Report describes ‘emergency’ for LGBTQ youth in DCF system LGBTQ youth are suffering from a lack of safe, effective, and affirming services. TJ Farmer, 17, steps up to the kickball plate at the Let Trans Athletes Play (LTAP) event in Mayor Danehy Park on Aug. 1, 2021. (Christiana Botic for The Boston Globe)
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LGBTQ youth are experiencing discrimination and mistreatment at higher rates while in the hands of the state’s child welfare system, according to a new report from the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth.
The report references local and national data, interviews with current and former foster children and parents, and information from stakeholders, which all paint a bleak picture of life as an openly LGBTQ youth in state care. Among the many recommendations for improvement was rigorous data collection, as the report noted that agency-specific data on LGBTQ youth is largely unavailable.
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Hot Stove Cool Music steps up to the plate for charity once again
By James Sullivan Globe correspondent,Updated May 10, 2021, 6:16 p.m.
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Former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein (right) embraces Red Sox president Sam Kennedy at the 2020 Hot Stove Cool Music show at the Paradise Rock Club.Blake Nissen For The Boston Globe
For Red Sox fans, two big things happened during the âhot stoveâ offseason in February 2020. The team traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, and the baseball-themed Hot Stove Cool Music fundraising event celebrated its 20th anniversary.
If you havenât forgiven the Sox for letting go of a generational talent, donât look now, but this yearâs team is currently enjoying the best record in baseball. Zealous fan Kay Hanley says the 2021 Sox remind her a little of the curse-breaking âIdiotsâ of 2004.
April 5, 2021
Chris Bates was 16 years old when he started selling nude photos of himself on the internet to adult men who pressured him for more and more images.
The demands snowballed into riskier requests, and within months the gay Connecticut teen was trading sex for dinners out, designer sneakers and other luxuries.
Bates says he was lured by the attention and what appeared to be easy money. He secretly hoped his financially struggling single mother, or anybody, would notice what was happening and protect him.
No one did and within two years, the tall, lanky youth was living alone in a dilapidated apartment, prostituting himself to get by. His home and an array of hotel rooms in Connecticut and Massachusetts became a “revolving door” of sex buyers.