Year

2003

Show#

24

Description

GAY YOUTH SPECIAL

Show Information

WASHINGTON, DC – Gay News Watch co-anchors Holly Landau and Jacob Mikow cover top US and international news briefs then kick off the first in a proposed three part series of looks on queer youth in America today!

Reporter Drew Banks meets Holly Peterson, who after the suicide of her good friend Jacob Orasco, was motivated to start a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) in her Salt Lake City high school in the late 90's. In an effort to shut down the gay student group, school officials soon disbanded all clubs in her school.

Next D.C.'s own Christopher Dyer and his alter-stage ego Cookie Buffet explain how the Youth Pride Alliance and Youth Pride Festival started here 1996. The annual event draws hundreds of out loud – out proud youth.

Then, the Garden State's Michael Bisognio tells how at age 14 he survived a horrific school yard gay bashing and later emerged a stronger person as well as a national figure in the fight to end homophobia.

In our final segment reporter Franklin Maphis meets "gay youth' activist and Youth Pride Board member David Grossman. Grossman came out of the closet at age 12. First David came out to his family, then to his classmates in the school yard. Grossman continued to out himself publicly in the pages of the national gay teen magazine XY Washington, D.C.'s Metro Weekly and on the front page of the Washington Post.

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