Cape LGBT youth complain about lack of social spaces

On July 16 the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth came to Hyannis to hold its summer meeting, the first meeting held by the new commission outside of Boston. The commission met in the headquarters of the Cape and Islands Gay and Straight Youth Alliance (CIGSYA), and one of the goals of the meeting was to learn about the issues facing LGBT youth and the programs that serve them on the Cape. During an ice cream social held after the meeting the commissioners chatted in small groups with the young CIGSYA members, and the youth said that across the Cape, even in the gay Mecca of Provincetown, LGBT youth have few places to kick back and connect with each other.

"On Cape Cod either you're over 21 or you don't exist. There's nothing for the under-21 crowd to do on Cape Cod. You have to go to Providence or Boston, and even in Boston there's not whole a lot," said Nicole Tompkins, a Plymouth resident finishing her final year of high school at Cape Cod Community College.

Nick Mucciarone, a recent graduate of Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, agreed, saying that the problem extends beyond LGBT youth. He said in Provincetown there were so few places for young people to socialize that he worked with other youth to push for the creation of a skate park, but ultimately it was constructed a few towns over in Wellfleet.

"When I was in eighth grade I lived in P'town and there was nothing for our age range."

Tompkins, who is 19, said on a recent trip to Provincetown she and her friends were hoping to shoot a game of pool during daylight hours, before the nighttime club scene got in full swing, but everywhere they went they were turned away because they were under 21.

One of the few social outlets specifically for LGBT youth is CIGSYA itself, which has weekly meetings that draw a crowd of between 30 and 60 youth and monthly dances that bring in between 60 and 80 youth from around the Cape. Ashley Merithew of Wareham said she started coming to CIGSYA about two years ago after a friend brought her to a social event, and she's been coming back ever since. Amanda Diehl of Barnstable, who just finished her senior year, said she first got involved with CIGSYA back when she was 11 years old, first coming to the monthly dances and movie nights and then attending the weekly meetings.

Tompkins said CIGSYA is one of the few social options for LGBT youth unless they try to sneak into an adult club.

"This is the only place you can go if you want to dance that's drug-free, [where] you don't have to get a fake ID, [where] you don't have to try and be hanging out with people who are three times your age," said Tompkins.

One of the other major problems is addressing homophobia in the schools. One of the schools with the worst reputations for homophobia on the Cape, according to the youth, is Provincetown High School.

"When I lived in P'town the high school there is actually very homophobic because it's so open in their town that the kids actually get picked on outside of it," said Mucciarone.

As far as ways to address the issues facing LGBT youth, several said that having the LGBT speaker's bureau SpeakOut come to their schools helped improve the school climate. They also said gay-straight alliances (GSA) provided a safe venue for LGBT youth to meet each other and find out about resources. Mucciarone said when he was in high school he began attending meetings of the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School GSA.

"It was basically like a CIGSYA meeting, and that was how I found out about CIGSYA," said Mucciarone.

As for the adults providing services to LGBT youth on the Cape, one of the top concerns is need for more funding. Scott Fitzmaurice, executive director of CIGSYA and one of the program's co-founders, told Bay Windows that since the state budget crisis under former Gov. Jane Swift, CIGSYA's funding has plummeted, and this year the organization was forced to shift from having paid staff to becoming an all-volunteer organization. Beyond state budget cuts Fitzmaurice said the organization has found it more difficult in the last three years to get grants; he estimates that the organization applied for about $350,000 in grants and only received about $30,000. Another problem, he said, is that so much LGBT philanthropy focuses on organizations in Provincetown that other programs get short-changed.

"It's almost like an energy draw ... They sort of forget all the programs that cover the whole Cape that are based in Hyannis," said Fitzmaurice, who said CIGSYA has only about 25 committed monthly donors.

