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Episode 186: The Trevor Project
279 Plays1 year ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! On today's episode we sat down with Nicholas Turton from the Trevor Project as part of their partnership with Wizards of the Coast for the Magic Con! Nicholas talks about his own Planeswalker Journey with Magic the Gathering as well as updates us about the research that has come out this year from the Trevor Project. Reminder the Cast will be at Magic Con Minneapolis this weekend! Come see our Panel Sunday at 11!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Mental Health Focus
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. This episode is coming out Wednesday of this week, so as hopefully you all are listening to it, we are literally days away from Magic Con Minneapolis.
00:00:46
Speaker
So we will be there this weekend if people don't know by now and you're just hearing the cast, we will be there. We're going to be doing a panel on mental health recovery and basically how I spark the stories about planeswalker journeys, which is something we've covered on the cast before and actually is going to tie a little bit into our topic for today.
00:01:06
Speaker
So if people don't know, we will be there, we will be on stage. If you're finding the cast through, having heard our panel, welcome, if you're just checking out our most recent episode. This will also be our first episode for May, which is Mental Health Recovery Month.
00:01:22
Speaker
Mental Health Awareness Month, I like to talk a lot more about recovery. So very high likelihood that a lot of the episodes this month will be mental health focused. That is usually what our goal is. There is a big mental health charity event coming at the end of the month. So when we have details about it, I will let people know. We are not as directly involved with it this year as we have been in the past just due to
00:01:45
Speaker
scheduling and timing with the the con and everything but i personally will still be playing in some pods at least one pod doing a another the third year of a four player karak sakashima game so we usually have a two-hour block and i think we've gotten in somewhere between six to eight games during two hours so
00:02:10
Speaker
I appreciate the snicker there, Alex. So yeah, that's funny. Yeah, it's what you would expect. Oh, yeah. It's what I would expect from you at least. Yeah, thank you.
Collaborations & Anniversaries
00:02:24
Speaker
So yeah, so before we jump into kind of the episode for today, we want to give a shout out to the grinding coffee company because as soon as we leave May, we'll be entering June. And June as we know is pride and we they are an LGBT minority owned and ran
00:02:41
Speaker
coffee company that supports gamers, and they usually will have stuff for us to give away. We are also coming up on our fifth anniversary. So if people are aware, June will be the fifth anniversary. So we are busy planning. And by that, I mean, we've talked about the idea. And the content is kind of what you mean first, right? Then the planning comes after we kind of get that out of the way. I think we're still in phase one.
00:03:06
Speaker
I think phase three is what you're discussing. Phase two is where we have no idea what's going on. Imposter syndrome? I am always in phase two. So as part of Magic Con 30, for the Magic Con 30s and for the Magic Cons that they've been doing, they have partnered with charities. And for this one in Minneapolis, the charity is the Trevor Project.
00:03:33
Speaker
And we had the opportunity to be able to connect with The Trevor Project, and that's who we're going to be talking with today. So we're going to pass it over in a second to somebody from The Trevor Project who was nice enough to join us. But first, we'll get our introductions out of the way. I am HobbsQ. I can be found on Twitter at HobbsQ. And my pronouns are he, him. Taya. Hi, I'm Taya. Taya transcends on Twitter. My pronouns are she, her, or they, them.
00:04:00
Speaker
Alex upon on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler and my pronouns are he him
00:04:06
Speaker
So I had the opportunity to talk with some people from the Trevor Project because they wanted to see how they could be involved with the Magic Con.
Guest Introduction: Nicholas Turton
00:04:13
Speaker
And one of the things that came about was one of their communications people, Nicholas, who was going to be speaking in just a second, is actually a lifelong Magic player. And it made a lot of sense. And I think this is a kind of perfect marriage to have Nicholas come on and talk about the Trevor Project here on this cast, because I think it is a good,
00:04:33
Speaker
way to build off of this audience that we have already with that connection to magic. So welcome, Nicholas. Awesome. Thanks so much. I'm really happy to be here.
The Trevor Project's Mission & Impact
00:04:44
Speaker
So for those of you listening, my name is Nicholas Turton. My pronouns are he, him, and I'm part of the team over at The Trevor Project.
00:04:51
Speaker
So for those of you who don't know, the Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ young people, where we are known for providing 24 seven crisis services for LGBT young people. But we also operate a whole bunch of programs around education, research, advocacy and peer support to support our LGBTQ communities. Really excited to be here and be part of the conversation. So thanks.
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, so we did prep you for knowing that we were going to be asking you a burning inquiry, a question to get to know you a little bit better. And we will all answer it too. So I realized as soon as I wrote this that I then forgot. So who is the character from Magic that you identify with? And I'll start off with asking Taya. Well, you've asked me because you know I already have an answer for this one, don't you? Yes. Yeah, Chandra, obviously.
