Gays and lesbians
face a large generational gap when it comes to
communication, including a tendency by older gays to project
their life experience on gay youths, according to a
new study. The report, by the Institute for Gay and
Lesbian Strategic Studies, argues that gay and lesbian
people must overcome communication challenges when working
together across generations.
Whether working
specifically with LGBT youth groups or in other contexts,
people from different age cohorts have very different
experiences and beliefs that reflect the rapid changes
over time in the treatment of LGBT people in families,
workplaces, schools, and communities, the report says.
"In interviews with LGBT youth and adults, we found a
noticeable gap in communications across generations," noted
Glenda Russell, a coauthor of the report. "LGBT adults
tend to project their own experiences onto today's
young people, when in fact the lives of today's young
people are often quite different."
The study notes
several examples of this generation gap. "Alternative
proms," organized by gay adults for gay high school youths,
often seem to be designed to meet the needs of the
adult organizers who missed their own proms rather
than the needs of today's young people. Adults tend to
focus on the suffering and isolation of LGBT youths, even
though many LGBT teens are actually doing well. From
the other direction, young LGBT people sometimes
complain that no one is doing anything about
discrimination, apparently unaware of decades of prior
activism by LGBT adults. "The good news is that both
sides can learn from each other," said coauthor Janis
Bohan. "LGBT adults should be willing to follow the
lead of young people, and young LGBT people should be
willing to use adults as mentors."
Young people
often provide a fresh perspective on issues that is both
less constrained by past strategies for problem solving and
less reliant on older--and perhaps
incorrect--assumptions about the degree of
homophobia, the report says. Adults, on the other hand, have
greater experience and resources and are more familiar
with the historical roots of the LGBT movement.
(Advocate.com)