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  Pride in Action award winners Belinda Carroll (L) and Joe LeBlanc Each year Pride NW gives out 3 awards just prior to Pride season, “Spirit of Pride” Award, Youth Award (22 years old or younger) and the “Pride In Action” Award (for volunteer work in service to the community), in addition to the Grand Marshall honor, which this year goes to La Lucha: Portland Latino Gay Pride.
This year’s Spirit of Pride award goes to former Q Center board member Bob Speltz, for some largely unrecognized behind the scenes work. According to Pride NW President Debra Porta, “As one of the original founders of the Q Center, Portland’s LGBTQ community center, Bob has been instrumental in bringing Portland’s LGBTQ community together in ways that had not happened before, and giving us a home to call our own.”
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 You can go ahead and mark this in the “duh” category but a new study, conducted in Oregon, suggests that gay youth are more likely to attempt suicide in homophobic environments.
 The study, in the journal Pediatrics, scored the social environment in 34 Oregon counties using five criteria, including the share of schools with anti-bullying programs and anti-discrimnation policies that cover sexual orientation. The findings suggest that expanding these programs to more schools could substantially reduce suicides and suicide attempts by young people.
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  More than 20,000 students are registered and hundreds of thousands more will participate at middle schools, high schools and colleges from every state in the country in GLSEN’s National Day of Silence on Friday April 15th by taking some form of a vow of silence to raise awareness about anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) name-calling, bullying and harassment.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the first Day of Silence, held at the University of Virginia in 1996 by students who wanted to call attention to anti-LGBT bullying on campus. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) became the official sponsor in 2001, and participation has grown to include students from more than 7,500 middle and high schools-10% of schools nationwide–last year and hundreds of colleges.
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  In the early days of internet at my high school Net Nanny programs handily blocked many of my tame searches for the likes of “gay pharoah” or “breast cancer” (yes, breast was blocked in the 90s). Not someone who regularly works with teenagers I don’t really know how restrictive today’s internet is in secondary schools. But one thing is becoming fairly clear, not all access is created equal.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a project that asks public high school students to inform them if their school blocks access to pro-gay websites and doesn’t anti-gay websites.
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  "Fitting In, Standing Out: Navigating the Social Challenges of High School to Get an Education" A new study out of the University of Texas at Austin has just released a study announcing that teens who “don’t fit in” are less likely to attend college. That made me somewhat of a “duh” conclusion, but what might be even more interesting that that two groups who are at particular risk are gay and overweight females. They found that girls who are obese are 78% less likely to attend college than non-obese girls, and those who are gay, are 50% less likely to attend.
“Kids who have social problems — often because they are overweight or gay are at greater risk of missing out on going to college simply because of the social problems they have and how it affects them emotionally,” says Robert Crosnoe, a Sociology Department professor and Population Research Center affiliate. “Not because of anything to do with intelligence or academic progress.”
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  Everyone knows that Apple is pretty picky when it comes to allowing apps in their tightly controlled marketplace. But though you won’t be able to see any racy gay sightseeing recommendations you can be cured of “the gay.” This has some folks hopping mad, including Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen, who recently wrote a piece for the Huffington Post condemning the app.
Exodus International, the notorious “ex-gay” organization, recently released an iPhone app that, according to its website, is “designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders.” The Exodus website further boasts that its app received a 4+ rating from Apple, meaning that it contains “no objectionable content.”
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  Brad Usselman Brad Usselman, a Vancouver high schooler, recently (along with two friends) started a blog that is aimed at altering perceptions of LGBTQ athletes. They describe themselves as,
…3 young adults wanting to change the way LGBTQ athletes are viewed in the sports world. All of us are varsity athletes in high school who are on our own paths to being who we truly are. We invite you to take the stand with us and begin walking the road to equality.
Brad, a sophomore, has been on his school’s varsity track and cross country teams since he was a freshman, and his goal is to run for a Division 1 college team. I recently conducted a short interview with him.
Aly Sneider: What specifically inspired you to start the blog?
BU: The thing that inspired me the most to start this blog is wanting to help out the younger generations and make sure that they do not go through the internal struggles of acceptance that I went through. I also wanted to start a community where gay high school athletes are able to go and realize they that they are not alone.
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  Openly gay athletes are few and far between, especially in the highest levels of competition. Thanks to small-mindedness and discrimination, we queer folks have been systematically discouraged from participating in athletics. The number of openly gay professional athletes in America can literally be counted on one hand.
Three Pacifc Northwest teenagers are looking to change the queer-athletic landscape by launching a blog devoted to discussing their lives as gay high school athletes. Outsports.com recently published a coming out letter written by one of the kids to his parents.This letter (and its posting on a public website), and the blog that is to follow, are remarkable in that they come from an athlete who is so young, especially given that when elite gay athletes do come out, it is generally after they have retired.At least one of these kids fully plans on continuing his athletic career at the Division 1 college level. The fact that he doesn’t see being openly gay as any sort of impediment to his goals is a sign that our culture is changing, at least in our corner of the country, slowly but surely, one athlete at a time.
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  E Room/Weird Bar owner Kim Davis. Photo by Jamie Francis / The Oregonian Portland is a very homo-aware town but we are still small, and news travels fast. Here’s some of the things that caused the most uproar.
5 – Duende censorship, and the Pride parade route change
It was much more upsetting to witness the Rose Festival quash a chaste kiss in the Circus Project’s Duende, nearly forcing the performance to be canceled. There was nearly as much kerfuffle internally in the community when the Pride parade route was taken off the traditionally Stark Street triangle (aka Vaseline Alley). Sometimes the struggle comes from without, but the struggle within is just as powerful.
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  "It Gets Better" project founder Dan Savage (R) with husband Terry A roller coaster of emotions swept gay America this year. Here’s a snapshot.
5 – University of Michigan’s Student Body President Stalked and Harassed by State’s Assistant Attorney General
When MI Attorney General Andrew Shirvell began harassing UMich Student Body President Christ Armstrong people started to notice, mostly prominently among them CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who interviewed Shirvell on air.
4 – Constance McMillan is barred from her prom and embraced by the rest of the world
When Constance McMillan planned to take her girlfriend to prom, organizing parents canceled the event and held a gay-free dance elsewhere. But instead of cowering McMilan powered along with an ACLU lawsuit and won the support of celebrities, public figures and the world-at-large. Her Facebook fan page has over 400,00 members and she has a scholarship care of Ellen Degeneres.
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