00:05:46
Speaker
My poor little fire girl who just, everything always seems to go wrong for her and she just wants to burn it all down, but loves and cares about her friends deeply. And that's about as me as I could get. You know, I just want to, I want to, everything needs to burn. That's the only way to fix things, but you know, it's, but I want to take care of all my friends too. And mostly by burning the things that are causing them problems.
00:06:13
Speaker
And we'll need to take deep breaths because she's gotten better at that. Yeah. You know, taking breath is important because you need to focus your fire. Okay. Well, Alex, how about you? So yeah, I can go with Gideon today. I see it's character I've kind of talked about in the past when you've had questions similar to this coming up and then thinking about it today, I've actually got kind of a different angle on it than I've talked about in the past. So we'll see if.
00:06:42
Speaker
see if I can make words coherently around the thought that is a little less coherent to my head right now. But I'm thinking about the War of the Sparks storyline and the storylines leading up to it where Gideon had faith and trust in Liliana, despite the fact that everybody told him that that was a bad idea.
00:07:03
Speaker
and that she had betrayed them. And there's, I have some, I don't know, naiveness or I can trust too much. And sometimes I get made fun of like for that, but I just, I want to be able to trust people. And I especially, I want to trust my friends. And I kind of, I feel that in that storyline with Gideon, there was that moment where he got, that trust was vindicated for him. He trusted her. He,
00:07:26
Speaker
at the end of the storyline gave his life to her to save her. And that was a choice that we can talk about. There's lots of things. And honestly, that storyline, I still feel some issues with, but that moment of, he trusted her that whole thing. It was previous sets before that too. He still had that, he expressed that. And then in that moment, that trust was vindicated. So I really appreciate that if not much else about that particular set storyline.
00:07:56
Speaker
So I did think of one. So haha, good. Thank you both for being amazing. Mine is actually Angrath. So I have talked about Angrath on this show before. So Angrath is our Minotaur planeswalker who we don't know a ton about yet. But what we know is he got taken away from his family and kind of just like,
00:08:16
Speaker
pulled away and trapped. And the other thing we know about him is that he is angry. And the reasons I identify with him and Alex and I covered him under an episode talking about anger and kind of how he's actually learned to manage it. And then I talked about him is that identification with the father and trying to get home to his daughters. But really just that idea that he was this father that like that is a identifying feature of him that I would love to see just for further explored. But I you know, I'm somebody that
00:08:45
Speaker
as a much younger man had a lot of anger issues. And I have found that trying to learn how to manage those when I get taxed in resources, when my sleep is off, when my mental health is down, which can happen when having children, has been something that I really do kind of take this like, this identification with what I need to pull myself back to is what he has learned to do, what I have learned to do over the years to manage my own just like frustrations and
00:09:13
Speaker
frustration tolerance and be able to even recognize the underlying emotions that are there besides just anger. So, Nicholas, I know that when you and I talked initially, you kind of were saying, you know, like the lore is a little bit less of what you kind of know from the game. So, I just want, you know, I put this in here thinking that there may be, from playing even, just characters that you may identify with, so.
Nicholas Turton's Journey with Magic: The Gathering
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, this is a really great question. So thanks everyone for going first because I needed a minute to really think. But I'm actually, I really like this question because it made me think about reflecting on the years I've been playing. EDH is like one of our favorite formats to play when I
00:09:58
Speaker
play with my circle of friends who are all still playing Magic the Gathering. So I'm actually going with my longest standing commander, Intet the Dreamer. She's probably my favorite Elder Dragon. And I think my affinity for her comes from she's kind of like just sort of a
00:10:19
Speaker
How do I say it? I feel like she gives off this idea of like being sort of optimistic and forward leaning and I think growing up as just in my entire life I've always identified as someone who's kind of like really much like lived in their heads and was always kind of more of a quote unquote dreamer and
00:10:40
Speaker
I really, I love the way that, just like her play style also, because she encompasses red and blue, which is like my favorite color combination. I always loved playing Pyromancer's Ascension combo deck, so hate me if that's like, not your style, but I just, and you know, it's magic, so you can kind of like imagine and idealize better worlds. And so that's really why I love Inside the Dreamers, just that might have always had a strong affinity for her.
00:11:09
Speaker
as both a card but also kind of think it has this idealistic, optimistic dragon overseeing magic. I will say that the elder dragons from the time spiral are something that I wish we had gotten a lot more story behind. So I think that you're saying kind of that idealist element that comes through and that dreaming element.
00:11:33
Speaker
I really would love that we had gotten a little bit more kind of story around them. So it's kind of a pretty perfect one to choose. Yeah, I was looking up online and I couldn't really find much about her backstory or her storyline at all. So hopefully that's something they build out on the narrative level because I would love to learn more about that. Alex, I know that was like your block, right?