During the commission's meeting Fitzmaurice gave commissioners an overview of CIGSYA's work and answered their questions about his perspective on the issues facing LGBT youth and youth programming. He said while other Alliances of Gay and Lesbian Youth (AGLYs) around the state rent out facilities to hold meetings, CIGSYA purchased its own two-story house on Barnstable Road, making it the only AGLY to own its own building. Despite tight finances, CIGSYA was able to get funding for the building from the Rotary Club, the Gill Foundation and other groups and individual donations to get the money for the house. The total cost of the purchase and renovations was around $300,000, according to Fitzmaurice, and he said CIGSYA has currently paid off about $100,000 of that cost.

Fitzmaurice said that the more LGBT youth organizations that can own their own space, the stronger they will be.

"The more nonprofits that can purchase space the less we're going to be dependent on increasing costs and also dealing with people that may or may not understand our work," said Fitzmaurice.

He told commissioners that when funding for GSAs began drying up under the Swift administration CIGSYA worked in partnership with GSA advisors to keep the 13 groups in the region afloat, holding quarterly meetings with the advisors. He said he believes that outreach was one of the factors that made the Cape one of the few regions that did not lose any GSAs.

Fitzmaurice said CIGSYA has worked to open its doors to all young people, regardless of whether they publicly identify as LGBT. He said some youth come because they are ostracized at school because of their weight, their appearance, or some other characteristic that makes them stick out from their peers. Opening CIGSYA to all youth has made the organization a safe space for young people who are not ready to come out.

"Ultimately the majority of people who come here are LGBT, but I think what happens is by having that platform [we] really create an environment where folks can say to their friends at school, [if someone says], 'I saw you in front of CIGSYA the other day,' [they can answer], 'Yeah, well, lots of people go there.' They can have an opportunity to say that and not feel pressured," said Fitzmaurice.

The commission also focused on other business beyond learning about LGBT youth issues on the Cape. Foremost among these was talking about funding for an executive director position for the commission to help oversee many of the administrative functions of the commission. Currently the commission has one paid administrator, Bernie Gardella, but commission chair Jason Smith said they need more staff support to administer the commission and keep it running smoothly.

Smith said for the current fiscal year, FY08, the Department of Public Health has agreed to assume the financial burden of administering the commission, including paying for an executive director. He said he hopes to have someone hired by the fall, and that person will be acting as a consultant for DPH. But at the end of the fiscal year DPH's sponsorship will end.

"The commissioner of Public Health has agreed to support the commission administratively through this fiscal year, which puts us in a position then where we need to be prepared to seek our own support in the legislature for FY09," said Smith. He said the total cost of administering the commission, including paying salaries for the executive director and Gardella and paying for the costs associated with meetings, will run between $150,000 and $190,000 per year.

Commissioner Marty Martinez asked Smith about the risks associated with hiring an executive director without secure funding for FY09.

"My thought is, without having a real clear sense of where we're getting those resources and whether or not we're going to be able to get that from the state legislature, I'm just wondering if we should be taking on that now or if it's something we should try to work up to," said Martinez.

Smith answered that the commission's executive committee believes bringing on an executive director is crucial to keeping the commissioners from burning out.

"It's a risk, but I think we're running at 125 percent capacity personnel-wise ... I think we'll be burning out soon," said Smith.

As has become par for the course with commission meetings, there was one attendee who did not identify herself but who commissioners suspect was a supporter of the anti-gay group MassResistance, which urged people to attend on its website. At the last commission meeting in May, held in Boston, two MassResistance supporters, Joe Rizoli and Jim Rizoli, were asked to leave after they demanded the right to videotape the proceedings. The state's open meeting law allows citizens to audio record meetings of state bodies, but it does not contain an allowance for videotaping (see "Complaint Filed Against LGBT Youth Commission," July 12).

At the Hyannis meeting a woman sat at the back of the room taking notes and capturing the proceedings on a tape recorder. Prior to the start of the meeting she walked to a wall display containing informational pamphlets on HIV/AIDS, youth mentoring and other subjects, and she took several copies of the pamphlets. She did not disrupt the meeting, and when it ended she got in her car and drove away.