The afternoon of March 13, a small group of Israelis were standing on the porch of Lambert House on Capitol Hill. One, a slightly graying, trim man, was Avner Dafni, the executive director of Israel Gay Youth. Another, smoking, also dark-haired, was Irit Zviely-Efrat, the woman who runs Hoshen, an education and outreach center of the LGBT community in Israel.
They were on a fact-sharing (as distinguished from simple fact-finding) tour of Seattle’s advocacy and service organizations, this visit to Lambert House following a lunch meeting with Seattle’s LBGT business chamber, the GSBA. They’d visited the Ingersoll Gender Center, for Trans people and the people who support them, and met with representatives from Jewish Family Services and the Jewish Federation, the Safe Schools Coalition, and Queer Youth Space. Sabina Neem from Seattle’s LGBT Commission and the City Council’s Tom Rasmussen had met up with them at the GSBA lunch.
Now they’d be talking with Ken Shulman, Lambert House’s executive director. Lambert House calls itself the “largest community center in the Northwest for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (GLBTQ) youth,” and both Dafni and Zviely-Efrat were visibly impressed at the size of the Victorian house, which comes complete with staff offices, a well-stocked library, a kitchen and dining room, a computer lab with internet access, and living rooms that contain a pool table, upright piano, and electronic keyboards. A magazine rack featured several issues of Out and The Advocate, and a Batman comic book.
Founded in 1981, it was one of the first GLBTQ centers in the U.S.; about 700 kids between 11 and 22 stop in each year, one-quarter of whom are homeless (a still-too-common side effect of coming out to parents), and for whom Lambert House is something like home, with adult volunteers to rely on and group dinners five nights a week. About 80 volunteer staff, Shulman explained, taking three-hour shifts, keep the House running. (Because they work with LGBT and homeless youth, they go through a three-month application process.)
There’s a Friday night queer film series, hiking trips, and seminars on sex, dating, and healthy relationships. Entertainment options include the Worst Case Scenario Game, Taboo, and Balderdash. On average, said Shulman, 15 to 25 kids drop in between 4 and 9:30 p.m. “It’s a big declaration to walk in the door” that first time, he said. New visitors often visibly tremble, and words spill out in a rush or not at all. Some can’t, momentarily, pronounce their own name. Newcomers get a 30-minute orientation.
Some arrive from outside of Seattle’s core, making a special trip to where they won’t be recognized. Outside of urban areas, Shulman noted, LGBT youth are often in the closet, or subject to bullying or violence. (Everyone had, by this point, congregated in a small circle in the library. It didn’t feel like pinkwashing.)
It’s the same in Israel, Dafni and Zviely-Efrat agreed. In some areas, it can be difficult to find volunteers as well. Hozen tries to raise awareness and fight stereotypes regarding sexual orientation and gender identity in Israel, through a sort of speaker’s bureau delivering their personal stories. They’re also developing a national LGBT Civic Studies Program and working with kindergarten teachers who are unused to encountering children raised in LGBT families. Their public speakers must be at least 23 years old — able to look back on their coming out process. (Seattle has a similar program, but it’s high school kids talking to high school kids.)
Dafni’s Israel Gay Youth is more of a social network for LGBTQ young adults, with the aim that from them will come the young leaders of Israeli society. They have a small “lounge” in Tel Aviv — even that was enough to provoke attack — but they’re active across the country. They work with Tehila (the Israeli PFLAG), so that LGBTQ can have a coffee with parents, at which they can practice coming out to their real parents. As part of their Ambassador project, LGBTQ youth (with adult back-up) speak at community centers and schools, to get the kids used to public speaking. Another component is counseling kids about being inducted into military service.