00:11:57
Speaker
I really enjoyed it, and that one I played a lot, unlike now where I'm more a story that I haven't played much recently. But I loved that. And to be honest, some of it is more, some of it was from story, but more of it was from sort of the male aspects of building the set, of building the story, if that makes sense. I loved the time spiral, all of the little references and the sort of glimpses at the future and the way they
00:12:23
Speaker
played around with a bunch of stuff, which I get is part of why that block wasn't great for new players and the game in general, but I loved it. Well, and for difficulty for story, right? I mean, that was good. Yes, he's part of the planar chaos. Is that right? Because that's how we got like other dragons that would have been.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they got the three dragons and that are the five dragons on that set, but they weren't really in this, the novels from all of the story. Unfortunately, that was, again, cool from sort of a game design perspective of let's take, you know, three color dragons like they did with the elders and shift them into, you know, from shards to wedges. But, you know, they didn't show up in the story, really, because
00:13:07
Speaker
especially at that time, the story and the game were made at such different times. Nowadays, they put a lot more effort into making sure that people, characters who are showing up in the cards get into the story a lot, into the actual printed story.
00:13:24
Speaker
Or we at least get a blurb about them. Yeah, that's that's true. Or we at least get some of those little articles where they go through, you know, here's a paragraph or so about several characters versus getting, you know, nothing on squeak. Nothing at all. Yeah. So Nicholas, what is your role at kind of the Trevor project now that we've learned a little bit kind of about you?
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm specifically part of our communications team and our role is within the organization is really dedicated to helping amplify and raise awareness about the important work that we're doing to support LGBTQ young people. So a big focus of the work that I do specifically is also kind of overseeing and helping
00:14:13
Speaker
helping really amplify some of the work that we're doing in the realms of legislative advocacy and a lot of our public health research. So really getting that type of helping others see that all the work that we're doing on the ground to advocate for young people, whether that's pushing forward protective and proactive legislation that supports LGBTQ young people or combating anti-LGBTQ and really specifically in this moment, a lot of anti-trans legislation
00:14:42
Speaker
And then at the same time, we do a lot of original research to help understand the current mental health landscape of LGBTQ young people and getting that out into the world so people can understand what it is like the landscape looks like right now for young people and how we can better support them. And you were kind of saying, you know, like the main thing that I kind of associate Trevor Project with is a prevention line. And kind of that's where I think
00:15:10
Speaker
And I think that's just because we've pulled that, we have it in our show notes. It's something that I think of when I've seen the website and I didn't realize until I met with you all just how much other research and advocacy is being done.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as an organization, we actually just celebrated our 25 year anniversary. So we've been around for over two and a half decades and we were born out of this idea of making sure that there was a crisis line for LGBT young folks who needed crisis support that was tailored to them and had trained counselors who understood their identities and can support them through some of their darkest moments, you know, and those moments of crisis. And so that's
00:15:54
Speaker
The bulk of the work that we've done for the past 25 years, but over, you know, as we've grown and as we've expanded, we're also thinking about not only how do we help people at the moment of time where they need help and support, but also how do we actively work to create a better world for everyone and really doing a lot of systems level change to in the realms of like legislation.
00:16:18
Speaker
And then also making sure that we can understand mental health crises and mental health outcomes at a broader level through research.
00:16:36
Speaker
Well, people's journeys with mental health, which includes magic a lot of times, but just what that journey can look like, what that moment became when somebody may have sparked or what a spark actually is, this concept of something
00:16:51
Speaker
that is an intense emotional or intense physical. It is something where it can either be a trauma, it can be out of happiness, magic being kind of magic, it's historically leaned heavier on that trauma side of things, which I think is a framework that we're often talking about when we're discussing mental health in particular. And I'm curious for you, you mentioned that you do kind of have a personal journey with magic, and I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about that.
00:17:22
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah, I'd love to. So as you mentioned, I'm a lifelong magic player. And I actually discovered magic during days summer camp that I used to go to when I was like nine or 10 years old. So I grew up right in the suburbs, right outside of Buffalo, New York. And at that time, flashback thinking, wow, it's been
00:17:47
Speaker
a while back in that sort of like growing in my childhood, I was really pretty reserved. I was quite the wallflower. And I knew from a very young age that actually that I was queer slash gay. And so I was very closeted. And I think that contributed to my sort of mannerisms being really shy and not really
00:18:10
Speaker
outgoing at all. So I was at the summer day camp which really focused a lot on a lot of activities centered around things like sports and that was never my vibe back then. So me and my one friend that I did have at day camp were always like just to paint a better picture. We were on the outskirts of like the athletic field pretending to like play Pokemon
00:18:33
Speaker
And just, we were kind of like Alcats. And so I remember one time there was a staff member at the camp who brought a whole bunch of trading cards that day, one day. And I remember seeing and getting actually to buy some magic cards. And I thought it was such a really cool, the cards themselves were really cool. And from then I was actually able to meet other folks within my own community.
