Brandon Shire

Author of Contemporary Gay Romance

You are here: Home / Archives for lgbt youth

lgbt youth

Sometimes You Have to Make Your Own Light

By Leave a Comment

Welcome friend and MM Romance author DP Denman to the blog with an important post about finding hope.   

I read a story recently on a new website called YouthResource.org. Ok, so they’re not exactly “new” but they’re new to me. The online resource run by LGBT youth for LGBT youth isn’t flashy or impressive but it addresses the basics from how to come out to your parents and topics like HIV. It also has sections where youth involved in the peer program can share their stories. One of them ended a tale that I know glossed over the worst parts by saying, “Sometimes you have to make your own light at the end of the tunnel but you don’t have to do it alone.”

Those simple yet inspiring words cut right to the heart of what groups like The Trevor Project and Lost-n-Found Youth are trying to tell LGBT kids. It’s difficult to be a teen and sometimes things happen that you never expected and would rather not deal with but that doesn’t make it hopeless. [Read more…] about Sometimes You Have to Make Your Own Light

MM Romance Fans for LGBT Youth

By 3 Comments

MM_Romance_Fans_for_LGBT_YouthIt has begun. We have had enough. We are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, teachers, bloggers, writers, grandparents, cops, firefighters, marines, plumbers, construction workers, life guards. We are people. We are romance fans. We love the ideal that everyone gets a happy ending, even though we know how unlikely that is in real life. We are on the corner with a Kindle, hiding in the coffee shop with a Nook, waiting at the office so we can get back home and read that HEA.

We have seen LGBT kids beaten, abused, jailed, institutionalized, screamed at, berated, and raped for being different. We have seen them stepped over, stepped on, pushed aside and pushed away. We have witnessed their tears, their agony, their desire and need just to be loved.

We are tired of the desolation of our LGBT Youth

This post begins our campaign to raise awareness and funds to help end homelessness among LGBT Youth. Join us. Spread the word, use the logo above and link it to our fundraising effort. Tell us your story about your interaction with LGBT homeless youth, tell us about your own efforts to help, or tells us your story AS a homeless LGBT youth.

You don’t know what these kids are going through?

Read how one child was locked in a basement for being gay, how another was simply abandoned. That’s just a start, just a small drop in the bucket of depravity that youth organizations hear every day.

Not a romance fan? You don’t have to be to understand that 500,000 homeless lgbt kids on the street is absolutely ridiculous. Join us in this effort to raise awareness and funds.

Our first goal is to raise $25,000 for Lost-n-Found in Atlanta. Every single penny donated to this all volunteer organization goes directly to aiding lgbt youth, and for as little as $10 you can help get one kid off the street for a day. Donate here.

 

Teacher Shares Closely Guarded Dirty Secret

By 1 Comment

secretInstinctively, I knew it was bad. Yet, until September of 2012, I had no idea how bad. Ignorant. I was ignorant. Plain, simple, and completely inexcusable.

What didn’t I know? 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT.

Why was it shocking that I did NOT know this stat? This past academic year was my twentieth year teaching mathematics; more than half of my career has been spent teaching at the college level in Boston.  Shouldn’t this be something I knew??? Sadly, the depth of my ignorance gets worse. By September of 2012, I was already actively supporting a wonderful young person discarded by family due to sexual orientation. I knew and loved a LGBT homeless teen. I thought it was an anomaly. As I spent that September night combing the university’s research holdings on the plight of LGBT youth, I had two main thoughts. [Read more…] about Teacher Shares Closely Guarded Dirty Secret

National Give OUT Day

By Leave a Comment

Today is National Give OUT day.

Give Out Day

This is a national campaign designed to raise awareness and funds for local and national LGBT Organizations. As you know, here around the Shire we raise funds by donating 10% of the proceeds from our books to two organizations that work tirelessly to get homeless LGBT youth off the streets.

Both of these organizations are taking part in today’s event and you can donate to them at the links below. I would like to particularly emphasize that you take note of the Lost-n-Found page. On the right they have a donation list and it tells you exactly what just a few dollars can do and how much it can mean to a homeless kid.

Both organizations work toward the same goal, if you can, please give equally.

lgbt nonprofit GLBT Advocacy & Youth  and  Lost-n-Foundlgbt youth nonprofit

Spotlight on an LGBT volunteer and why $12 is important

By 1 Comment

~ From James Robinson, Executive Director of GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services (reposted from Facebook.)

lgbt nonprofitToday’s spotlight is on one of our volunteers … Ashley Ross is completing her Master’s in Social Work degree from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  Ashley first met with me about 9 months ago to discuss the possibility of an internship placement with the agency.  I knew there was something special about Ashley when she showed up in December, a month early for her internship placement, and began volunteering.  Since then I have learned some amazing things about Ashley and her dedication to social work and her support of equality and social justice.  Ashley is our first intern from UA and I later found out she had worked for 2 years within her department to secure a placement with our agency.  Last week as Ashley received the Margaret S. Odom Social Work Award from the Alabama Gerontological Society I learned that Ashley had based her submission for the award on an encounter she had with a gay man in a Senior Center program where she was working.  This gay man shared his life story with Ashley and his story touched her heart. His decades of [Read more…] about Spotlight on an LGBT volunteer and why $12 is important

Amazon, Inclusivity and Suicide: Why I Bother To Write At All

By Leave a Comment

dave arney

As writers we sometimes find ourselves becoming confidants for readers. I know it has happened to me more than once. The reader connects and they want to share something with you; something they have never divulged to another soul, and then you scramble…wondering what words touched their heart enough for their confidence, and more importantly, you ask yourself what you can do to help. Friend and author, Dave Arney, who writes under the pen name Michael Moye is here to tell us about his book and his own recent experience. ~B.

I write primarily for the Young Adult/New Adult audience, which means I try to at least keep up communication with various members of that age group via Google+ and Twitter so I’m not horribly out of date about what’s going on.

On Valentine’s Day, I received a chat from a beta reader I’d met in a few communities on Google+. He’s extremely talented with editing, and actually made some great suggestions on cleaning up some rough patches, in addition to helping me gauge interest, hook, all the good stuff.

He told me he was going to kill himself. [Read more…] about Amazon, Inclusivity and Suicide: Why I Bother To Write At All