably steady for years–and the two issues are not particularly linked. Young people especially reflect this shift. Millennials are much more likely to support marriage equality than the population as a whole. But while they tend to have the demographic characteristics that would suggest similarly ...

By Jos Truitt • 13 years ago

People in the sex trade respond to GEMS media storm

An INCITE! affiliate and collective of radical women of color, queer people of color, and Indigenous people who identify as people in the sex trades has written a compelling response to Rinku Sen’s ColorLines article “The Complexities of Sex Trafficking, and Some Simple Solutions.” I see their piece as addressing the larger media storm around “Girls Like Us,” the new book from GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd, which is the focus of Sen’s original article. In discussing any issue, especially one like the sex trade where those involved are marginalized in our culture, I think it is vital to center the voices of those most impacted. Lloyd was formerly in the sex trade, but her work is ...

By Jos Truitt • 13 years ago

The Feministing Five: Carl Siciliano

Carl Siciliano is the founder and Executive Director of the Ali Forney Center, New York City’s only shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth. There are an estimated 3,000 homeless youth in New York City alone, and 40% of them identify as LGBTQ. Yet there are only 200 beds in the entire US designated for LGBTQ youth, and 57 of them are at the Ali Forney Center.

Governor Cuomo is proposing to cut all state funding for homeless youth shelters. Please click here to take action against these inhumane budget cuts.

Siciliano is an impassioned advocate for the young people he works with and, as I definitely saw in his answer to my last question, just an incredibly kind, sweet person.

And ...

By Jos Truitt • 13 years ago

Abortion access is a youth issue

The current attack on abortion rights in the House is an attempt to extend already despicable bans on funding for abortion, the only medical procedure explicitly excluded from federal funding, as far beyond their current scope as possible. Federal funding for abortion is obviously a class issue, as it is the poorest people in the US who most need help accessing medical care. The reproductive justice community has done a great job of emphasizing that this is a racial justice issue, pointing out the intersection between race and poverty in the US. Here’s another intersection that I think deserves our attention: abortion funding is a youth issue.

The majority of people in the US who need abortion care ...

By Jos Truitt • 13 years ago

What’s the power of the youth vote?

So you may have heard there’s a pretty important election happening in the U.S. on Tuesday. No, we’re not voting for president this year, but we will be deciding the shape of Congress, electing governors in 39 states, and voting on ballot initiatives all over the country, some of which are seriously scary.

Through my work with Choice USA I get the privilege of working with youth organizers who have been doing voter registration, voter education, and now get out the vote work. I’ve blogged about some of that work over at my organization’s site. I’ve been consistently inspired by the other young people I get to organize with. But while collaborating with under 30 organizers doing incredible work ...