Lesbian Teen Provides Lifeline of Books to LGBT Youth

(I broke this story a few weeks ago in my Mombian newspaper column, reprinted below. It’s about a lesbian teen making a difference—and underscores for me how much things have changed since I was a teen. Despite the horror stories we still hear about bullying, suicide, and other ills, there are more gay-straight alliance clubs, more LGBT-inclusive books, and more out students than when I was growing up. The world isn’t perfect yet, but I do believe it’s headed in the right direction. Teens like Amelia are helping it get there.)

For LGBT youth, age-appropriate books about LGBT people and issues can be a lifeline. Not every school has the resources or desire to include such books in their collections, though. But 14-year-old Amelia Roskin-Frazee, an out lesbian ninth grader from California, founded The Make It Safe Project to solve that problem. The project gives free packages of LGBT books to schools that need them, and works to ensure the books will be readily available to students.

“When I figured out that a lot of schools didn’t have any resources about what it means to be LGBT or how to come out,” explained Amelia, “I decided that I wanted to help send those books to schools.”

“My goal is to provide awareness for people and also to provide the reading material that will make them safe,” she added.

She launched the project a month ago, and has already sent free packages to schools in Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, and North Dakota. 

To pay for the books, she collects monetary donations through a PayPal link on the project’s Web site. All donations go towards the cost of the books—each package of 10 books costs roughly $100. Amelia welcomes smaller donations, though—even $10 or $25. She sends the books directly from Amazon, which provides free shipping on orders of that size.

The package includes six fiction and four nonfiction books: Ash by Malinda Lo, Annie On My Mind, by Nancy Garden, Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan, Luna, by Julie Anne Peters, Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan, Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown, It Gets Better, ed. by Dan Savage and Terry Miller, GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens, by Kelly Huegel, Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens, by Kathy Belge, and Like Me, by Chely Wright.

Amelia chose the books from among 30 bestselling books for LGBT teens. The final selection includes books that both she and her gay friends “responded well to and that covered a wide range of topics,” she explained. The topics include coming out, preventing suicide, and staying healthy, “because most books on adolescent health don’t cover LGBT issues and bullying.” For one school that includes grades K-8, she swapped in a couple of LGBT-inclusive picture books.

Already, the packages are providing resources to students who would not otherwise have them. She sent a package to one private middle school in California, for example, where parents had resisted using school money or parent donations towards books with LGBT content.

Another request came from an eighth-grader in Arizona, whose middle school had told her she could not start a gay-straight alliance (GSA) club. The girl then started a GSA at her church. Students from far-flung communities began to attend, since few schools in the state have GSAs. GSA members can now borrow the books that Make It Safe has sent, share them with friends back at their schools, and then return them to the GSA.

In general, Amelia said, the books “are sent directly to the GSA president or faculty adviser to put on a classroom bookshelf, where a teacher will ensure that the books will be available for all students.” The books may also be put in the school library “if the GSA is sure that the library will keep them safe and available for all students.” One school has also put some of the books in the school counseling office for students to borrow.

“My basic job is to ensure that regardless of where they go in the school, they are available to all students at any time,” she explained.

One additional part of the project lets students post anonymous stories on the Make It Safe Web site about their experience with GSAs. That way, other students who are considering joining or starting one can learn from peers at schools similar to theirs.

Even at 14, Amelia is no newcomer to activism. She came out during middle school, where she founded the school’s Gay Straight Alliance and was one of the school’s student representatives on the Diversity Committee. Now in high school, she is a Student Ambassador for the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

“Both my parents were extremely supportive from the beginning,” she said. They helped her start the middle school’s GSA when some other parents resisted the idea. “I feel so happy that I have the parents that I have,” she said. “I just wish that other LGBT kids who maybe aren’t so fortunate could have a similar experience.”

Her mom is now helping her with the Make It Safe Project, including assisting with the paperwork needed to turn it into a registered non-profit. They hope this will happen next year.

Amelia is spreading the news about her project through word of mouth, including her middle school friends who are now at different high schools, and through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

“So much of this right now is just letting the schools find us, because it’s hard for people to have the courage to go look for these books,” she said.

Her sights are high, however. She hopes to send a package to every state by the end of 2012. Beyond that, she would like to send books to schools around the world. She asserted, “I really want to get them to any school that needs them, because there are so many that do.”

Visit the Make It Safe Project at makeitsafeproject.org.