Our weekly LGBTQ youth news updates are back! We took a brief break for the holidays, but will now continue posting local and national news stories that are of interest to LGBTQ youth each Friday afternoon. Check back every week for your weekly dose of current events!

An op-ed by Charles Robbins, our executive director/CEO, was published yesterday on 365Gay.com. In it, he discussed the recently-released research from the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, which confirmed that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Charles also mentions new research released by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) and funded by Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that addresses the special concerns related to suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth.

US News & World Report explored the debate over LGBTQ-specific high schools, discussing whether protecting LGBTQ students from bullying and harassment is worth the possible price of segregation.

The Los Angeles Times published an article about how students at Harvey Milk High School, a LGBT high school in San Francisco, reacted to the blockbuster film, Milk. The film profiles the life of Harvey Milk, one of the nation’s first openly gay politicians and for whom the school is named.

Nine men in Senegal (located in western Africa) were recently sentenced to eight years in prison after being tried on charges of conspiracy and “unnatural acts,” a term used to criminalize being gay. It is currently illegal to be openly gay in Senegal. Read the New York Times’ story about this tragic and inhumane act.

Finally, The Advocate published a month-by-month breakdown of the important LGBTQ news events throughout 2008.