00:19:03
Speaker
I grew up next door to the person who ended up becoming my best friend. It's sort of like that group of friends. His older sister came over one day and she's like, oh my gosh, you have to see this new game that I learned. It's called Magic the Gathering. And I was like, wait, I have those cards and stuff.
00:19:22
Speaker
It was a really cool just random moment of people that I was meeting in my life and getting close with at that time. In that circle of friends, we all found our own way to magic. And then that group of friends really became my center of friends. And honestly, to this day, a lot of them are lifelong friends, even though I live now on the West Coast, I live across the country every time I go back.
00:19:46
Speaker
I reconnect with that circle of friends through magic and we always play when I go visit. But I think one of the biggest things for me if I reflect on that time and era of my life was magic became a way for me to
00:20:01
Speaker
escape and really just bond with my little close-knit group of friends. We always play every Friday in my friend's garage or another friend's basement and we just play magic all night. We called it family night because we had it was like our own little community. I thought it was really nice and reflecting on it was like that was a really safe space for me. I felt like I belonged somewhere and
00:20:26
Speaker
Flashing forward a couple of years, when I decided to come out, it was actually that group of friends who I had gotten really close through by playing Magic so much. They were actually the first people that I ever came out to in my life. And they were so supportive and I
00:20:46
Speaker
can't thank them enough for how amazing and accepting they were throughout that whole experience because it was a really hard time navigating that in a really small suburb where it was pretty conservative.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, that was a really sort of beautiful experience for me. And I think I credit a lot of that magic as like this shared experience amongst all of us as being something that really drew us together, creating those really great shared experiences and for having a group of friends that I could really feel like I belong to. And yeah, I think
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah. I hear that. I even hear that idea of, you mentioned that calling it family night. I think of that found family concept that for a lot of the people in the LGBTQ community, it is oftentimes what they have is found family and it's what they may have to rely on. And it's interesting even as you were saying, even as a child, like this is what, or a child, but a younger person, that's what your group had. That's what you called it. That's what you became.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah. And I love that story of magic bonding and like you want to, this episode we're talking about your, you know, your, kind of your journey in the Trevor project, but for myself, magic was where I learned how to talk to people after years of social anxiety, cutting myself off. And so I love hearing people's stories about how magic gave them a community, gave them a home in different ways. I guess it's different for all these people we talk to, but there's still that similarity of this gave us a place to be ourselves. This gave us a place to build a community.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, and it's largely trans people I met through the magic community that, you know, ended up helping me come out as well. So it's been a big part of my life. Recently, you were even talking about I think that, you know, like that loss of what Twitter would mean, right? Yeah, you know, mentioned that on a recent episode just of
00:22:49
Speaker
how important that community has been to me, especially on magic Twitter, queer magic Twitter, and how much of a support network it was when I was working through coming out. So Nicholas, from there, from your childhood and kind of moving, what ended up drawing you to the Trevor Project to come work for them?
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. I've kind of always worked in sort of the realm of just nonprofits generally. And I've always known about the Trevor Project and as an organization that I've always admired within the community. And
00:23:25
Speaker
Much to everyone, I feel like a lot of people as an organization, I always just assumed it was just crisis intervention and that there wasn't anything else. And then when I came to learn all of the, I got to know some people who worked at the Trevor Project and came to realize how comprehensive the different programs and services were.
00:23:47
Speaker
They, I found out that they were actually expanding their communications team to really help amplify the mission and the message of the work that they're doing. And one thing led to another and I was like, wow, I'm actually here working.
00:24:00
Speaker
And so it's been a really great experience working at the Trevor Project and being sort of part of this mission and helping amplify this work, you know, obviously being part of the community myself and thinking about how to support the next generation of LGBTQ folks, especially in a lot of what we're dealing with right now with the modern times of
00:24:24
Speaker
A lot of everything I'm sure everyone has probably seen a lot of what we're seeing in the political climate. So I think it's never been more important to be supportive and be actively working to fight for LGBTQ communities.
00:24:40
Speaker
I know that, you know, something that this show obviously believes in, you know, but just every day kind of having to turn on the news to see, you know, a different avenue to try to use attack to attack a community that just wants to live.
00:24:57
Speaker
attacking people for basically just wanting to be is one of the hardest things for me is I think of it as a clinician. I struggle with the people that I do work with. I work with vets and there still is people who set recognition that people don't think about the fact that there are LGBTQ vets.
00:25:16
Speaker
Like the looks that I can get from veterans when I ask questions about pronouns, or if I ask these things that, you know, I think a lot of the clinicians there really want to be espousing. You know, there's pushback. There's weird looks from people just for us asking these things because of the environment we're in. I think it can be disheartening for me at times.
