YOUTH FIRST TEXAS presents…

1st Annual Spring Formal

Dress to impress and you could be the queen and king– queen and queen, king and king– or gender neutral royalty of the evening!  Join us as we celebrate the 1st annual Spring Formal at Youth First Texas.  SWAG bags for the first 50 people to come through the doors full of all kinds of goodies including gift cards and other party favors in the theme of the event “Fire and Ice”

There is NO CHARGE for Tonight’s event!

Come dine with the Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School’s instructors and chefs

Dance with Matt Purviss resident DJ

Have your Tarot Cards Read–

Portraits by Nick Scattergood and so much more!

DOORS OPEN AT 7PM AND NO SOONER!

The Equality Texas Lobby Day 2011 will focus on a comprehensive anti-bullying bill for public schools and other important issues.   The Texas Freedom Network Youth Advocacy Day 2011 will focus on the Education Works bill and sex education that is inclusive of issues important to LGBT teens.

Participants from Youth First Texas will meet on Sunday, March 6th to make the drive down to Austin, will stay in Austin for two nights and will return on Tuesday evening.  The Youth Board is sponsoring a rental van for the trip with each youth and volunteer attending asked to chip in $50 towards travel and hotel costs and bring money for food and incidentals.  Youth with financial hardships can request a sponsorship for the travel costs with several sponsorships being offered from individual members of the Board of Directors.  Youth under 18 years of age must have parental consent forms turned in to participate.  Participation letters for students to request excused absences from school will also be provided.

For more information on the trip or to get copies of the permission slips please contact Jeremy Liebbe (jeremy.liebbe@youthfirsttexas.org) or click on the Facebook event link after the jump!

Links:
Equality Texas — http://www.equalitytexas.org/
Texas Freedom Network — http://www.tfn.org
Equality Texas FaceBook — http://www.facebook.com/EqualityTexas
Texas Freedom Network FaceBook — http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-Freedom-Network/27927698033
YFT’s Event on Facebook — http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200688946609709

This year’s Valentine season will be an inclusive one in North Texas. While high school student councils are busy planning their dances, Gay Straight Alliances in Dallas and Collin County are coming together for the first-ever “Love Conquers All Ball,” being hosted by LULAC 4871 – The Dallas Rainbow Council and Youth First Texas on Saturday, Feb. 12, 7 to 11 p.m.

“Youth First Texas is delighted to partner with local high school Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) to provide LGBTQ students and their allies with a safe social outlet free of any prejudice or harassment,” said Sam Wilkes, director of development and administration at Youth First Texas. “The dance also serves as a great way to introduce youth from all over the metroplex to the services the Youth First Texas offers.”

GSA students, Youth First Texas members and LGBTQ teens, ages 14 to 18, are invited. Chaperones will check I.D. at the door. A $2 donation will be requested. Donations will go toward The Trevor Project, the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth.

North Texas has GSA chapters at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts , Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School , Woodrow Wilson High School, North Dallas High School and Plano East High School.

The idea for a Valentine’s dance came up when Jesse Garcia of LULAC Rainbow Council gave a leadership speech to the Woodrow Wilson High School’s GSA.  The GSA leader on that campus, Luis Veloz, wanted his membership to attend a dance where gay teens could be themselves.

“I am a firm believer that love is the strongest power we as the LGBT community have,” said Veloz, who is a sophomore at Wilson HS. “I wanted to give our youth the chance to experience what a teenage love truly encompasses, and what better way to do that than by a Valentine’s Dance?”

LULAC Rainbow Council members have offered to chaperone and help decorate Youth First Texas’ hall. LULAC members will also provide food and beverages for the event.

“We want the night to feel like any dance being held in a high school gym,” said Garcia, president of LULAC 4871. “We will have photos taken of couples, provide a nice setting so they can eat and give them a safe-place to express themselves. We want these kids to have the dance that many of us wanted back in the day,” said Garcia.

Garcia has already gotten support from a few community leaders who were active last fall during the teen suicide epidemic to help out with the dance.

