From: someonespecial@someplace.org Subject: Origin of this Newsgroup Date: 14 Oct 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <7u57fa$k3$1@lambda.youth.org> Approved: Mary L. Gray Sender: mlgray@lambda.youth.org X-Trace: breeze 939925806 209.51.168.12 (Thu, 14 Oct 1999 14:30:06 EDT) Organization: Youth Assistance Organization NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 14:30:06 EDT Newsgroups: soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi [co-mod's note: WOW! thanks so much to the poster for sending this out. I've been keeping track of the history, but this really fleshs it out for me. AND to add my own 2 cents... Before I ever knew a thing about newsgroups, in Sept/Oct 1994, I stumbled across a newsgroup that I thought organized the formation of new groups. Well, I wanted to see a queer and questioning youth group start. But I had no clue how to use the newsgroup software I was on and the message went out without text. A few weeks later, I saw the CFD re: a newsgroup for lesbigay youth. I can't be sure it was my post that went to alt.config, but I know I sent out a textless message somewhere. Keeping with the legend status of this group, I think that it has no certain origins...and no end in site : ) ... my overwhelming gratitude to the person behind this post for doing the work they've done...mlg] It's hard to believe that with the onset of November, soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi will mark its fifth year of existence, but so it is. Things certainly have changed in the five years since the landmark Usenet vote that gave rise to this newsgroup. Moderators have come and gone...the Web has usurped and partially replaced Usenet as the primary source of online information and communication...the Net has changed from a "breeding ground for pedophiles and child molesters" to a huge cash cow that everyone is trying to milk...and the participants here are changing and growing. And, hopefully, this newsgroup has played a small role in opening the eyes of the world and making people realize that being gay does not make you an outcast or a monster or a sinner, and that you don't have to feel guilty because you're "different." I asked the moderators of this newsgroup to anonymize this message so that it doesn't seem like I'm engaging in some sort of ego trip. I've been meaning to write this message for a while, and now is as good a time as any to tell the story of how this newsgroup came into existence. It's possible that knowing the true origin of this newsgroup may be of use to someone, whether that person is a journalist, Web site author, counselor, politician, or just someone curious about how things got started here. For starters, I have to come out of the closet and announce that I'm straight. I have several gay friends and colleagues, but I was never intimately involved with the cause of helping lesbigay youths, until one day in September of 1994, when I suppose I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The newsgroup alt.config existed at the time as a forum for the proposal and discussion of the creation of various newsgroups in the alt.* hierarchy. Back in those days, newsgroup creation was a far easier task than it is today, because we had only begun to see the earliest signs of "mad newgroupers" and spammers. alt.config was rife with flame wars and trollers even in those days (it always has been), and it was undoubtedly a newsgroup troller who had the idea of proposing a newsgroup called alt.sex.homosexual.youth. The message was posted to alt.config in error, because there was nothing in the message at all. Only the title was there: "Proposal: alt.sex.homosexual.youth" and that was all. I was reading alt.config regularly in those days, and when I saw that message, I posted a spur-of-the-moment reply saying, "This message is probably a troll, but it does make me wonder if a newsgroup for gay youths may not be a good idea. A lot of kids are suffering from unimaginable shame and guilt because they feel like outcasts, and this has been reflected by studies that show the suicide rate among gay and lesbian youths to be much higher than other segments of the population." This statement -- "unimaginable shame and guilt" -- would find its way into the charter of soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi. Anyways, after I posted that message, I started receiving emails saying that a newsgroup for gay youths would be a good idea. It seemed reasonable enough, so I posted a message to alt.config and soc.motss suggesting the proposal of alt.homosexual.youth. Aside from a couple of inevitable flames, the responses from soc.motss said that folks were in favor of such a newsgroup, but there were a couple of problems with the chosen newsgroup name "alt.homosexual.youth." The newsgroup alt.homosexual, it was pointed out, was originally created as a "joke" newsgroup, and indeed alt.homosexual had always been full of nothing but flame wars. (This was in the days just before the evolution of the massive spam floods we see everywhere on Usenet today.) Also, the idea of a newsgroup for gay youths seemed to have enough initial support that it was suggested I go the distance and aim for a newsgroup in the "Big Seven" hierarchy. This was fleshed out after only a couple of days of discussion; indeed, the entire length of time between the intial newsgroup proposal on alt.config to the actual creation of soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi was less than two months -- amazingly fast by Usenet standards. So I took the time to write out an initial charter and began the RFD (Request For Discussion) in late September of 1994. The proposal was sent to soc.motss and soc.bi, as well as news.groups. The idea took off like a shot, finding an overwhelming majority of acceptance almost immediately. The evolution of the charter took little more than a week, while the name of the newsgroup was settled upon in only a little more than that time. The original newsgroup proposal was going to be an offshoot of soc.motss, to be called soc.motss.youth; however, it was quickly decided amongst the participants in the RFD that if this newsgroup was meant to attract younger people -- especially