Trevor by James Lecesne Page A

homes, shunned by friends, often with no one to whom they can turn, these young people have found the help they need simply by calling 1-800-4-U-Trevor.
    These days, young adult novels are full of complex lesbian and gay characters. Twenty-first century authors like David Levithan, Alex Sanchez, Jacqueline Woodson, Bill Konigsberg, and Mayra Lazara Dole write eloquently and often about the issues affecting the lives of LGBT teens. In fact, while perusing recent YA publishing lists of any major house, one might get the idea that it’s not such a bad time to be a teen who is LGBT-identified. But amazingly and alarmingly, the statistics today remain no better than they were over twenty years ago when I first sat down to write Trevor . LGBT youth are still killing themselves and statistics indicate that they are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Fortunately, The Trevor Project continues to provide every young person with a place they can go to receive the encouragement they need to live fully and with hope, and, most importantly, the support they need to keep on living life.
    Recently Dan Savage’s very successful “It Gets Better” campaign created a viral revolution and allowed adults to send out a message loud and clear to youth that life would indeed get better, if only they could hang on a bit longer. It also helped The Trevor Project become the go-to organization for youth who are struggling with their sexuality and identity. As a result, our call volume has spiked. We opened a third call center, which is located in Harvey Milk’s old camera shop in San Francisco, and which is dedicated to Harvey’s memory. We’ve also taken a much more active role in communicating to youth that we are here for them 24/7. In addition to the lifeline, we’ve designed outreach and educational programs. We launched TrevorSpace last year, a secure online destination where youth can connect with one another, offer one another peer-to-peer support, and share information, and less than a year later we have close to 20,000 registered and active members. Another feature we have developed is Ask Trevor , through which young people can write in and ask questions that are not time sensitive, and read our responses online. We have launched Trevor Chat , an online destination where teens can chat with a trained counselor and get some guidance before a crisis occurs. We have also been instrumental in introducing anti-bullying legislation on the state and federal level. We even have an in-school program where we train educators and students, meeting youth, on their home turf and talking to them about the power of words and the value of listening.
    Despite all these new developments and online services, we remain first and foremost a lifeline, offering voice-to-voice communication, saving lives, and working to normalize help-seeking behavior. In a world that is becoming increasingly depersonalized because of digital media, we remain dedicated to providing every young person, regardless of his or her identity, the opportunity to be heard—and they needn’t wait until a crisis occurs to call on us. If I had understood at fourteen that asking for help is an essential part of the human experience, I might have been able to get the help I needed sooner rather than later.
    Of course, there is still much to do for youth everywhere. The passing of the Marriage Equality Act in New York State was a great win for youth who believe in the power of love, but the love of a teen in Texas is not yet equal to one living in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Washington, DC. And further afield, homosexuality is illegal in more than 30 African nations, and in some places is a crime punishable by death. In some Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen, homosexuals face imprisonment, corporal punishment, or in some cases, execution. The globe has