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News: (Updated January 17, 2008)

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Press Releases: (updated January, 17 2008)

Outright Vermont Launches Queer Youth Visibility Campaign

For Immediate Release: January 17, 2007
Contact: Christopher Neff
Phone: 802.865.9677

 Outright Vermont launches state-wide queer youth visibility campaign: Vermont Youth StandOUT.

Outright Vermont today announced the launch of Vermont Youth StandOUT, a state-wide queer youth visibility campaign which will reach out to youth and all Vermonters. Outright Executive Director Christopher Neff stated, “Vermont stands out as a state that really cherishes and supports the youth in all its communities. This effort complements local values by highlighting the great role that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and allied youth play in making this state the best in America.”

The Vermont Youth StandOUT campaign goals include increasing programs that make Vermont the best place for queer youth to live and grow up, advancing understanding of the potential and needs of queer youth and funding queer youth as a priority population.

This campaign is the first initiative of Outright Vermont’s goal to make Vermont “the safest, most supportive and empowering state for queer youth in America” Neff said. The campaign will be implemented through several efforts, including:

o a new online resource center at www.outrightvt.org;
o outreach to the most rural parts of Vermont through the “queer-mobile”;
o a new monthly newsletter to gay-straight alliances (GSA) groups in Vermont;
o public education messages and visibility through Vermont Public Radio ads.

According to the 2005 joint Vermont Department of Health & Education Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 33% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning youth respondents experienced bullying in Vermont schools in the previous 30 days, 27% had attempted suicide in the last 12 months, and one in five had been threatened or injured by a weapon in the last year. The next survey of youth is due out in 2008.

The Mission of Outright Vermont is to build safe, healthy, and supportive environments for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. Founded in 1989, Outright Vermont is one of the longest standing queer organizations in Vermont and the only one that works specifically with young people. By striving to empower queer youth, model positive cross-generational learning and leadership, and to address lateral oppressions including racism, classism, and heterosexism, Outright Vermont is building a safer, healthier, and more supportive world for all young people.

Outright Vermont Names New Executive Director

For Immediate Release: December 3, 2007
Contact: Katherine Betzer
Phone: 802-865-9677 ext. 4

Christopher Neff Named Executive Director of Outright Vermont

Outright Vermont today announced Christopher Neff as the organizations new Executive Director. Neff will start on December 3rd succeeding Lluvia Mulvaney-Stanak who stepped down in September. Founded in 1989, Outright Vermont is the state's leading LGBT youth organization building safe, healthy, and supportive environments for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.

Neff was selected following an extensive search undertaken by Outright Vermont's Board of Directors. In accepting the appointment, Neff said, "I am thrilled for this opportunity and grateful for the trust of the community. Being young and queer in rural America will never be easy but I look forward to working with all Vermonters so youth are welcomed, empowered and respected because of the gifts their diversity brings to this state."

“Christopher Neff brings the kind of energy, experience and leadership that Outright Vermont was looking for” said Board Chair Brian Gilbar. “We are proud of the work this organization has done with and on behalf of LGBTQQ youth in Vermont and there is more work to be done. Our youth deserve the best team to support them and to work with all Vermonters. Chris is the right fit at an important time for Outright Vermont and we are excited to welcome him to our family."

Anne Stanback, Executive Director of Love Makes a Family (CT) said, "Outright Vermont, specifically, and the citizens of Vermont, generally, are fortunate to have Chris Neff joining them in the state's continued struggle for equality and acceptance for the LGBT community. Vermont has been a national leader and a role model for many of us doing similar work in other states. Chris' experience and passion for justice will be a wonderful addition."

Also congratulating Neff on his new position was EqualityMaine Executive Director Betsy Smith who stated, "I'm very pleased to welcome Chris back to New England! He has been a leading voice for building and supporting strong state and local LGBT organizations at the Equality Federation and at SLDN, his openness and passion helped build their national grassroots strategy. I know he will bring that same enthusiasm to Outright Vermont."

