USA
PFLAG Announces National Gay Rights Scholarship Winners
Have your say!
Visit our new "Forum" where
you can post your comments.
You have the option of "signing up" to the forum or to post views as a "guest"
While "free speech" is encouraged, please bear in mind libel etc. Any posts deemed libellous under the laws of England and Wales will be removed. Also, offensive posts will be removed.
WASHINGTON, DC -- Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) today announced the winners of the first annual PFLAG National Scholarships. Students were honored for academic achievement as well as athletics, advocacy, leadership and involvement with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community.
"PFLAG's National Scholarship Program reaches out to GLBT students and their allies by acknowledging their courage and commitment to equality in frequently hostile high schools and hometowns," said Ron Schlittler, interim executive director of PFLAG.
Scholarships were awarded in eighteen states to students from a variety of backgrounds; but each faced wrenching challenges at home, in school and in their communities.
One winner wrote in his application essay that, after coming out to his parents, they "confiscated my car, my phone, my computer. My mother slept most of the day. My sister claimed I had destroyed her life. My father wrote 'I want to die' on Post-It Notes over and over." One awardee was evicted by his family at sixteen years old and struggled to support himself with part-time jobs while finishing high school.
Another winner received support at home, but faced discrimination from an organization to which he had devoted much of his life: "I received a letter from the Boy Scout Council informing me that I was no longer welcome unless my declaration of being a homosexual was 'only a youthful effort to stand out from the crowd.'"
For others, being gay at school brought the weariness of a constant struggle. After years of hearing "dyke" in the hallways, one winner wrote, "Most people are not going to accept who I am and it is probably going to be this way most of my life...I am tired of fighting." And another student wrote, "More kids knew my sexuality than my name. I wanted to be my whole self -- not just 'the gay kid.'"
This year the program awarded nine scholarships of $2,500, two scholarships of $1,250 and fifteen scholarships of $1,000 to help offset college tuition costs.
This year's scholarships were funded by the Palmer B. Carson Trust and the Dow Chemical Company, as well as donations from private individuals. These generous donors bring awareness to high school educators of the support throughout the country for GLBT students.
PFLAG via USN
27 May, 2004
