This alliance is of great importance to those of us who work in the mental health field because as Jennings mentioned in his remarks at the party held on June 19 in Los Angeles, the children going to school today will be voting through the year 2080. This has a direct impact on how our industry will take shape over the next fifty to seventy-five years. Though some of us won't be around that long, in our practices, I am sure that we will see direct results of the education and acculturation of the children who are helped by the work of GLSEN.

As a member of GLSEN's local chapter in Los Angeles, and LAGPA board member, I attended the party held in Hancock Park, with the sole intention of finding out how the alliance has grown and what was on the agenda for the coming year. A score card, so to speak. What I was met with was the challenge of the local membership to explain the many issues that psychology addresses in the work that is seen with gay youth. This ranged from family coming out support systems, reparative therapy, psychoses and neuroses that are common among teenagers, and suicide prevention. By the evening's end, I was enlisted as a speaker for GLSEN, and was tapped as the psychotherapy resource in the Los Angeles area.

Given the developing relationship between GLSEN and myself, I now extend to the membership of LAGPA the challenge that I received at the party; are we ready to get involved in helping fight homophobia among our children? If there are therapists reading this who have had experience in helping gay and lesbian youth come out and are willing to assist in fighting homophobia by speaking in schools, counseling families and individuals, then please contact GLSEN's local chapter, and let them know that you read about them in this article. They will be most warm in their receiving you and will provide you with many opportunities to serve in this community.

GLSEN enjoys a wide support system throughout the Los Angeles area. At the party were a variety of persons who support this work, whether or not they are involved in education. There were the rather noticeable and generous entertainment and generous entertainment supporters, such as Kathy Kinney (The Drew Carey Show), Kate Mulgrew (Deep Space Nine), along with the "celebrities" of GLSEN such as Marla Weiss, a math and biology teacher at Beverly Hills High School, Cathy Figel, a physical education teacher in the Inglewood School District, and Kirstin McDonald, who along with her husband Patrick are school administrators in West Hollywood.

As I spoke with the many guests at this party, I found out that they were lawyers, doctors, teachers, "industry folk," advertising representatives, models, waiters, and a host of other professions, though I was expecting to find an overwhelming population involved primarily in education. However, the common thread that ran throughout the fabric of the guest list is the experiences that each shared in their high schools, and elementary schools, coming out to themselves and others. Unfortunately, as Jennings noted, experiences not at all unlike those being played out today.

Several of the urgent issues that have propelled GLSEN are seen in the statistics that they have acquired over the years of operation; every thirty-five minutes a gay youth attempts suicide, the average number of times high school students hear anti-gay epithets is twenty-five each day that as Jennings recounted in a story about the average elementary school experience, that the most common put down today is to say, "that's so gay." When asked what they meant by that the children would respond that they didn't know other than it meant something bad. These are our future clients, legislators, and colleagues. Therefore, you can see how there is a wide range of opportunities to become involved in GLSEN, even if just to become a little bit more educated about what is going on in schools. It is obvious the role that we are called to participate in, as educators, and as careful listeners to the pain and affliction of the youth who are victims and victimizers of their peers. Ours is a unique role which is sorely lacking in the adolescent community, and I believe that through the challenge placed before me, each of us is being strongly invited to roll up our sleeves and join GLSEN in the wonderfully enormous task set before us.

For more information about how to join GLSEN or to find out when they are hosting a "coffeehouse" meeting in your area, call me at (818) 569-0867, or you may visit the GLSEN Los Angeles web site at www.GLSENLA.org