Neff is native of northeastern Connecticut and recently received a Masters Degree in Public Policy with honors from the University of Sydney. He has worked on both sides of the aisle for Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia and Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. On LGBT issues, Neff has worked for the Michael D. Palm Center, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the public relations firm DDB Issues and Advocacy. Neff also served as President of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. and on the Board of Directors for the Equality Federation of state-wide LGBT political organizations.

For more information visit: http://www.outrightvt.org/

Gay Youth Become Movement's Ambassadors

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — The half-dozen lobbyists who crowded into a lawmaker's office here recently didn't come bearing campaign cash or votes to swap.

Instead, they recounted tales of high school torment as fresh as their faces. Ignacio Pitalua, 19, spoke about having a trash can dumped on him by other boys who suspected he was gay.

"It's a big obstacle to learning," Pitalua said, pressing Assemblyman Curren Price to co-sponsor a bill that sets specific requirements for schools to stem anti-gay discrimination.

Young people, some barely in their teens, are becoming the gay rights movement's newest ambassadors at statehouses from Olympia, Wash. to Montpelier, Vt.

Their advocacy, unheard of as recently as a decade ago, reflects the slowly growing acceptance that is emboldening gays and lesbians to come out of the closet while they are coming of age.

Veteran activists credit the political participation of gay youth, their straight friends and children of same-sex parents with a string of recent legislative victories, including last month's passage of an anti-bullying bill that provides specific protections gay and lesbian students in Iowa.

The law's adoption came after the Iowa Pride Network issued a report saying more than 83 percent of the state's gay, lesbian and transgender students said they had been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation.

"We kept getting comments from legislators of 'There aren't gay kids in Iowa, this is an East and West coast problem,'" said Ryan Roemerman, the network's director.

The group also arranged a news conference attended by Iowa's lieutenant governor and three students who provided firsthand accounts of discrimination. They included a girl who was kicked out of her Roman Catholic high school after she came out as a lesbian and another who said she wasn't allowed into the locker room to change with other girls.

Brad Anderson, spokesman for Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, said the organized lobbying effort, which also included a 1,000-person rally at Drake University, was "absolutely critical" in getting the legislation approved.

"They added a loud voice, just physically being in the Capitol, and you saw them working all hours of the day lobbying to get this stuff passed," Anderson said.

Lluvia Mulvaney-Stanak, director of Outright Vermont, thinks young people have an advantage when it comes to persuading lawmakers, especially hostile ones, to hear them out. Painful stories of isolation may remind hardened politicians of their own children or awkward adolescence, she said.

"Young people no matter who they are, command this really tangible sense of empathy with adults. We've all been there," Mulvaney-Stanak said. "Maybe we were geeks or the athletes, but when it comes to victims of bullying and harassment, everyone has had a role in that cycle."

Yet the most effective spokespeople are not necessarily gay youth, but the straight students who joined with them to form more than 2,500 high school gay-straight alliance clubs across the country since the early 1990s.

Carolyn Lamb, director of California's Gay-Straight Alliance Network, estimates that up to 40 percent of the 400 high school and college students recently bused to Sacramento for Queer Youth Advocacy Day were not gay, lesbian or transgender.

"Most of the adult-driven (gay) civil rights work doesn't have such large numbers of straight allies who see it as a civil rights cause," she observed.

Children with gay or lesbian parents also have been instrumental in building support for same-sex marriage, said Meredith Fenton, national program director with Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere.

"For someone who isn't sure how they feel about gay people, when they are hearing a message about supporting a LGBT family from someone who is really impacted by homophobia even though they are not gay themselves, they can really hear and receive that message in a different way," Fenton said.

While previous generations waited well into adulthood before identifying themselves as gay, the average age at which gay children came out to friends and families in 2005 was 13 years and four months, according to Caitlin Ryan, a San Francisco State University researcher who studies the social and psychological development of gay youth.

"There were never historically any positive role models for LGBT young people," Ryan said. "Now, of course, we see more and more young people coming out because there are ways for them to be who they are, to socialize and live their lives as adolescents instead of coming out as an adult and then going back to live your adolescence."

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On the Net:

California's Gay-Straight Alliance Network: http://www.gsanetwork.org

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