PANEL: Has gay youth become lackadaisical in the fight for LGBT rights?

The answer is definitely yes. Spoiled by the deplorable U.S. education system and by their blissfully ignorant parents, young LGBTs think that all they need to do in life is breathe. Clearly that will not suffice.

 Younger gays have not seen nor known the struggles of the past decades. They are not witting to the fact that LGBT people have been beaten, gone to jail, and died — just for being gay.

With so many liberal justices ruling against state laws and in favor of same-sex marriage, many LGBT youth think their future will be a gilded generation. They could not be more mistaken.

Of course it is worse elsewhere — you dare not be gay in most Islamic countries or you will be killed. Still, many young LGBT do not know Iran from Arvada, nor strongly anti-gay Muslim African countries from Aurora. Gay youth are indifferent to the oppression of the Sharia world — and they better be worried — they could easily be killed in a future scenario.

I am afraid that gay youth in Colorado often just believe everything for them is on a silver platter. They could not be more wrong.

Iowa native George Gramer, Jr. is president of the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans.

I’ve had the opportunity to study, write about, and interview some of the original movers and shakers of the LGBT movement who were fighting every day just for the right to exist in peace. I don’t want that fight. I am thankful, but I have no desire to be sworn at, beaten up, or prosecuted in the name of LGBT rights. The only reason I have been able to live more freely than they is because I stand on the shoulders of these giants, and I am truly grateful. 

I don’t have to worry every day when I walk out my door and I don’t have to look over my shoulder constantly when I am out alone. While I have been beaten up and hospitalized in an anti-gay attack, I realize that I am an outlier and am thankful that most others will never experience that. Is the LGBT youth getting lazy? If they are, it’s a luxury that so many have fought for them to have. The goal was that one day we could live our lives as regular people, and while we are not quite there yet, we are closer than ever before. We have finally reached a place of normalization where we don’t have to carry picket signs all the time and travel in packs out of necessity and that is luxury of which we can be proud.

Pieter Tolsma is program coordinator of Denver PIQUE,  a sexual health and social support program for gay/bi men in Denver.

LGBTQ youth and allies are alive and well in Denver and beyond. Their voice may be seen as weak, small, and unaware, yet I can promise you it is anything but. Groups that exist within the LGBTQ sphere, like the Colorado Anti-Violence Program and their fully youth-led project, Branching Seedz of Resistance (BSEEDZ), work to give voice to all forms of anti-violence within the LGBTQ world. 

Beyond that, with LGBTQ groups working within circles that encompass youth, such as Urban Peak, Rainbow Alley, and Inside/Out Youth Services, we’re seeing youth be valued and given the voice they’ve always had — a voice that we need to take heed of, because this is the voice of our very near future of LGBTQ leadership in businesses, nonprofits, and governments alike.

Alison Wisneski is pursuing an MA in Social Change from the Iliff School of Theology. She focuses on relationship building and organizing those to rally around LGBTQ visibility and equality, currently within the United Methodist Church.