Power to the Kids!

How can we help queer youth find (and use) their voices? There are some AWESOME resources available right now to lift up young queer leaders with knowledge, funding, mentorship, and more.

In trying to start this article, I was attempting to find a word to fit in the sentence: It is _______ to be a queer youth right now. Frightening? Exhausting? Empowering? Beautiful? Nothing felt quite right.

The best guess I've got is "loaded". But I think that my struggle to find just one word perfectly encapsulates the sentiment I'm trying to communicate. It's a lot, and there is an incredibly broad range of ways that youth are handling the fact that it's a lot.

Some are terrified, exhausted, anxious, depressed, or isolated. Leaning into a feeling of total powerlessness.

Others are taking it in stride and stepping up to become the heroes they wish they could see. Starting initiatives at their school, taking on peer support roles, protesting, testifying at the capitol as often as they can, and overall just burning hot fires.

I've been both of those youth at different moments of my journey. I needed very different kinds of support, then, but make no mistake: both of those youth need your support.

So let's talk about how we can help these youth tap into their power and feel able to make change, while also talking about how we can make sure they don't totally burn themselves out. Boundaries aren't a natural skill, they are something you have to learn to develop through trial, error, and guidance.

This is going to be a two part series, because this article is already getting long. So stay tuned next week for an article on how to protect queer youth leaders from burnout!

To start, I have to give a plug for the event I’m hosting next week, called Future Dreaming and Your Advocacy Superpower for LGBTQ+ Folks and Allies. It'll be on April 2nd, and will focus on the many, many ways advocacy can look and how folks can get better involved. We’ll discuss the critical role of joy on the road to a better world, and as always, we'll also be discussing important strategies for safety, self-care, and community building during the session. It is open to all ages, and either free or donation-based! Here is the link to RSVP, and feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit!

Power to the People!

What actually is empowerment? It’s the knowledge that you have the ability to make a difference, that you have some control over your circumstances.

While the federal government is certainly doing their best to make us feel powerless, it’s so important to know that we do have a genuine ability to bring about change. That people care about our voices. So what are the forms of empowerment we can help young people build?

Empowered to Envision Possibilities

For a long time, I struggled to imagine a better world, a future for myself, or a life in advocacy outside of a protest. The books I was reading, the TV shows I was watching, the news I saw all presented a very limited view of what the world could look like.

Helping connect young people to queer history through whatever medium is most engaging to them is a phenomenal way to help them understand that we are facing yet another trial as a community, and that no matter what Trump and his clowns get up to we are far better off than we were 20 or 30 years ago.

I also highly recommend this book, titled “Our Work is Everywhere, and Illustrated Oral History of Queer and Trans Resistance”

In addition to being beautifully illustrated, this book gave me so many ideas for the ways I could push the world around me to be better using my unique skills, passions, and connections.

Empowered to Ask for Help

Empowerment doesn’t always have to look like making the change directly, it also means feeling safe and valued enough to voice your needs.

Helping young people find safe opportunities to share their stories, experiences, and needs with movement leaders helps them learn that people do care what they have to say.

The Trevor Project has launched its Confidential U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People, one of the few large-scale studies focused on understanding and preventing suicide among LGBTQ+ youth ages 13-24. Encouraging the young folks in your life to participate in this survey could help remind them that their voice is critical in informing strategy and priorities for those who fight for us.

Empowered to Make Small Changes

Recently, I heard the term “micro-empowerment”, which I loved. The ability to have some level of autonomy or choice in your day. Realizing you can complete daunting projects at home, can decide to paint your bedroom or pick which restaurant to go to.

Given how much energy state and federal agencies are putting towards taking any feeling of choice away from queer youth, give it back to them.

For me, my micro-empowerment is going to the gym. Post-election, having a space that I can choose to show up and feel strong and confident, and like I can work for the difficult goals I set for myself, has been crucial for my mental health.

Empowered to Make Bigger Changes (and see them!)

It may help to set a specific, actionable, local goal with the youth you are trying to encourage. They aren’t going to be able to fix the world, and that might feel totally demotivating, so don’t focus on the whole list of global issues they’re frightened or angry about. They can’t fix all those at once. But they might be able to start a GSA, or volunteer with 5 different organizations this month, or try to raise funds for an organization they care about.

I really love this article about fighting for small change-making goals, called “making a dragon quest”.

The more locally-focused our efforts, the more empowered we’ll feel as we can walk down the street and notice the changes we worked for.

Empowered to Make BIG CHANGES

Maybe you’ve got a big dreamer on your hands. They’re already fired up and ready to act. That’s awesome. Here are a few upcoming resources to lift them up, fund their ideas, and teach them how to execute high-impact ideas.

The Sonoma Summer Leadership Institute: On July 7th-10th, our 2025 cohort of changemakers will gather in Sonoma for a transformative four-day program. SLI is designed for young nonbinary, genderqueer, trans, and cis girls—especially BIPOC youth—who are ready to lead, create, and organize for a better world.

It Gets Better CHANGEMAKERS Grants: Are you an LGBTQ+ young person with a dream to make your community or school a safer, bolder, prouder place? Then, you’ve come to the right place.
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With grants available in increments from $500 to $10,000, no amount is too small to accomplish huge changes in your community. Do you want to expand your school or public library’s available books from LGBTQ+ authors? What about creating a local support group for trans and nonbinary kids? Maybe there’s even a queer prom or celebration in your future? This grant is open to youth or youth-serving organizations!

LBGTQ+ Health in St. Louis: WashU Pride Scholars is an innovative initiative for high school students interested in a career in healthcare and/or LGBTQIA+ health. The program will occur on four consecutive Saturday mornings in April 2025 (4/12, 4/19, 4/26, and 5/3 - 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.). Each morning will include a lecture on a select LGBTQIA+ health topic, an activity introducing participants to a local non-profit organization (PROMO, Lavender Club, The SPOT), and an information session and workshop on a select healthcare career. Students participating in the Pride Scholars program will engage in one-on-one mentorship with a WashU Medicine faculty member or student and receive a certificate of completion.

That’s all for this week, folks! You can expect to hear the second part of this article some time later next week. Don’t forget to share this article with a young person you want to lift up!

And subscribe to support my work and make sure you see part 2 about ways to prevent advocacy-burnout among youth who have changemaking thrust upon them.

With love as always,

Ben