Queer youth work too graphic for Macy's show

Article in the San Francisco Bay Area Reporter highlights the challenges faced when nonprofits and funders might not share the same values and mission.

"Content developed by queer youth from San Francisco's Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC) raised red flags for organizers of the annual 'Teen Night' at Macy's Passport show, an HIV prevention education event and fashion show held this week at Fort Mason Center. Now, LYRIC is claiming that LGBTQQ youth have been excluded from the event and its HIV prevention messages ...

Macy's spokeswoman Betsy Nelson told the Bay Area Reporter that ... 'We asked them to exclude [content materials] that were very graphic in nature ... This audience is a very diverse audience in terms of race, gender preference, everything ... It's free and we send busses all over to pick up thousands of kids from all over ... There is content about HIV and how you get HIV. Macy's specifically doesn't talk on the topic; we use other groups to do that...'

[LYRIC Executive Director] Schwartz said she has a hard time with the Macy's event billing itself as HIV 'education' without it also including frank discussions of many different kinds of sex, regardless of audience background or how many of the youth identify. Assumptions that heterosexual youth or teens from certain backgrounds don't engage in certain sexual practices, she said, are dangerous assumptions to make in the world of HIV prevention."