We've got to learn to live with each other
No matter what the race, creed or (gender) color
I got to tell you what the world needs now
Is love and understanding
Get aboard the Friendship Train
Everybody shake a hand make a friend
Sissy Sammy in the Land of WEHO 90069
(aka The Friendship Train)
Friendship Train
- Tragically, LGBT youth are taunted, harassed, bullied and even worse. One in four becomes homeless after coming out to their parents.
- LGBT students experienced the highest percentage 24.8% of being called nasty names because of their sexuality over the course of a day.
- LGBT students were three times as likely as non-LGBT students (22% vs. 7%) to report not feeling safe at school
- The risks to LGBT youth during their adolescent years are greater than heterosexual youth because of the need to please parents can also involve suppressing same-sex desires and behaviors triggering negative emotional responses. This triggers isolation when combined with peer pressure, suicide seems like the easy way out.
- The LGBT kid has a suicide
rate of two to six times more than non-LGBT adolescents. Their risk
factors include suicidal behavior, including depression, anxiety, alcohol
and substance abuse, eating disorders, early sexual activity and more
sexual partners, being victims of violence, family history of criminal
offending, and family disruption.
| The Origin of Sissy Sammy |
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It was originally supposed to be a spoken word poem that played off double consonants, (Sissy Sammy, Bully Basheer, purple police car, etc) but once I started writing the story, it kept growing as a message about not only coming out the closet, but about name-calling, bullying and suicide. I wanted to show LGBT teens to be proud of where we came from, so I threw in some gay history too. I started writing Sissy Sammy in 2007 and even wrote my master’s thesis on how to use arts to help high-risk LGBT kids. I could have never predicted in 2010, the week my book came out, the newspapers would be full of stories about LGBT suicides. I recorded a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign, but as you can see below, I was too emotionally choked to say anything coherent. I decided instead to record an audio excerpt of my book emphasizing the theme that it does get better.
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