00:25:44
Speaker
And I do think one thing that's important about Mental Health Awareness Month is to kind of be having these conversations. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And, you know, it's a really important time to have these conversations. And there's a lot of issues around mental health that are stigmatized as generally. And then if we add other layers of different marginalized communities, whether that be mental health within LGBTQ communities, or folks who are veterans, and like all of those different layers,
00:26:13
Speaker
it can be really hard to have these conversations, but it is so important. So, I mean, just generally, I'm really happy to be here because I think it's really great on everyone here that we're even just having this conversation and sparking that dialogue. Well, I mean, the front-facing part of the Trevor Project, we're going to talk some about the research and the advocacy, and you've been talking, I think, about the legislative piece that's important. The line itself is so well-known because
00:26:41
Speaker
The main crisis line was known for not being great for all populations. And that is a moment when somebody needs to be able to connect at a very dark time. Literally, it's the idea of a crisis. And they need to feel that wherever they call is going to be supportive or they're not going to reach out or even take that first step.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think what's been really great to see, though, over the years is we actually have been working really closely and advocating for the past several years, working closely with the new National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which many folks probably know is 988. And so actually, because of the advocacy and the work that we're doing, when folks call or text, now they have different modalities or digital outreach as well.
00:27:38
Speaker
is when folks call, text, or chat 988 to be connected with a trained counselor. They actually have specialized services for folks in crisis to be connected with trained counselors who are
00:27:52
Speaker
trained to and culturally competent work with folks of different identities and experiences. So we currently partner with 988 to provide services to LGBT young people. But there are also specialized services through 988 for I believe folks also who are veterans as well. Yeah, you can press one right away. You don't even have to go through a menu. So yeah,
00:28:19
Speaker
I'm glad to hear that. I did not know that there was these new, the only one I know about really is the pressing one. So I did not know there was these other elements that they'd been working on improving. Yeah, I think it's a really huge, it's a really huge step forward. One, simplifying the one, eight, seven, or I remember the old number at this point. Which is funny, because then you also have to be the type of person who remembers
00:28:46
Speaker
those numbers on yeah like we moved away from the concept of numbers to text so yeah it wasn't very helpful yeah it's this new you know concept of you know if we just having an emergency we always had 911 but having a mental health crisis is another type of an emergency so having a simplified way to access those services through 988
00:29:15
Speaker
shift the conversation around what mental health care both in crisis, but also just generally for wraparound services and general support what that looks like here and in our country.
Mental Health Trends & Research Findings
00:29:27
Speaker
So a part of this when we were having that conversation and when we first met, you know, you and I, you told me about the fact that there is a newsletter that you have every year that comes out at the beginning of May. So just a couple of days before this episode has come out, the newsletter is out now and it is basically
00:29:44
Speaker
survey results from the year. And I was hoping that you might be able to tell us a little bit about what that kind of national survey looks like and then what some new findings are that are out that we might be able to talk about or for people to be aware of. Yeah, absolutely. So on May 1st, we actually just
00:30:00
Speaker
will be publishing or will have published our 2023 U.S. National Survey. And so in its fifth year, it's our biggest research product that we publish each year. And it's meant to represent sort of a snapshot in time of sort of like the mental health landscape of LGBTQ young folks all across the U.S. And so the one that we've launched this year
00:30:23
Speaker
encompasses the experiences of over 28,000 LGBT young people who are ages 13 to 24 who are living across the US. And so what we found just generally as a top line is that a lot of the mental health disparities that we found are
00:30:42
Speaker
continue obviously over the past couple of years and just generally reemphasize that LGBT young people have mental health disparities that we are continuing to face. So we view it here at the Trevor Project as a public health crisis when we're thinking about the mental health of our LGBT young people
00:31:02
Speaker
And so this 2023 survey found that 41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including half of trans and non-binary young people. And, you know, we see also heightened symptoms of things like anxiety with over 2 in
00:31:21
Speaker
three LGBT young people reporting symptoms of anxiety, and over half reporting symptoms of depression. And when we're thinking about mental health, we also want to think about health care access to address these concerns. And one of the things that I think is we find most concerning is over half or 56% of the young people we've surveyed who wanted access to mental health care in the past year were not able to get in.
00:31:49
Speaker
We have a variety of other findings that really help spell it out and really demonstrate some of the mental health impacts that we're seeing in the current
00:31:59
Speaker
environment and climate of anti-LGBTQ policies of legislation and other compounding factors around anti-LGBTQ victimization, which show that when young people are physically threatened or harmed or discriminated against or subjected to conversion therapy, which are all, as we in our research
00:32:21
Speaker
encompass a larger umbrella of experienced anti-LGBT victimization, report more than twice the rate of attempting suicide in the past year compared to those who don't have these types of experiences. Across the board, I do want to make sure that we also highlight some of the positive things.