“It is important that we remain involved. A lot of us in the community spoke out last fall in support of our LGBT youth during the suicide crisis,” said Garcia. “Unfortunately, kids are still taking their lives. Our youth still need our support with positive reinforcement. We need to help out Youth First Texas.”

Garcia is in search of a florist willing to donate carnations or roses for couples and a photographer to take digital images of couples. To volunteer, donate or for more information, contact Garcia at jessegarciadallas@gmail.com  or Wilkes at sam.wilkes@youthfirsttexas.org.

For more information visit: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140706059324575

It was a perfect storm that I never expected. I came out to my friends and family, got on hormones, and suddenly I have an acceptance letter to the University of British Columbia arriving in my mailbox. Because my father is from Kamloops, a small town to the north of my college town of Kelowna, I was given full citizenship to Canada a couple years ago. Though I will have to endure the impending TSA groping on my way back and forth I still have opportunities thrust upon me that I intend to take full advantage of. So my plane ticket was bought, my bags were packed, and three or so months ago I arrived in this small town to get a good education and eventually get my hormones and surgery paid for by the Canadian healthcare system. The luck I have had is not lost on me.

I have never been away from my family and friends for this long before in my life. I’ve had many hard moments that I knew, even as a child, I’d have to experience. Seeing my parents drive away was the hardest thing I have ever had to watch. Though I have very good friends up here and am doing well on my own, there is this hole in my heart that will take years to fill. Making completely new connections to replace those that I’ve become so accustomed to over many years has been difficult. It is a challenge I’ve never faced before.

Because of this struggle, I have become fixated on my past. There is this huge disconnect between my life before transition, and my life afterwards, and my struggle comes from reconciling those two people: the boy I was, and the girl I am now. A lot of this came to a head when Trans Day of Remembrance came along, and I was to sit down and watch “Ma Vie en Rose”, a film I’d been avoiding for a long time. I’d never cried so hard, I could hardly catch my breath between harsh, fitful bursts of uncontrollable sobbing and I had to walk outside to spare the rest of the group. In that moment I realized that I needed to focus my attention on the here and now, let the past be the past or this feeling I have might destroy me. It’s not just about missing my friends and family, it’s about missing a moment in time that you can never get back. It’s about wishing you could do things differently, while knowing you never really can.

Before I flew up here I called the pride center at UBC Okanagan and managed to talk to a girl named Marissa. She runs the pride center here on campus, and now she is a good friend of mine, one I have felt safe in confiding these dark feelings inside of me. She is a fine arts student, and she decided to paint a portrait of me for one of her projects. On TDOR I saw the finished product, and I even gave the picture it’s current title, “anXietY”. I’ve been thinking about that portrait a lot lately, and I’ve come to realize, that there are people here, who despite only knowing me a short time, care about me. As much as I miss YFT, as much as I miss my high school friends, and as much as I miss the entire landscape of Dallas, TX, things that fill me with the indescribable feeling we only know as “nostalgia”, I know that I will be okay.

I guess what I’m trying to say with all of this, is don’t regret the past, cherish those moments and live for the here and now. The past is the past, so live and let live. As corny as that sounds, it’s the truth.

The original posting may be found

“Sticks and stones may break my bones…”

We can all finish the rhyme. We can say that we believe “words will never hurt me,” but the problem is that words all too often lead to actions, and while words themselves may not hurt immediately, the actions they provoke can scar, mutilate, even destroy.

Billy Lucas. Cody J. Barker. Seth Walsh. Tyler Clementi. Asher Brown. Harrison Chase Brown. Raymond Chase. Felix Sacco. Caleb Nolt.

These are their names; these are the identifiers by which they should be known, not by numbers that document a recent uptick in suicides due to anti-LGBTQ bullying. Methods may have differed, but the cause, and the result, were the same. These nine voices have been silenced, these nine spirits no longer burn brightly here on earth. Whatever Billy, Cody, Seth, Tyler, Asher, Harrison, Raymond, Felix and Caleb had to offer the world, we can now only hope that it will be transformed into a movement to stop not just anti-LGBTQ bullying, but all bullying.

