Mireya Gómez-Contreras of the Watsonville Brown Berets writes:

In 1998, I was one of four people to receive a Queer Youth Leadership Award for my activism around gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning (queer) issues. As a young, queer Latina, I was saved from falling into the hands of drugs, violence and total depression because I became involved in my community. Queer activism specifically helped me deal with the added pressure of feeling I had to conform to a heterosexual world. Looking back, I don’t know where I would have turned had it not been for the youth group Gay And Proud, which formed in 1996 out of a Watsonville clinic, Salud Para la Gente.

This year, I find myself nominating a queer youth who, through her creative and ambitious activist work, reminds me that supporting youth is paving the best path possible for our future leaders. My message to Santa Cruz County community members today is to step it up and really support teens, where I feel it counts a great deal to young people, through recognition.

The Ninth Annual Queer Youth Leadership Awards, scheduled for May 21st at the Henry J. Mello Center in Watsonville at 4:00pm, is a project of the Santa Cruz County Task Force for LGBTIQ Youth, which is affiliated with the Diversity Center. For more information, call 831-427-4004. Read more