Gay youth go online

Growing up queer in a remote community can be an isolating experience but, thanks to an online initiative developed by the Blue Mountains Youth Services Team (BMYST) in conjunction with the Aurora Group, help will be coming to the kids who can’t come to the city.

Not So Straight, a newly launched website, offers a new experience to the range of gay web pages currently available.

Designed specifically with young people in mind, it is a portal to everything from health and counselling services to practical advice for dealing with the world at large.

Created in reaction to a disappointing study commissioned by the BMYST group in 2007, which indicated an overwhelming sense of isolation for GLBT youth in the Mountains, this website aims to bring help into the homes of kids everywhere, site manager Damien Cooper said.

We saw the internet as a perfect answer to a number of the problems facing young gay people because it enables people to seek information anonymously and without having to get on a train and travel down to Sydney, Cooper told Sydney Star Observer.

It’s a fantastic tool and we really felt like it was the best thing we could direct our attentions towards in our community, rather than advocating for a new physical service.

The research that was done brought together a whole lot of statistical stuff that we know about ­-” significantly higher suicide rates and 46 percent of GLBTI youth identify as having been physically abused, so it’s a high-needs group.

For a young person at that time in life to have the complications of adolescence compounded by that kind of isolation and then compounded by the fact that you live in a regional community -“ that really starts to become a problem, which we are hoping this will help to alleviate.

info: Not So Straight is up and running at www.notsostraight.com.au.