These deaths are a wake-up call to all of us. For those of us who have been lucky to have support and friends around us, it reminds that what affects one can affect many, and that no one should feel like a lesser being because of who they are. For those of us who have endured the taunting, the jeering, we are reminded that strength in the face of great adversity can lead to great triumph.

Now is the time for us to have compassion; now is the time for us to reveal our strength. Foremost, we should have compassion for one another, for we are all in this together. It is not a fight for one of us to face alone, it is a battle that we all must greet head-on. Our  move should be educational in nature, to stamp out the ignorance so many possess. Through enlightenment, fear of the unknown is stamped out. Through knowledge, progress can be made, and the wrongs we rally against today can become the whispers of the past tomorrow.

Billy, Cody, Seth, Tyler, Asher, Harrison, Raymond, Felix and Caleb may have moved on from this life, but we are here to remember. We are here to act.

Bullying, whether it is anti-LGBTQ or any other prejudice, is a tool of the weak, a weapon of the fearful. This practice must be stopped, and those who wield it must learn that doing so is just as harmful to themselves as it is to those they target.

Do not be afraid to speak up. You never know whose life you will end up saving.

The Trevor Project is a national 24-hour suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth (866-4-U-TREVOR). Even if you think you don’t need the number, it’s likely that you know someone who might. Open the lines of communication with those around you.

Once upon a time, a non-profit youth organization, advocating for North Texas’ LGBTQA youth, gave itself a unique challenge – to create an internal fundraising opportunity that promoted the social services aspect of the organization’s mission values. Four of the organization’s most unlikely volunteers and staff members to do drag were selected for the challenge and a popular vote by fundraising donation would decide who would be performing in drag during the festivities of pride week. It was by this – and trust, no other reason — Miss Miranda Wright was born on September 16, 2010.

Miranda Wright debuted her first song, Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy”, to cheers so loud nobody could hear the music and was supported with a fierce dance routine performed by the Drag ‘N Dance group for her second number, Britney Spears’ “Circus”.

“I would like to thank Miss Nicole Jacobs for all of her help preparing me for my debut performance as well as the Drag ‘N Dance group of YFT for their wonderfully fierce routine supporting my second number,” Miranda was later quoted, “but this performance was dedicated to the youth of Youth First Texas – most of all the T and Q youth of our LGBTQA spectrum. You can accomplish anything you set your hearts and minds to achieve! If anybody tells you otherwise send them to me…I’ll be more than happy to tell them off for you. While wearing four inch heels, of course.”

Will there be a sequel performance? Or will Miranda Wright remain mysteriously within the hearts of her fans, supporting their self esteem and personal power from within? As of yet, nobody knows…

I have the right to be FIERCE...and so do you!

The editor would like to thank Ms. Wright’s publicist for the rights to reprint this biography.

The primary weapon used by terrorists is not an IED or rockets or rifles or rocks or grenades; they are not fighter jets or tanks or suicide bombers or underwear explosives. The weapon of terrorism is just that: terror.

Fear. Anxiety. They are crippling, and they rob you of joy.

When you harass someone, when you explicitly or implicitly state that someone doesn’t belong here, when you don’t do everything you can to make your neighbor feel safe in her own home, whenever you are a part of generating fear in another human being to control his or her behavior, you are a terrorist.

When you manipulate someone’s emotions, through action or inaction, when you bully a schoolmate or colleague or peer, when you use derogatory slang to lambast a group of people, when you, as a leader, use a position of authority to cow your followers, when you threaten to destroy a symbol of the soul and when you don’t immediately and vehemently protest any of these activities, you are participating in terrorism.

This goes for racists and dictators. This goes for Terry Jones out in Florida. This goes for Westboro Baptist Church. This goes for the man who beat my friend last week. This goes for the guy in the student center who thinks that it’s okay to yell “fag” across the room. This goes for my neighbor whose violently transphobic remarks make me too nervous to take my trash out at night. This goes for church leaders who think that it’s okay to dissolve a student group just because its leaders have some initiative, and that fact scares them. This goes for the guy on the bus, who plays his offensive music loudly and swears at anyone who asks him to turn it down. This goes for me. This goes for you.

