Label Mates: Rainbow Alley weighs in on labels, stigma, and the generation gap.

I’ve felt it. I’m sure some of you reading this article have felt it. As a card-carrying member of “Generation X,” more and more frequently I experience a disconnect between myself and the younger generation.

And this detachment isn’t limited to tastes in music or fashion. Some of the struggles I encountered as a gay teenager are strikingly dissimilar from the current challenges the LGBTQ+ youth face today.

In an effort to bridge this gap, I took a trip to the Denver GLBT Center on Colfax Avenue and dropped by Rainbow Alley, a safe space created for LGBTQ+ youth from ages 11 to 21. Rainbow Alley provides a number of invaluable services including counseling and support groups, health resources, and movie nights.

I sat down with Cassian Bertam, Emma Christian, and Xander Fager, asking them to share their experiences and thoughts on the future landscape of LGBTQ+ rights.

“Our community has grown quite a bit to encompass more than just lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,” says 21-year-old Emma, who started going to Rainbow Alley last year and is now the Youth Program Assistant.

Emma emphasizes that the letter Q at the end of LGBTQ+ incorporates a wide range of individuals who identify with new labels — or resist being labeled at all. “Like gender fluid and gender androgynous, I don’t think it was as commonly accepted or well-known back in the day.”

“The thing with a lot of youth is that they want to label themselves,” adds Xander, 18, who started going to Rainbow Alley over five years ago and now works as the Youth Program Leader. “They don’t like it when people try to force them into boxes.”

Actress and model Ruby Rose, known for her role as Stella Carlin in Orange is the New Black, has spoken publically about being genderfluid and her resistance to socially assigned male and female roles.

Last year, in an interview with Elle, Ruby stated she doesn’t identify with any gender:

“I’m not a guy; I don’t really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I’m somewhere in the middle, which — in my perfect imagination — is like having the best of both sexes.”

But fostering a paradigm shift in how we think about gender has created some concern within the LGBTQ+ youth community on how that dialogue is being pursued.

“As a generation, apparently we don’t want these labels,” says Cassian, 21, who has been going to Rainbow Alley since 2012. “There’s so many [labels] out there, it’s starting to create a lot of hate within the community, from what I’ve seen and experienced.”

Cassian explains that sometimes there’s pressure for others to abandon labels completely. “There are people within the community who are just a gay man or a lesbian woman, and there are some people who just aren’t sure. But it feels like people who are sure of who they are, are in the wrong.”

Emma adds that labels can potentially be beneficial, and that “they offer some grounding in these ideas or emotions that people are experiencing.”

And as the younger generation seeks to reevaluate the verbiage we use to define ourselves, many still struggle with the same hate and intolerance experienced by previous generations.

“Have you ever been to Michigan?” Cassian asks. “Churches there are like 7-11s here — there’s one on every corner. The same religion is across the street.”

Cassian grew up both in Colorado and in Flint, Michigan. He was forced to attend church with his grandparents, where “pretty much the word gay was forbidden. It was a sin. Every time you go to a church, that’s pretty much all they talk about.”

And the enmity LGBTQ+ youth face in schools is still prevalent today, though it’s conveyed in different ways.

“I came out in Aurora in a public school,” says Xander. “It was, I would say, about 80 percent accepting — the other 20 percent were just confused. It wasn’t really hateful speech, it was talking behind your back, not being educated, and not knowing about it or what to think about it.”

Emma came out in the Denver Public School system. “There was still this stigma where they accepted you for who you were, but they kind of stayed back a little bit, they were weary to talk to people. There was still, from what I had witnessed, a lot of discomfort and hate for LGBT community.”

Emma adds that there’s a wealth of experience and advice she’d like to access from older generations who faced similar animosity. “I would ask how they handled it, because I think there was a lot more hate than acceptance back then.”

And now that the US Supreme Court has solidified marriage equality, I asked how LGBTQ+ advocacy groups should move forward.

“We have trans people who have a lot of struggles they face,” says Xander. “Trans women of color are murdered all the time, and sometimes it’s not even reported. It’s just a huge mess.”

Emma adds that people seem to be obsessed with who is using the restrooms. “I’ve noticed a lot of anti-transgender bills trying to keep transgender people out of the bathroom that they identify with because they are scared for themselves; that transgender people might commit an act of violence or rape.”

Just last year, Colorado State Rep. Kim Ransom (R-Littleton) sponsored a bill which would have allowed schools to restrict bathroom and locker room access to students of the same biological sex. The bill failed to pass.

“If you’re aware of statistics,” adds Emma, “the transgender person who has to use the biological restroom that they don’t identify with is a lot more susceptible to harm than a cisgender person sharing a restroom with a transgender person.”

Cassian, Emma, and Xander provided ways we can all bridge generational rifts — cultivate healthy discourse surrounding the use of labels, open a dialogue with those in the community who have endured and overcome hate, and foster solidarity as we push for more transgender protections.

Or as Xander succinctly put it: “Be the change you wish to see in the world, because if you don’t, who is going to?”