newcomers to the Internet -- it should be easy to find in any quick scan of a list of newsgroups. The pro-and-con discussion of the acronym "motss" (Members Of The Same Sex) has become the stuff of net.legend, but the new newsgroup would clearly contain the phrases "gay," "lesbian," and "bi" to make it as easy as possible to find. The idea "soc.youth.lesbigay" was tossed around a bit, but in the end it was decided to make the name "easy to find," even though it would be much more awkward to type. Thus, the newsgroup was labelled "gay-lesbian-bi" (adding "transgengered" or "trans" would have made the name too long, so we settled for "gay-lesbian-bi"). As for the selection of the actual hierarchy: since we were aiming specifically for "youth" while attempting to distance ourselves from the flame wars of soc.motss (flame wars in gay-oriented newsgroups have been distressingly common from the very beginnings of Usenet), we settled on creating a "soc.youth" hierarchy. But here another discussion took place: was it more appropriate to call this a "youth" newsgroup or a "support" newsgroup? We were looking to offer "support" to young people, but the name "soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi" did seem very awkward and hard to manage. Just as this discussion was taking place, I received a message from a young person down in Argentina, who told me how there were kids there who had nowhere at all to turn to and who desperatey needed the support this newsgroup would give them...and that set my mind in favor of "support." Thus, despite its length title, the final name of the newsgroup became "soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi." When I put out the initial call for moderators, I didn't have to wait very long for volunteers. Of the original six moderator chosen for this newsgroup, only one is still with us now (Mary!); the others have moved on in interesting directions of their own. (If I may, I'd like to give a special recognition for Michael Handler, who was one of the original six moderators as well as a very outspoken online activist for the cause of gay youth. You've probably heard his name, and I'm proud to have known him back in those days.) In order to protect the moderators from any possible legal difficulties (which, happily, have not appeared yet), the "Disclaimer" absolving them from responsibility for any events related to the exchange of private email was added to the charter. The wording was (and is still) awkward, but it seemed complete enough to prevent the moderators here from being on the receiving end of any legal threats. So far, it seems to have served its purpose well. And all of this took place in barely over three weeks! It was if the single pebble on alt.config was triggering an avalanche, as the newsgroup proposal quickly took on a life of its own and grew eyond my control. The proposal finally made it to the CFV (Call For Votes), and it was here that a minor piece of Internet history was made. When I woke up and checked my email on the first day of the CFV, I received a notice from one kind person who had seen the CFV and *already* forwarded it to at least a dozen newsgroups and gay-oriented mailing lists. The CFV moved forward at an amazing pace, requiring only a second Call For Votes on news.announce.newgroups (some of the more controversial newsgroups require a third or even a fourth CFV), and the worst opposition the newsgroup faced was little more than one closed-minded individual who cross-posted an appeal to several religion-oriented newsgroups to vote against soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi. Unlike many CFVs on newsgroups, the voting was active and largely flame-free...at least in public. I received emails from folks saying how they had printed out the CFV and sent it to the mailing lists at their local college campuses, and even passing it around at work in a few places. The end result of all this enthusiasm was that suc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi passed its vote by the largest yes-to-no ratio in Usenet history. The final voting tally was 3,242 "yes" votes to about 95 "no" votes, for a ratio of 33-to-1. I've never seen a more positive vote in any other newsgroup vote before or since, and only a few other newsgroup votes equalled the sheer volume of votes that this CFV gathered. In fact, the CFV for this newsgroup was the largest turnout ever for a *single* newsgroup...until the infamous and shameful voting campaign that surrounded the proposal for "rec.music.white-power" two years later. But the CFV for soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi was overwhelmingly positive, so much so that when I saw the voting tally on the first day the results were announced, I honestly had a tear in my eye. The Usenet vote-taker had to make a public plea for people to stop voting for the newsgroup, because he was still getting over a hundred votes per day for the group a full week after the voting ended. You might say the campaign to create soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi was an unqualified success. The moderators of this newsgroup reported that in the intial flurry of activity in the first days of this newsgroup consisted of people popping up to say "hi," pour out their hearts, and see what things are like...something that continues to this days. Interestingly enough, the majority of messages rejected from this newsgroup in the first days of its existence were not flames and trolls; rather, they were messages of the "Hi, I'm gay, email me!" type (which are still rejected routinely, as noted in the FAQ for this newsgroup), along with a sizable number of messages attempting to turn this newsgroup into a Bible discussion. The religious posters soom drifted away when they realized their messages were being rejected, and the newsgroup slowly began to grow. People showed up here from all corners of the world, and a genuine community began to develop. The long-time participants in this newsgroup all have their own horror stories to tell, about the times when they saw something here that made them break down and cry. It happened to me when I read a message here about a 12-year-old boy who was recovering