Blog Post
Meet It Gets Better’s New Youth Advisors
We’ve always treated Youth Voices as a youth development program that equips LGBTQ+ young people with the skills become tomorrow’s leaders. And for some of our Youth Voices alum, they’re getting an early start.
Both Eris and Alejandro spent two years in the Youth Voices program, and now that they’ve gone off to college, they’re members of our Youth Advisory Council, helping to make decisions about the future of It Gets Better with our Board of Directors.
Meet Alejandro and Eris (again) and learn what they’ve been up to since graduating from youth Voices and how they gain hope from this generation of LGBTQ+ youth.
Alejandro Jimenez de Ferry (he/him)
What’s been going on in your life since Youth Voices? Or what are you looking forward to in the near future?
Since being in the Youth Voice program, my life has been full of exciting changes. Immediately after I graduated from the program, I became the president of my highschool’s GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance), and lead meetings with a turnout rate highest in the history of our alliance. Now, I’ll be entering my sophomore year of college earning my BFA in Theatre with hopes of becoming a future educator in the arts.
How did your time in Youth Voices prepare you for this current stage in your life?
My time in Youth Voices prepared me by teaching me how to be confident in myself, even if there is no one else that understands. While I do have my found queer family in college now, being surrounded by queer voices is something that was so important to me. Being immersed in a group of people like the Youth Voices normalizes being queer and exploring myself in ways that haven’t been matched quite yet.
In your life at college or in your job, what has surprised you most to learn about how people interact with you and your identities?
Something that has surprised me is how open people have become in “real life”. As a feminine presenting trans masc, sometime it feels like whenever I go on the internet someone has something negative to say, And oftentimes that is what leads me to be so closed off to the outside public. Hearing negativity is much easier on a screen than to your face. However, with the help of the It Gets Better Project I learned how to be confident in myself. As cliche as it is, going outside and interacting with the queer community from outside of social media really has made me so much more confident in living as my true self, not just presenting it for online validation (though that is okay too).
Why do you keep coming back to It Gets Better for leadership opportunities?
I keep coming back to It Gets Better for leadership opportunities because it’s not often you can find them anywhere else. And that is the truth. It Gets Better is rich with ways to amplify all queer voices, it’s something that I find unique out of them then anywhere else. Being a youth voice too also changed my life for the better. I find it my duty to give back to the program in any way that I can. Being a queer leader is a gift I have, and I intend to use it as often as I can.
Why do you think an intergenerationally-led organization is important?
I think intergenerational led organization is important because it gives all ages a voice and representation of themselves. Obviously- there is also a lot of nuance and references that each age group understands that the others don’t as well. But oftentimes queer representation tends to focus on young adults, the “end goal”, and forget where being queer starts. Young teenagehood, in some of the most developmental and even isolating times. Intergenerational led organization, and especially It Gets Better, ensures that everybody gets a spot at the table. Everybody gets to hear their voice and story.
We talk about issues facing LGBTQ+ youth all the time here. What inspires you and gives you hope about this generation of LGBTQ+ youth?
What inspires me about this generation of LGBTQ+ youth is the astounding amount of them and how unique they all are. When I wasa youth, I felt like the only person understanding my gender and sexuality in the way that I did. But now I look out at what the LGBTQ+ youth are becoming and I see how stellar and special and energetic they all are in being themselves. Their confidence radiates and is so refreshing to see such young, queer, joy. From the beginning of their journeys they are proud, and I am proud to live alongside them.
Eris Robinson (they/them)
What’s been going on in your life since Youth Voices? Or what are you looking forward to in the near future?
My time in Youth Voices JUST came to an end this past summer, but since then I’ve done peer sex education work in my community in Alabama. Afterwards, I moved back to Michigan to start my 2nd year as an undergraduate honors sociology student with the hopes of earning a graduate degree and becoming my own nonprofit executive in the near future!
How did your time in Youth Voices prepare you for this current stage in your life?
Youth Voices really allowed me to develop my storytelling skills and taught me how to really build a chosen queer family. I still talk to many of the Youth Voices regularly and have even connected with them in other activism work! As an emerging storyteller, the interviews, webinars, and conversations all helped me develop a deeper confidence in my ability to share my story in a way that feels authentic to me and connects with others!
In your life at college or in your job, what has surprised you most to learn about how people interact with you and your identities?
When I arrived in my first year of college I was surprised to see how many people were asking for my pronouns, something I had never experienced in my hometown of Alabama, outside of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance meetings I ran. Being feminine presenting and nonbinary, people will just tend to assume my gender or think I’m “not really nonbinary” because of my expression. Yet, being on a college campus filled with queer people and a variety of different expressions, I see our differences as what makes this community
Why do you keep coming back to It Gets Better for leadership opportunities?
It Gets Better feels like home to me, I keep coming back because the staff treat me with respect and acknowledge what I bring to the table, my peers have become my community, and the opportunities I have been given have brought me farther than I had ever imagined. I’ve been learning so much about emotional activism and what it really takes to run a national nonprofit.
Why do you think an intergenerationally-led organization is important?
How do we know if we’re meeting the needs of LGBTQ people across the globe without multiple generations of perspectives? I think queer people have a certain respect for their queer elders that raises the level of importance within organizations. The vast amount of voices and stories adds a unique diversity to the organization to appeal to a wider audience and a broader range of needs in and outside of our organization.
We talk about issues facing LGBTQ+ youth all the time here. What inspires you and gives you hope about this generation of LGBTQ+ youth?
This generation of LGBTQ+ young people isn’t afraid to fight. In my time as an activist I’ve met some of the loudest, boldest, most passionate activists I’ve seen in a while. Gen-Z and Gen-A aren’t afraid to get in someone’s face to demand change and a seat at the table. Our presence in a variety of spaces will ensure our voices and power are noticed and heard by as many people as possible. They are unapologetically themselves, unlike previous generations where being in the closet was the normal. To see such a fire in my generation and beyond inspire me to keep advocating and keep educating.