00:32:41
Speaker
It really, our survey really drives home the importance of having access to different affirming, to LGBTQ affirming homes and spaces. So young people who have access to affirming homes and schools report much lower rates of attempting suicide in the past year. And I think that really goes to show that, you know, obviously we're facing a lot of challenges when trying to support the mental health of our young people in the current
00:33:10
Speaker
current environment, but there are things that we can be doing at an individual community and national level to really help make sure that we increase those protective factors, such as affirming homes and schools and things like that. So you're kind of talking through some of these with the large rate of LGBTQ young people who have the anxiety, depression. Is this something that's basically been remaining pretty stable
00:33:40
Speaker
Over the last couple of years. I mean with your data. Are you guys looking at this versus previous years? Or is this just kind of a snapshot of the year?
00:33:48
Speaker
That's a really great question. So we view, because of the way that our survey is designed each year, it's cross-sectional and it's meant to be point in time. So it really does provide just a snapshot at a current time. So we don't really analyze the trends per se over the years, but we do see that they kind of remain more or less pretty steadily. And I guess the main thing for us to, that we'd like to point out is
00:34:18
Speaker
basically when we're looking at national level data of mental health outcomes of young people generally.
00:34:27
Speaker
LGBT young people consistently show disparities when it comes to things like anxiety, depression, and suicide risk. But I think something that's so important to know in Hobson, I'm sure you probably identify with this, being a clinician, is we really like to emphasize to folks that when we're talking about the mental health of LGBT young folks,
00:34:52
Speaker
People, these young people aren't inherently prone to suicide risk because of their identities. It's more because of the way that they're mistreated, that they're stigmatized, discriminated against, and have all of those environmental factors.
00:35:07
Speaker
within society. And so when we think about the work we do at the Trevor Project, it's how can we make sure that we mitigate those harmful and risk factors as much as possible while increasing the more protective and positive factors within their lives.
00:35:26
Speaker
So what do you all do with the data now? I know that, you know, you talked about the research side of things. Do you, do you have like research projects that are going on that you're looking at or is it mainly the survey data? Uh, I was just kind of, you know, what does this help drive kind of what the, the, the mission is of the Trevor project for the coming year? Yeah, honestly, there's, there's so much that we do with the research. So first of all,
00:35:54
Speaker
we help really disseminate these findings as far and wide as possible. So here we are having this conversation. So it's really great to be able to help share these findings with new audiences through the podcast, for example. So we do our best to make sure that these findings are in the hands of folks to help generate awareness about the current issue and this crisis that we're facing.
00:36:21
Speaker
but also making sure that it's in the hands of the folks who have power and influence to really make really important changes. You know, community leaders, state legislators at all, well, legislators rather, all level at local, state, and federal. So, you know, one of the big pieces is public education and awareness. So that's definitely one pillar. I'd say another pillar is also we like, our research team does a really amazing job of taking these findings because we have
00:36:50
Speaker
We have tons of data from the 28,000 LGBT people on their experiences and what they report in their lived experiences from this report. And each month, one of the things that our research team does is publish these findings in new ways and analyzing it across different
00:37:10
Speaker
across different demographics or taking a look at some of this data on a deeper level. And then we publish what we call our monthly research briefs. So obviously what we've just published on May 1st is kind of like an overview and snapshot and really shows all of the key top findings.
00:37:29
Speaker
but now we're going to take that research and rework it in different ways to help better understand different experiences. So the best way that I can describe this is maybe by giving an example is like last year with our 2022 survey data, our research team was able to take the data and analyze it by
00:37:53
Speaker
different race and ethnicity groups within the AAPI umbrella. And so that was really great because that type of segmentation of research
00:38:06
Speaker
with folks who have different identities within the larger AAPI community, that doesn't really exist, particularly folks who also identify as AAPI and LGBTQ. So that is an example of how we will take the research and refine it further and really help make sure that we're being able to disseminate findings that are useful for different communities and different folks with intersecting identities.
Partnership with Magic: The Gathering & Community Support
00:38:32
Speaker
So one thing I was wondering about, you know, you talked about these different partnerships that you all have done and these ways to look to get some messages out there and to kind of do, I know that it sounds like you, you all were kind of involved with the, the, the pride secret layer last year with that. And then you're getting involved with magic for the magic con. And I, and I'm kind of curious if you can speak or if know anything about like what led to some of that partnership or why magic the gathering. I mean, you've talked about your own personal journey and I, I definitely see a value.