from his fourth suicide attempt, after he had contracted HIV when he was raped at the age of eight. But this newsgroup has also given me moments of genuine happiness, such a the time shortly after the newsgrop's creation when one lonely soul posted a message announcing his longing to commit suicide...only to post here again, a few days later. He said that in the days (and hours!) since his message appeared here, he was flooded with *hundreds* of supportive emails from people all over the world...and it moved him to write again saying "I don't feel alone anymore." That was when I knew that this newsgroup has indeed made a difference, and that YOU all played a part in saving this young man's life. I took a few steps to promote this newsgroup in the first year of its existence. When the first Gay Youth Pride Rally was organised in Boston in 1995, I took part and volunteered in order to promote this newsgroup and make flyers available to kids...and when I worked at the registration table on that day, I saw one grrrl showing the flyer to her friend, who replied, "Oh, I'm already on there!" This newsgroup's reputation was spreading far and wide. For a while, I ran a Usenet-to-email mailing list that allowed people to receive messages from this newsgroup via email (if they couldn't access the newsgroup itself), though I eventually passed that mailing list on to far more capable hands than mine. And one of my proudest moments came when I wrote a brief article about this newsgroup for Wired magazine, which appeared in their August 1995 issue (and can still be seen at Wired's online archive). I am not a counselor. I am not a teacher. I'm not even gay. So I cannot say that I am "speaking from experience" when I write about my efforts to help others by bringing this newsgroup into existence. But I am very proud of myself, and I can honestly say that working to create this newsgroup has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. But despite all this, the newsgroup would be nothing if not for the efforts of all of you. Do not forget that there are people out there just like yourself, whose lives are being changed because YOU are making an effort to do something about it! Even if you're only changing people one life at a time, this still means that YOU are making a difference. Thank you, one and all. ____________Approved by: Mary L. Gray___________ To reach the moderators, email to To reach the FAQ, check out ___________________________________________________________________ From tale@uunet.uu.net Mon Nov 21 15:50:29 1994 Control: newgroup soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi moderated Newsgroups: soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi Path: uunet!tale From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Subject: newgroup soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi moderated Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 20:47:36 GMT Message-ID: Lines: 61 Xref: uunet control:1400545 soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation by 3142:92 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 11 Nov 1994. Group submission address: glb-youth@ucsd.edu Moderator contact address: glb-youth-request@ucsd.edu (Nick Fitch, Mary Louise Gray, Michael Handler, Jane Patterson, Joseph M Reilly & Rod Swift) For your newsgroups file: soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi Gay youths helping each other. (Moderated) The charter, culled from the call for votes: Soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi exists to offer support, understanding, and friendship to young people who are coming to terms with their sexuality, which may differ from the heterosexual norm. These people often suffer from unimaginable shame and guilt because they feel attracted to members of the same sex, or to both sexes; should these feelings become publicly known, these young people may become outcasts in their communities. As a result, they feel that they must hide their true feelings from the rest of the world, even their own families and friends, and they feel alone and unloved. These feelings are reflected in studies that show the suicide rate among gay, lesbian and bisexual youths to be higher than in other groups of the same age. Thus, soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi exists for these young people to express their feelings in an understanding, friendly forum. The intent of this newsgroup is to let these people know that they are not alone, and that there are people they can turn to for friendship and comfort. Because of the sensitive nature of this subject, people who post on this newsgroup may prefer to write their messages anonymously. Lists of anonymous remailers will be posted here on a regular basis, for the benefit of those who wish to keep their identities secret. This newsgroup will be moderated, and all messages posted here will be subject to the approval of the moderators. This is done for two reasons: 1) Sadly, there are people who post insulting, degrading, hateful messages to gay-oriented newsgroups as a way of starting arguments solely for their own selfish entertainment. Such flamers will not be allowed here. 2) There are older people who seek out young people for sexual purposes. This newsgroup is intended for young people to express their feelings and comfort others, and for adults to offer advice and friendship to youths; it is not meant for "chicken hawks" to seek out boys and girls for sex. Thus, messages of that sort will also not be allowed here. DISCLAIMER: The moderators of this newsgroup cannot read private email received by anyone other than themselses. The moderators exist to serve as a buffer between the members of this newsgroup and those whom the moderators believe would cause harm the members of this newsgroup by posting messages that the moderators deem to be harmful. The moderators can only control messages sent to this newsgroup; they cannot control messages sent directly to others through email. Therefore, the moderators cannot be held responsible for the outcome of any actions resulting from the exchange of private email between anyone connected to Usenet or anywhere else on the Internet, including this newsgroup.