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"Since the nineties, The Trevor Project has supported lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth through its nationwide, around-the-clock telephone helpline. By providing confidential, one-on-one guidance, the organization works to prevent suicides and offer crisis intervention. Over the past two decades, a lot has changed: same-sex marriage is now legal in seven states (plus the District of Columbia), and this year, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to declare his support. The Trevor Project has evolved, too\u2014adding digital services such as TrevorChat.\n\nThough we&amp;#39;re living in a new political and digital age, the spirit of The Trevor Project has remained constant. At the heart of the organization is the fictional character of Trevor, a gay thirteen-year-old boy who tries to take his own life after he gets bullied. Despite the severity of the topic, Trevor&amp;#39;s story is not a sad, cautionary tale\u2014it&amp;#39;s about love and resilience. James Lecesne, who co-founded The Trevor Project, wrote and illustrated Trevor: A Novella to update Trevor&amp;#39;s story and share his strength with a new generation.\n\nWhat first inspired The Trevor Project?\n\n &amp;quot;In the early &amp;#39;90s, I wrote a play called Word of Mouth in which I played a number of different characters. One was a thirteen-year-old boy who, through a series of diary entries, realizes that he&amp;#39;s gay. His family and friends ostracize him, and as a result, he tries to commit suicide. The piece was actually touching and funny, and in 1998, we turned it into a film and sold it to HBO. When we put it on television, we thought it&amp;#39;d be good for kids who relate to Trevor to have a telephone number that they could call. But when we did research, we realized that there wasn&amp;#39;t any 24-hour suicide prevention helpline specifically for LGBT and questioning teens, so we started it.&amp;quot;\n\nHow has The Trevor Project expanded since then?\n\n &amp;quot;In the beginning, it was a telephone line, and that&amp;#39;s still our main thing. It&amp;#39;s about creating this life-to-life connection between people and using the human voice, which in this digital age, is a precious thing. As technology has expanded, we&amp;#39;ve created TrevorChat, which is an online destination where people can go and talk to a counselor. TrevorSpace is a secure web destination where kids can go to get peer-to-peer support. There are about 100,000 members now. That&amp;#39;s so important to kids who are in the middle states and the South and don&amp;#39;t have as much support.&amp;quot;\n\nWhy did you decide to adapt this story into book form?\n\n &amp;quot;The original story was set in 1980, and Trevor was devoted to Diana Ross. That doesn&amp;#39;t resonate so much with kids these days\u2014now, Lady Gaga is his idol! There was some concern that the film was becoming an artifact of another time, and I wanted to make him more recognizable to kids.&amp;quot;\n\n &amp;quot;The book tells a a story of a thirteen-year-old boy who&amp;#39;s beginning to explore his identity through the things that he loves and the people that he loves. He develops a crush on one of his classmates, and it&amp;#39;s not reciprocated. He realizes that he&amp;#39;s different, and the other kids also realize this. He&amp;#39;s bullied. Trevor&amp;#39;s resiliency and love of life overcomes his own feelings of shame, doubt, and questioning of who he is.&amp;quot;\n\nWho do you hope will read this book?\n\n &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s for anyone who&amp;#39;s figuring out who they are\u2014and I think that&amp;#39;s everyone at the adolescent age. What began as a story that&amp;#39;s very specific about a kid who realizes he&amp;#39;s gay is really a story about understanding what makes you you. Every young person knows people know who are a bit outside of the norm, and are daring to be themselves in an environment in which everyone&amp;#39;s trying to get them to be the same.&amp;quot;\n\n &amp;quot;One of the other thing&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s in the book is the history of how the Trevor Project came about. A lot of people think Trevor is a tragic story about a child who killed himself, and the project was named after a tragedy. It&amp;#39;s such a wonderful story to go from this little play in downtown New York to winning an Academy Award and being on HBO to creating a national organization. It&amp;#39;s a miracle that involves so many people. The Trevor Project is a way in which an older generation can interact with a younger generation and pass that history long. Amazingly, it&amp;#39;s part of our shared LGBT history.&amp;quot;\n\nWhat&amp;#39;s important for young voters to know in terms of the upcoming election?\n\n &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s unbelievable what&amp;#39;s happened in this past year\u2014I never would&amp;#39;ve expected that Obama would come out in favor of marriage equality. The tide has turned, and people understand that we&amp;#39;re equal. But are people who don&amp;#39;t want us to be equal\u2014often based on their religious beliefs, which they&amp;#39;re entitled to. What we&amp;#39;re talking about is civic equality. Any message that we send to say that this group of people&amp;#39;s love and lives are not worthwhile is a terribly damaging thing, and it needs to be corrected. One of the ways that we can correct this is by voting and claiming full value over our lives. We have to encourage kids to love and be themselves.&amp;quot;\n\nHow can young people get involved in The Trevor Project?\n\n &amp;quot;For anyone under eighteen, TrevorSpace is the first place to go. Volunteering is possible if you&amp;#39;re over eighteen\u2014you can answer letters or become a lifeguard trainer (and conduct workshops in schools). One of the greatest things young people can do is be on TrevorSpace and help young people who are out there in the middle of the country and have fewer resources.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-trevor-project-james-lecesne>