00:39:03
Speaker
in this partnership, but I'm just curious what the company's kind of approach was or thoughts. You know, I actually don't know how that came to be. But when I found out, I was so happy and ecstatic. I was like, Oh, my gosh, the pride, the secret lair, pride drop, I thought was so really wonderful. I thought it was one of my, for me, it was one of my favorite things that I've seen across our different partnerships. Yeah, you know, it's really good. Yeah, I
00:39:32
Speaker
I bought so many copies of that secret lair and gave away a bunch of them and have the cards and so many decks. Yeah. They, they got me on that one for sure. Yeah. I'm sitting with the, I have a ton of copies still in my basement to just be ready to be given away for this reason, because trying to get them to people that maybe see themselves in cards for the first time ever. Mm-hmm.
00:40:02
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:40:03
Speaker
And, you know, I don't know exactly how that partnership came to be. I'll be truly honest. But, you know, at the Trevor Project, we have a lot of different ways that people, partnerships end up happening. And in a lot of ways, it's folks will actually reach out to us or connections will be made. And so my understanding is probably that someone maybe from Magic Wizards of the Coast maybe reached out and was looking to find a way to explore a partnership. And, you know, we're always really open.
00:40:32
Speaker
to making sure, um, exploring new ways of new, new and innovative partnerships. And I thought that was a really great one that came to be. It was very personal for you. Like you're saying, I mean, I was, I was so excited when you joined the call that, you know, that we had that was just saying, you're like, I wanted to be here. Basically, you know, I found out that magic was involved. I wanted to get involved myself, right? Like it was very motivating. I can tell when I'm being pandered to, I like being pandered to.
00:41:05
Speaker
So you're going to be coming out for the event then? I personally won't be, but I think my team will be. I know I really wanted to be there, but I know hopefully there'll be another magic con soon. Yeah, but I would love to go to one. Vegas is the next one in the state. Well, of these of these ones, right? Well, in Barcelona.
00:41:30
Speaker
It's Barcelona in Vegas and that's it for the year. They only did the four this year.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, maybe I'll talk to my team to see if they can find a way to get to Barcelona. That's the way to go. You know, I think I need to be there. I didn't even need to be there. I did this podcast and now. So, you know, seeing this work that you all are doing, like, what is kind of take home messages for that you would want us to be able to share with any listeners out there?
00:42:04
Speaker
I feel like there are a couple of things, you know, I think for anyone who's listening, who identifies as part of the LGBTQ community, I know it's a really difficult time. And I mean, I felt it personally, I know I'm seeing it with a lot of my colleagues even. It's a really difficult time. The LGBTQ community is definitely being targeted for being, you know,
00:42:30
Speaker
being targeted in many ways. And so I want to at least make sure that as an organization that's here to support, really making sure that people understand the message that really you deserve to be just loved and accepted for who you are. And I know that there are so many people who are supportive of you and who are fighting for you at this moment. It can be really hard to lean in on the negative things that we're seeing in the news, but something that's bringing me so much hope is that there are
00:42:59
Speaker
a lot of organizations, there's a lot of people advocating, there's a lot of allies that are setting up in this moment who are really doing our best to try and fight for LGBTQ communities and LGBTQ rights.
00:43:14
Speaker
And something that's really bringing me a lot of inspiration to hope is also seeing the young people. There's so many young people across different states. I know just last week, some people on my team were able to go to Florida and document and speak with a lot of the young people who were walking out and protesting in Florida in response to a lot of the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills there.
00:43:38
Speaker
So I think for me that's like one of the things is a message of hope and that there is some optimism. I mean I did mention Intet the Dreamer as sort of like my affinity card at the start and I just think having those messages of support and hope is really important.
00:43:55
Speaker
And if you are struggling, make sure that you seek help if you can. And so I know Hobbs, you put a lot of really great resources in the show notes. So I think that's really important to be able to just have those resources ready and available. So that's like my first message. And I think for others who are listening, maybe who identify as allies or just folks within the community,
00:44:18
Speaker
I think there's so many ways in how we can at different levels show up for LGBTQ communities. And, you know, something simple at an individual level, I was thinking is like, you know, if you're going to like FNM and playing magic.
00:44:32
Speaker
And, you know, you're competing with someone as like, you know, even just when you do your intro, asking or sharing for pronouns at an F&M event at your local magic shop, that's something simple. And then maybe at the community level, if you are a magic shop owner or someone who's, you know, has some influence within the community, finding ways to maybe show LGBTQ friendly images or symbols, whether it's hanging a pride flag within your shop.
00:45:01
Speaker
just to show that there are these messages of allyship and in community. And, you know, for everyone listening, we don't have to be experts on LGBTQ identities, but really do your best to show support, to try and educate yourself. There are so many great resources, not just the Trevor Project, but a lot of other organizations who share a lot of public education resources, so you can help become a better ally in this moment.