I’ve heard it said that a “war on terrorism” is a dumb idea. When it comes to wasting the lives of soldiers and civilians and pouring buckets of money into arms and violence when we could be feeding, healing and curing people (and cleaning up our image as Americans), I agree (and I do think it’s silly to engage an enemy that is technically an abstract concept).

But, every war starts at home – defeat the enemy of terrorism in your own soul, and we’ll no longer need Sept. 11 to remind us of the consequences of failing to do so.

Aaron Barnes is senior cultural anthropology major and a global activist. He can be reached for comment or questions at mbarnes@smu.edu.

This article was originally posted here: http://www.smudailycampus.com/opinion/terrorists-manipulate-fear-as-indispensable-weapon-1.1598356.

What light...?

I have always been in theatre. I have been an actress and a director. I have done anything and everything on the technical side, but one side I had never conquered was playwriting. I was perfectly happy being a minor actress and a lead technician. Two years ago, I acted in a program called P.U.P Fest, a.k.a Playwrights Under Progress Fest. Five plays are handpicked, cast, rehearsed, and performed by teenagers in grades 9-12. After that experience, I fell in love with P.U.P Fest and swore I would write a show and be picked to participate again—as a playwright.

Last year, I was too busy. This year, I felt like I needed to expand my horizons. The school year started, but my life was still a whirlpool with hardly a second to write anything, let alone a play. Months went by, and then it was April: the deadline was Thursday, and it was Monday. What the heck? I sat down, and in a matter of hours, I had a play. I zoomed it through a quick edit and sent it on its way to the theatre company. A few weeks went by, and I received a call. I had made it! Wow, best feeling in the world. Talk about cloud nine—more like cloud 39!

Playwright Charis Royal

My play, “There’s Something Wrong in Wonderland: A Romiet and Julio Story,” was a comedy-spoof wrapped up in a tragedy. Based on a twisted version of “Romeo and Juliet,” a high school boy named Jule falls asleep right before a Shakespeare test. The next thing he knows, he wakes up in the middle of “Romeo and Juliet,” as Juliet. The characters in Shakespeare’s original “Romeo and Juliet” land in some strange world: all the women think they are men, and vice-versa. There’s an obsessive “boy”-friend, an over possessive “brother,” a horribly biased cat, and a slightly insane nurse. The combination leads to a disastrous version of “Romeo and Juliet” that Jule with never forget!

The whole gender swap in my show and the confusion of whom, or rather, what gender the characters are, can be connected to how many LGBTQ youth don’t know how they identify. Many of my fellow youth at Youth First Texas are transgender or gender-queer. Many took years to realize who and what they are. Seeing actors who are not LGBTQ try to fit in these roles was eye opening, and I hope that when my play is performed again the director will play up the gender confusion, and the fact the “girls” in the show are “butch” and the Friar is feminine.

During the week of rehearsal, I met a group of people I will never forget. They brought my story to life, and I am so thankful to them for giving me a chance of a lifetime!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Earlier this summer, a group from YFT turned a regularly scheduled Open Mic night into a field trip to the McKinney Avenue Contemporary to show support for Charis and to see her play.

The cast stops for a group photo

Youth First Texas presents:
The 2nd Annual Youth Fashion Show:
“Give ‘Em Heel:Candy Extravaganza!”
Featuring youth designers and fabulous youth performers from YFT!

Thursday, July 8th 2010 at The Rose Room located upstairs at S4.
Doors open at 6:30 pm – $10 Admission.
Fancy Mocktails and Free Food!

All proceeds benefits Youth First Texas’ New Youth Center and Programming.

All ages welcome – Must have an ID to get in (School IDs will be accepted as IDs as long as they are picture IDs)

This is an Alcohol and Drug free event.

For information about becoming a sponsor, please contact Vic Rodriguez at v.r.rodriguez@live.com.

The film festival will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2010 (11AM to 5PM) in Addison. Tickets ($15) can be purchased at the DOA Blood Bath Entertainment website.

The event will be emceed by two of YFT youth: Efran Garza and Erika Ochoa.