PTS cafés for queer youth take place every Friday.
High school is a social jungle. But for queer youth, there may be a few more pitfalls to traverse.
That’s why PTS, formerly known as Pink Triangle Services and Etc., the youth contingent of Capital Pride, have collaborated to help Ottawa’s queer youth find a comfort zone in the community. The organizations are hosting a new queer youth café on Fridays.
The evenings are meant to provide a social environment for youth under the age of 18, says Claudia Van den Huevel, executive director of PTS, a Centretown-based GLBTQ advocacy organization. Since they are not of legal age to go to bars, there aren’t a lot of things available to do for this age group on a Friday night, she says.
PTS already hosts a weekly support group for queer youth that provides educational and skill-building opportunities, Van den Huevel says. But they had a lot of requests for something that was less structured and had a greater emphasis on social interaction.
For some youth, support groups can be intimidating, says Oliver Debney, a peer supporter at the Youth Services Bureau, a youth support organization in Ottawa
“A lot of people feel inferior because they don’t know the language,” he says. Because of this he says youth might not know the politically correct terms used in the queer community and that deters them from coming to the groups.
He says the unstructured nature of the cafés means youth can go and just meet people without having to worry about what they may or may not know about the queer community.
The absence of a set structure in the cafés also means the youth can take charge of the evening, says Hannah Watt, Etc. chair.
Both Watt and Van den Huevel say they would like to get some form of entertainment like poetry or music for the café at some point, but it’s important to first let the youth decide what goes on in the space.
It’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that groups like this need workshops about safer sex, queer identities or poetry and theatre workshops, Watt says. But the café atmosphere is the organization's priority.
“We want to give it to the youth, ask them what they would do if they had the resources of PTS and Etc. and Capital Pride,” she says. “What would they want to be doing?”
The first café was held March 28 at PTS. With more than 20 youth in attendance Van den Huevel says she considered the evening was well attended. The café even brought out some new faces that might not have been seen at any of Etc. or PTS’s previous events, says Watt. She says the evening seemed to meet their goal of providing a social outlet for the youth.
The queer youth café runs Fridays, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at PTS.