00:45:30
Speaker
I think of those things that can be done at the micro level, just what you can do within your own communities. Speaking up if you hear players being misgendered so that the person doesn't feel like they have to be the one to step up every single time. I know people talk about how exhausting it can be, and if you're there and you're able to do it, just make sure that you're
00:45:51
Speaker
You're correcting yourself if you make a mistake, if you do misgender somebody, that you own it. You take that mistake, you learn from it, you correct it. You're able to be the person that maybe speaks up at your local game shop. There are these ways that we can think of that we can get involved because, right, like I think you said from the beginning,
00:46:12
Speaker
your journey started with having a space that felt safe enough for you to be able to even explore or to just to learn more about yourself like right a place that was away from having to feel that you were completely just that the closeted wallflower or the closeted kid on the sideline playing pokemon which i've just now i'm realizing like this far in that you met without cards because
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, later you then said cards. Sorry, my brain just really was like, I'm like, going back through this story in my head. And I'm like, Wait a second. I think that we were just like pretending to be a Pokemon. Yeah, we I was, I was the trainer and my friend would be the Pokemon and we pretend to
00:46:53
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Okay, sorry. So see it. Yeah, that's awesome. That's seen in my head. I'm like, yeah, Pokemon cards, because we're here talking about magic. And that's a much better story. It occurred to me. And all of a sudden, I was like, Wait a second. He then said somebody brought cards. So okay. But I mean, you talked about like that idea that you had an environment. And that's what we we need. Still,
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so I think that's why it's, you know, even when we're thinking about states where different types of bills and legislation are being, you know, introduced, et cetera, there's still so much that people can do within their own communities, even in those environments to really show support and just really create and do their best to create some of those affirming spaces.
00:47:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think showing support and speaking out in this moment can really go a long way. Yeah, it's really needed now more than it has been in a long time. Everybody thinks things got better or magically great, but they haven't. It's gotten worse. Yeah. So Alex and Kay, I'm thinking for us and for the show, is there any thoughts kind of having
00:48:20
Speaker
As we're going forward, as we're even moving into just our own panel kind of jumping off just a few days after this is coming out. I think I've been thankful to have this opportunity to meet with the actual like Trevor project to hear what they do and thinking how we can then carry things forward.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you, Nicholas, for bringing that perspective. Like I said at the beginning, we love being able to bring people on to share their stories and to have been talking about your own personal story and the story of the Trevor Project, the work you've been doing and things. And it's a thing for us to work on going forward, to do more, to continue
00:49:01
Speaker
the work we've been doing, like you say, Hobbs. I know a couple of years ago, we started doing pronouns in the introductions and that just felt like a small thing that was just an important thing to just start doing. So we've been doing that every episode since and it's finding those little ways to keep building that space. Finding your mandatory trans girl for a magic podcast.
00:49:26
Speaker
mandatory right other otherwise what we're even doing for the first like four years we don't know but I mean you know I think having another voice on the show has been a good thing yeah saying that we had sought out as not a you know with as guests but to actually have that as part of the planning now is a huge difference yeah
00:49:47
Speaker
And that's been a big, to peel back that curtain a little bit like we do occasionally, but that's been a struggle for us. A struggle is not even the wrong term, but it's been a conversation we've had consistently, especially over the last couple of years of what can we do to try to bring in people who have different perspectives, not just in the LGBTQ community, that community as well in particular, but I mean other communities as well, bringing in folks from other communities whose experiences are different so that we can just have them.
00:50:17
Speaker
But everyone can just have a better understanding of people who are different than them. And yet at the same time, we all love this game magic. And it's a great place to build a community together. If goblins aren't good at anything, they're good at communities. That's right. Goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers and we are dangerous. So it checks out.
00:50:44
Speaker
Well, Nicholas, I really want to thank you. If you could tell people just anything that you want to kind of close out with, follow up with, just where people can find you, find the Trevor Project, we would just love to let you kind of take it away. Yeah, absolutely. So the Trevor Project, if you want to learn more, you can find us on at the trevorproject.org or at trevorproject.org.
00:51:11
Speaker
T-R-E-V-O-R project on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for all our social media. You know, there's a lot of great resources, a lot of great information across all of those different channels, so I really encourage you folks listening in to really check that out. But I just want to thank you all, Alex, Hobbs, and Taya, for this really great conversation. I had a great time today.
00:51:35
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming and we're glad we're able to include you in this and kick off our Mental Health Awareness Month with a really important topic.
00:51:47
Speaker
And to everybody, we will be seeing you. Anybody that's out there, we would love to have more conversations like this actually in person. All three hosts will be at MagicCon, not only for the panel, but around it other times. So we hope to get to meet people from the show or listeners that we haven't met before. And we hope that everybody has a good weekend.
00:52:09
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatranscendence, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
00:52:31
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, our link tray can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raff Hale, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content.
00:52:59
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.