Articles Missed Gay Angle
November 29, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
To the Editor:
We read with great interest your articles on groups that help teenagers involved in prostitution or in other aspects of the commercial sex industry (“Shining the Light on a Hidden Tragedy,” November 1). However, we were astonished that the words “gay” and “HIV” never appeared in your report. These omissions perpetuate stigmas and hide issues that are at the very center of the tragically difficult lives of American teenagers involved in the sex trade.
Young gay men and lesbians often come of age in hostile environments. They face abuse about their sexual orientation or their perceived gender nonconformity in schools, their own homes, and foster-care settings, leaving no refuge. The National Network of Runaway and Youth Services has estimated that 20 percent to 40 percent of youths who become homeless each year are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Many of those teenagers turn to commercial sex to survive. Meanwhile, HIV is also ravaging young people. Every hour, two young people between the ages of 13 and 24 become infected, accounting for almost half of the new infections in the United States. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths living on the streets are at the very highest risk.
Efforts to help these children and reduce their numbers must address sexual orientation, homophobia, and HIV prevention. Yet, as “Youth in the Margins,” Lambda’s recent study of the foster-care system, shows, very few institutions that are supposed to function as “safety nets” for the most marginalized youth have acknowledged these core issues, taken steps to make their institutions safe and supportive for gay young people, and ensured that all youth are receiving nonjudgmental HIV-prevention information.
Your reporting could and should have done more to shine the light on the social forces and public-health threats that are battering thousands of wonderful kids. Anti-gay attitudes and HIV are major pieces of the youth sex-trade problem.
Ruth E. Harlow
Legal Director
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
New York
