'Better' days ahead

Straight talk from Marin's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning teens

R edwood High School junior Ivan Shaw noticed that his family excludes gay relatives from gatherings.

Sasha Perigo noticed that her Redwood classmates often use the word "gay" in a derogatory way.

Marin School of the Arts freshman Kiki Nims noticed an invisible bubble around her when she entered the locker room after coming out in seventh grade.

The three teenagers have joined about 20 others to form Make It Better Marin. The group is dedicated to helping young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning, or LGBTQQ. On June 26, they will ride Marin County's fi rst youth fl oat in the San Francisco Pride Parade.

"I would hope it would inspire people to come out of the closet," said Kayla Gaulden, a 17-year-old Redwood junior and self-described transgender pansexual. Kayla wore a shirt, tie and henna-colored chin-length hair to a recent Make It Better Marin meeting in San Rafael.

At 16, Ivan stands 6-foot-2. The clean-cut Chinese-American plans to become a primary-care physician. He started Make It Better Marin after coming out to his family.

"They were absolutely petrifi ed," he said. "My parents are not very accepting of what I choose to be. They cringe at what I do over the weekends."

It disturbed Ivan to see that his family intentionally left his gay relatives off invitation lists. "I saw this chain of disrespect and homophobia. If my life sucks this much, I wondered how much other people's lives suck," he said.

With help from Sally Matsuishi, president and CEO of Next Generation Scholars, Ivan started Make It Better Marin. He named the group after It Gets Better, a popular Internet campaign aimed at stopping gay youth suicide.

A handful of the Marin group's members gathered recently to prepare for a bake sale to raise money for the Pride fl oat, an extravagantly decorated fl atbed truck. They estimate they will need $2,000 for the truck rental, entry fee, gas and decorations. Sitting around a conference table in Next Generation's San Rafael of-fi ce, they listened to Matsuishi.

"There are going to be bumps in the road," she warned. "There's never been a Pride fl oat without confl ict. In the end, it's the message that makes it worthwhile.

"You go from being participants in a movement to being a part of gay history. What you're doing is huge."

The teens' presence in the parade will clear a path for other kids to come out, Matsuishi predicted. "There's so many youth in the closet, especially in Marin County," she said.

In 2010, Matsuishi's assistant, Lorenzo Cordova, graduated from San Rafael High School, where he believes he was the only out gay student for three years. "As someone who has endured Marin high schools, it was hard," he said.

Though Marin County has a reputation for being politically progressive and socially tolerant, LGBT youth still must battle the sort of prejudice associated with small towns far from urban centers, Matsuishi and the youth said.

Sasha, Make It Better Marin's co-leader, joined the group as a straight ally. Short hair frames the 16-year-old junior's cheerful face. Incessant homophobic language throughout the halls of Redwood High regularly upsets her. A recent challenge for students to count the number of times they heard language offensive to LGBTQQ people confi rmed Sasha's sense of its pervasiveness.

Redwood students counted hearing their peers make derogatory statements like "That's so gay" between 400 and 1,200 times in a week, Sasha said.

Ivan said teens tend to use the word "gay" in a negative sense as frequently as they use the word "so." Henri Boucher, a 17-year-old Drake High School senior, said he baby-sits 8-year-olds, and they too punctuate their sentences with the word in a disparaging way.

"Imagine a kid who's closeted hears you saying, ?That's so gay.'" Sasha said. "It sends the wrong message. It's defi nitely our goal to stop that sort of language."

Kiki regularly hears gay slurs and at only 14 knows how it feels to be treated as an outcast.

In seventh grade, Kiki was a boy who came out as gay. More recently, Kiki has become transgender. During the Make It Better meeting, her blonde bangs fell over one eye, and she wore a skirt and sandals. "When I came out-I fi rst came out as gay-people started to run away," Kiki said. "There was kind of an invisible bubble around me. When I walked through the door in the locker room, there was kind of like a distance around me. They would laugh at me and say, ?Oh, this person has a crush on you.'"

One day, during PE, students threw rocks at Kiki's head and leg and yelled offensive names.

When Kiki fi nished telling her story of being bullied, Sasha looked over at her. "We love you, Kiki," Sasha said tenderly. "We won't throw rocks at you."

Being transgender in Marin also has been diffi cult for Kayla. "Marin is so liberal, but really it's so closeted as well," Kayla said.

Kayla has been stunned at the level of ignorance about what it means to be transgender. "A lot of my counselors know very little about it," Kayla said. "As a trans person, it's really quite shocking how little people know about it."

Kayla and her friends in Make It Better Marin hope that riding the float in the Pride Parade-the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the country-will help to educate and break down negative stereotypes.

[Sidebar]

MAKE IT BETTER MARIN

For more information, go to makeitbettermarin.webs. com. Donations can be made on the website or by sending checks to Next Generation Scholars, with Make It Better Marin in the memo line, 912 Lootens Place, San Rafael, CA 94901.

[Sidebar]

It's getting 'Better' all the time: From left, Elise Peterzell, Kayla Gaulden, Sasha Perigo, Kiki Nims, Ivan Shaw, Lisa France, Henri Boucher and Shannon Hare.

[Author Affiliation]

Contact Ronnie Cohen at ronniecohen@comcast.net.