Trevor Project Adds Asexual Resources to Its Training Materials

Details: Category: News; Published on Monday, 16 April 2012 08:44; Written by Lara Landis; Hits: 1630

April 13, 2012 -- Asexual Awareness Week announced today that the
Trevor Project is beginning to include materials about Asexuality and
Asexual issues when training Trevor Project staff and volunteers. The
Trevor Project offers 24 hours 7 days a week telephone counseling
services to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and questioning youth
who are struggling with crisis and thoughts of suicide. The staff and
volunteers who provide advice and support to those in crisis will now
have access to and training on Ace positive information.

In addition to the crisis hotline, Trevor Project also has an online
anonymous advice message system for non-crisis issues surrounding
gender and sexual identities and a safe space social media platform,
Trevorspace.org.

The training materials produced by Asexual Awareness Week cover
Asexuality 101 information, demographic statistics about the Asexual
community, and common terminology. Another section talks about some
Ace specific issues and provides additional resources. The training
concludes with a section called “Be Ace Positive” which encourages
alternative language for the some of the well intentioned but
detrimental things people say when talking to an Asexual.

“Suicide prevention among youth of all gender and sexual minorities
and the other work that Trevor Project does is critical”. said Sara
Beth Brooks, an organizer with Asexual Awareness Week. “We are very
pleased that the Trevor Project is including Asexual information in
their training materials. Suicide has touched many of us in some way.
Now there is a place for Ace, Grey-a, Aromantic, and Demisexual people
to seek help when they are in crisis”.

Asexual Awareness Week released a series of graphics to help the
Asexual community spread the word across the internet. “I know that we
can get this information across our community very quickly and let
everyone know that there is help and hope when they feel alone,”
Brooks said in a post on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network
(AVEN). The Trevor Project crisis line is available 24 hours a day, 7
days a week at 1-866-488-7386.

For more information, visit www.thetrevorproject.org.