photo: Oquendo/ BY

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which are being commemorated this coming Sunday, Youth Radio is featuring a week of original reporting on the LGBT community, gay rights, and other issues of import to queer youth.

The stories range from the political to the very personal.

Monday: State of the Unions- a review of the state of Gay Marriage rights in California and the rest of the United States.

Tuesday: Profiles in Polyamory Part I- a new generation of gay youth emerges, and challeneges the notion of "normal".

Wednesday: Don't Ask Don't Tell- an extremely moving exclusive interview with Joseph Christopher Rocha, a 23 year old gay man who served in the Middle East and left the military because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. An investigation into his brigade’s leadership was mysteriously dropped after reaching the highest military court.

An excerpt from his interview gives you an idea of the power of his story:

“Having my military leadership have me on my knees simulating oral sex with other men on video tape-- telling me I needed to be more believable, act more queer and make the sounds and gestures more realistic-- I can’t describe what that was like. I went home at the end of 14 to16 hour days and I didn’t know where I was, how it had happened, how I had ended up at that point in my life.”

Thursday: the second part of Profiles in Polyamory.

Monday June 29th: an interview with Anthony Woods the gay, African-American Iraq veteran who is running for Congress.
 

Bonus from last week: 'The Gays of Our Lives" by Anthony Waters:

In 6th grade, there was only one kid as bad off as I was—my friend Bobby. We were on the playground when he said, “I have something to tell you. Please don’t stop being my friend.” He told me he was gay. Me too, Bobby, me too.