(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

Just a quickie in case anyone else wonders that this blogger was wondering, about if we’re inclusive per LGBT and culture:

LGBTQA: We have always been inclusive here (and it’d be hard not to be, with our founder being a queer person, and typically half our users and volunteers usually being some variety of not-straight people).  But the way we do inclusivity can sometimes be a bit different than folks are used to.  In a word, we try to be inclusive of everyone, and recognize that SO many of the issues we talk about and education we give really is potentially for everyone.  So, while we do have a specific section for queer issues, there is a lot of overlap, and we often don’t tag things as being for this group or that one, since many things have a wider net than one orientation, or than being for hetero people or not-hetero people, gender-conforming people or gender nonconforming people. We have found that sometimes that can have some folks wondering if our content is for queer people, or other folks wondering if it’s for straight people (and again, is it for cis people, or people who aren’t?).  Ultimately, that confusion is probably a good thing, but we get how it might feel confusing to anyone not used to the kind of approach we or other organizations or initiatives who do things like we do use. The fact of the matter is that a whole lot of sex and sexuality education and information really is meant just for straight people (though it usually doesn’t say so) or just for queer or otherwise sexually marginal people (when it’s usually made VERY clear that’s who it’s for), so sex ed that’s earnestly intended to be for everyone can take some getting used to! :)

(Also, while we — okay, I — love rainbows and the color purple, we don’t do a lot of that kind of visual coding on the site, for a handful of reasons.  Again, our aim is just to be as inclusive of everyone, including straight people, as we can in our language and our approach.)

Cultural inclusivity: We also aim to be as inclusive here as possible.  Mostly where you can evaluate us on this level is by looking at our direct service work, at the advice columns and the message boards, both things anyone can see and read.  That’s because when users have issues that pertain to their cultural backgrounds, they usually state them and bring them up, and that’s when we talk with them about whatever those issues are.

At the same time, just like around orientation and gender-identity, we aim to try and be as inclusive as we can in our general information, too.  Unfortunately, being an English-language site already means we’re not anything close to as inclusive as possible, and our lack of funding to date has made doing big translations impossible.

As well, while our staff of volunteers is diverse in terms of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, it’s never as diverse as we like, so that’s going to be a handicap for as long as that’s the case, no matter how much we keep up with staying educated around cultural diversity otherwise. (And let’s be real: the fact that we can’t afford to pay anyone more than a small stipend at the end of each year is part of that. By and large, white people are simply more able to do unpaid work than everyone else because they are often more affluent.)

So, this is an area where we’re always helped by more folks pitching in with feedback when and if you have it should something you read seem like it’s really not culturally relevant to you.  Figure that even if an issue you’re having seems like it’s only your issue, so why bother us, that it’s probably NOT only your issue, and we’d benefit from hearing about it. Thanks!

thisgrace92:

I believe that sexual education is beyond important. It has been a crazy ride for me growing up to try and figure this whole sex thing out on my own. I did get some sex ed in elementary school where we talked about penises and vaginas. Someone came in and explained to us that you could only get…

P.S. We have a lot of info about our organization, including about issues like these, that is all explained or linked at the About Us page on the website here.