Too young to vote, these LGBTQ+ teens are organizing for a say in their future

For young people exhausted by attacks on their rights, Queer the Ballot offers practical tools to influence decisions about their lives — before they can cast a ballot.In eighth grade, Bekah Garlikov began taking a screenshot of the news headlines about transgender people every day. He wanted to understand what people like him were going through. What he found initially left him feeling powerless.Now 17, the Bay Area high school senior is helping other young people influence decisions about their lives — even though he will not turn 18 until April, too late to vote in November’s midterm elections.“I don’t feel in control anymore. And I hate that, because this is my life, and my body, and my experiences, and people deciding it don’t have those experiences and perspectives,” Garlikov told The Advocate.That frustration is helping drive Queer the Ballot, a youth-led, nonpartisan civic engagement campaign confronting a problem that goes beyond voter registration. The goal is to figure out how to persuade LGBTQ+ young people that participation matters when politics has become exhausting and frightening.Related: Rent, rights, and the ballot box: What queer Gen Z wants from WashingtonPart of the international youth-led organization Dear Queer Youth, the campaign was started by five high school students: Sophia Wong in Los Angeles; Jay Roy and Garlikov in the San Francisco Bay Area; Christopher Grady in Virginia; and Alex Howard in North Carolina.The campaign includes more than 10 workshops, the distribution of more than 200 civic toolkits, and a storytelling effort featuring LGBTQ+ young people who explain how policy affects their lives. It aims to reach more than 2,000 young people through schools, GSAs, libraries, and youth and LGBTQ+ centers.In separate interviews with The Advocate, four organizers described young people who are deeply affected by political decisions but often unsure whether they can change them.Wong, who started the initiative, said conver