I came across this Ted Talk by Professor Tiffany Graham about LGBT homeless youths and survival sex that reminded me of the end of our class discussion today.
The video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-nqjUby11c
One part of it that was particularly interesting to me was this question that she asks near the beginning. She describes how the LGBT movement has just won its decades-long fight for marriage equality. She then asks: what will the movement for LGBT equality focus on next?
She connects this with the high rates of LGBT youth homelessness. She then delves into the topic of survival sex, giving examples for why in many cases, prostitution is the only option for these teens and young adults to be able to survive. She concludes with a policy proposal:
We talked in class about how responding to the problem of LGBT youth homelessness requires comprehensive reforms that look at a variety of systematic problems that our country has pertaining to homelessness, foster care systems, criminal justice, disease prevention, and a lot more. Professor Graham's approach is interesting because it focuses on one incremental change within the broader issue of LGBT youth homelessness.
Aside from her own policy proposal, I do think that this is an interesting question to ask ourselves. What should the LGBT movement focus on achieving next? Is it better to tackle wide-scale problems or use the approach of incremental policy changes?
This seems to round out the ending of our section's class discussion as well. One thing we mentioned in our class was how these wide-scale problems that aren't specific to LGBTQ individuals, but disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community, is similar to what John D'Emilio wrote in his piece about gay identity being born out of capitalism. At the end of his work, he calls for a restructuring of the heterosexual family unit and radical ways to restructure child care and housing. These are larger reforms that go beyond the LGBTQ community, but would help their goals in the long run.
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