https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/30/virginia-school-board-rejects-lgbtq-youth-grant/
Lynchburg School Board rejects grant teens won from It Gets Better, a nonprofit founded to prevent LGBTQ youth suicide
Archive link: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/0D1BP
Idk adults like this are literally the point of the campaign. “As a minor you’re subjected to whatever idiocy the adults around you want to pull. It gets better when you can tell your parents to fuck off and you have money and your own place and can move out of whatever shithole you came from”
Brittany said she’s trying to be optimistic. “Yeah, it gets better,” she said. “But when is it going to get better for us, specifically?”
Honestly? When you GTFO of Lynchburg, VA kids. I don't say that lightly, Lynchburg is about 3 and a half hours away from and about 50 years behind Washington, DC.
Unless you're the type that wants to change things. If everyone with a heart abandons the countryside and consolidates in cities we give up lots of political power due to how power is allocated in the Senate.
You may not think this matters, it does
It sounded like the kids had some community support, too. It might just take people taking initiative to run for the school board positions and let the community know to show up and vote.
I thought about this for a couple days and I still don't think that any bullied queer kid should hang around in Lynchburg any longer than necessary.
Change comes from the top down on issues like this.
I thought about this for a couple days and I still don’t think that any bullied queer kid should hang around in Lynchburg any longer than necessary.
A perfectly reasonable position to take.
Change comes from the top down on issues like this.
Change never comes from above, those above can be forced into changing though if enough people below band together, e.g. democracy.
Change never comes from above
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_integration_in_the_United_States
That sort of thing
Ok, I think I'll have to hand this to you. While I still think real/deep/systemic/lasting type changes ultimately arise from below, at an operational and/or local level, the change can come from above to reduce harm to those vulnerable people in that community. This is particularly true when this argument is restricted to just voting.
This is maybe a bit like slavery ending, the motivation and force coming ultimately from below (i.e. it wasn't rich slave owners looking to be nice and increase their costs), yet it took Juneteenth where federal forces had to come and force compliance.
That being said, a strong queer kid can change many minds simply be existing and being a decent person and showing people first hand, I changed many in my life. As a trans person with means, I'm currently trying to figure out if I might need to flee the country for my safety, but tbh, I'm a fighter, I'd rather go down fighting than being safe, but I don't hold others to that.
Yeah, there are some parts of this country where as a queer person you’d rather be homeless in D.C. than sleep in a comfy bed in. And I don’t say that lightly, I’ve slept in a car in Ohio winters, and D.C. is that but with summers like the Everglades. But if it’s that or being the [slur] of some rural mountain town, you can find places to live and resources in D.C.
In the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia two weeks ago, a group of adults running a public meeting created a blueprint for how to belittle, betray and dismiss kids.
What the fuck?
It's the usual "positions of power attract the worst people" kind of deal. It's awful to think that this also applies to the people overseeing children.
Unfortunately many adults like to pick on teenagers because it makes them feel powerful and smart and they can tell themselves it’s for the kids’ good. It’s why even nearing 30 I generally support a form of youth liberation. Tempered from my 16 year old desires to do whatever I wanted, but hardened by my witnessing the sheer idiocy of over sheltered 20 year olds making decisions that would’ve been much less damaging a few years younger.
“Why do younger generations have such hatred for old people??” I wonder grandma, I wonder. I really don’t find it that hard to not do this sort of thing
It sounds like a lot of projection. They worry about indoctrination but that's a staple of religions and the existing culture. They worry about people dressed in drag molesting kids, but as the article said, more molesters wear a black robe and collar or sweat pants and a whistle than clothing of the opposite gender.
Though the projection goes deeper than that for some of them. They worry about indoctrination because that lifestyle sounds appealing to them but they've already convinced themselves it was wrong and might even be jealous of kids not having to live like that after they did. They worry about people in drag molesting kids because they get uncomfortably turned on when they see that and might even be jealous that kids today might be free to explore that if they want to when they "weren't able" to themselves.
I look forward to the day these bigots are seen in the same light as segregationists. Assuming that day comes, that is.
We see them that way now, and they don't see segregationists the same way as everyone else.
Many of us already see them that way.
I just wished we could eliminate bigotry or at least reduce its prevalence by a few orders of magnitude.
And these people wonder why their kids leave as soon as they are legally and/or financially able to.
Sooner, in some cases.
Yes. West Virginia split from the rest of Virginia to join the Union in the Civil War, while the remainder of Virginia joined the Confederacy.
Wait, really? Virginia (aside from this story anyway) seems like the less failed state compared to West Virginia. Huh.
Short and simplified version:
Virginia had a lot of land and it was a slave-holding state. But the western part was in the mountains, where it wasn't really feasible to have a plantation or conduct large scale trade. Waterways were the most efficient way to trade. By the time the Civil War rolled around, Virginia wanted to continue slavery, but the people in the mountains didn't really give a fuck. They were poor and didn't want to fight for the plantation owners.
Post war, WV continued their status quo as a poor mountain state with mineral resources but not much else. Virginia continued to flourish with its arable land, cities, military facilities, and ports.
That makes sense. Also explains why they push so strongly for coal if that's one of the few things WV has going for it.
After all their second most popular export, McElroy brothers, is a highly limited resource.
It was also one of the early fronts for labour organization and the owners came down on them pretty hard to the point where gun battles were fought.
I mean, Glenn Youngkin is just as much a Republican ratfucker as all the rest, so does it really matter?
The division isn't just North/South anymore, it's Blue/Red.