《10到25岁》第三章(6)：导师心态的机构典范Encircle

Who has succeeded at de-escalating the war between the generations over diverse gender and sexual identities? Meet Encircle, an after-school program and therapy provider for LGBTQ+ youth and their parents.

谁成功缓解了因多元性别和性取向而产生的代际战争？来认识一下Encircle，这是一个为LGBTQ+青少年及其父母提供课后项目和治疗的机构。

Encircle originated across the street from the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tragically, suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in Utah. LGBTQ+ youth are three times more likely to contemplate killing themselves. This high suicide rate means that even conservatively religious Mormon parents, who tend to oppose differences in gender and sexuality, care deeply about the question of how to talk about LGBTQ+ identities——especially when it involves their own children. They see it as the only way to prevent an unimaginable catastrophe. But they feel helpless, worried that they will make matters worse. So they often say nothing. Because of a barrier of mistrust, this leaves LGBTQ+ youth to imagine what their parents think——and they often imagine the worst.

Encircle起源于犹他州盐湖城摩门教圣殿街对面。悲剧的是，自杀是犹他州年轻人死亡的主要原因。LGBTQ+青少年自杀的可能性是其他人的三倍。高自杀率意味着即使是保守的摩门教父母，尽管他们倾向于反对性别和性取向的差异，也特别关心如何谈论LGBTQ+身份的问题——尤其是当涉及到自己的孩子时。他们认为这是防止不可想象灾难的唯一方式。但他们感到无助，担心会把事情弄得更糟。所以他们通常保持沉默。信任障碍使得LGBTQ+青少年只能猜测父母在想什么——他们通常想到最坏的情况。

Dr. Stephen Russell explained to me how this cycle can lead to death. He’s often consulted by communities who have experienced an LGBTQ+ youth’s suicide. On one occasion, he was on a panel with a mother who had lost her child to suicide. The child’s suicide note said she thought her parents would never accept her. The mother, in tears, claimed she never said anything of the sort. Sure, maybe she had made an offhand comment about LGBTQ+ characters showing up in too many sitcoms these days. She couldn’t remember anything hateful. But she also never had a direct conversation with her daughter. Her daughter then had to guess what her mom thought. Without any other information to overcome the barrier of mistrust, her mother’s offhand comments led her to presume the worst. And that led the daughter to despair.

斯蒂芬·拉塞尔博士向我解释了这种循环如何导致死亡。经历过LGBTQ+青少年自杀的社区常常向他咨询。有一次，他在一个座谈会上与一位失去孩子的母亲同台。孩子的遗书说她认为父母永远不会接受她。母亲泪流满面，声称她从未说过这样的话。当然，她可能曾随口评论过LGBTQ+角色在如今的情景喜剧中出现得太频繁。她不记得自己说过任何恶毒的话。但她也从未与女儿进行过直接的对话。她的女儿只能猜测母亲的想法。在没有其他信息来克服信任障碍的情况下，母亲的随口评论让她预设了最坏的情况。而这导致了女儿的绝望。

In Utah the situation can be even worse because there are many messages in the religious community about sex and sexuality. A key issue, the staff at Encircle told me, is that most youth feel condemned as bad and shameful by the Mormon church. Even when their families or church leaders don’t shame them, they report feeling intense guilt that the church might excommunicate their parents for accepting their queer identities. They would have deprived their parents, whom they love, of eternal life. That’s a big weight on a young person’s shoulders, and it can lead youth to depression and suicidal thinking.

在犹他州，情况可能更糟，因为宗教社区中有许多关于性和性取向的信息。Encircle的工作人员告诉我，一个关键问题是，大多数青少年感到，摩门教认为自己邪恶和可耻。即使他们的家庭或教会领袖没有羞辱他们，他们也报告说感到强烈的内疚，因为教会可能会因为接受他们的酷儿身份而开除他们的父母。他们剥夺了他们所爱的父母获得永生的机会。这对一个年轻人来说是一个巨大的负担，可能导致抑郁和自杀念头。

Amazingly, in Encircle’s six years of operation, with thousands of youth served, they haven’t lost a single kid to suicide. Encircle must be doing something right to bridge the generational divide. What are they doing?

令人惊讶的是，在Encircle六年的运营中，服务了数千名青少年，他们没有失去任何一个孩子。Encircle一定做对了什么来弥合代际鸿沟。他们做了什么？

Encircle’s motto is “no sides, only love.” They don’t encourage LGBTQ+ kids to think of their parents as monstrous bigots. Nor do they tell parents to abandon their religious views, or demand they review Urban Dictionary’s list of gender identity terms. Instead, Encircle focuses on common goals and values: parents want their children to survive, while their children would prefer not to feel suicidal. Then, through group and individual therapy, they focus on finding a treaty that ends the battle over meaning. Encircle’s staff helps kids and parents understand that the source of their conflict usually stems from the meaning of something that was left unsaid, and rarely from something explicitly said.

Encircle的座右铭是“没有对立，只有爱”。他们不鼓励LGBTQ+孩子将父母视为可怕的偏执者。也不告诉父母放弃他们的宗教观点，或要求他们查阅《城市词典》中的性别身份术语列表。相反，Encircle专注于共同的目标和价值观：父母希望孩子能生存下来，而孩子们则希望不要有自杀的念头。然后，通过团体和个体治疗，他们专注于找到一个结束意义之战的“条约”。Encircle的工作人员帮助孩子和父母理解，他们冲突的根源通常来自于某些未说出口的事情的意义，而不是明确说出的。

Most of the time, Encircle has discovered, parents aren’t afraid of the kid’s actual sexual or gender identity. They fear what the identity means for their child’s future. After careful questioning, most Mormon parents at Encircle eventually admit that they worry their child will grow up to be sexually promiscuous. Thus, the true root of their worry is that their child will never have the joy of a committed relationship and a family, and will lack the moral character they tried to instill in their child. These parents are surprised to discover that their kids, especially young ones who recently came out, are often thinking about exactly what their parents want them to be thinking about: what kind of person they want to be in a long-term, committed, loving relationship with when they grow up.

大多数情况下，Encircle发现，父母并不害怕孩子实际的性取向或性别身份。他们担心的是这个身份对孩子未来的“意义”。经过仔细询问，大多数在Encircle的摩门教父母最终承认，他们担心孩子长大后会成为性滥交的人。因此，他们担忧的真正根源是孩子将永远无法享受到忠诚关系和家庭带来的快乐，并缺乏他们试图灌输给孩子的道德品质。这些父母惊讶地发现，他们的孩子，尤其是最近出柜的年轻人，通常在想的是父母希望他们想的事情：他们长大后想要与什么样的人建立长期、忠诚、充满爱的关系。

“Our culture has totally overlapped promiscuity with sexuality,” Russell told me. His research finds that “young people usually aren’t even especially interested in sex when they first come out. They’re thinking about love, not sex.” Parents, for their part, are also usually thinking about love, specifically hoping for their child to be loved by someone unconditionally. Parents meant to say, I don’t want you to be promiscuous, and kids heard, Well never accept the love of your life.

“我们的文化已经完全将滥交与性取向重叠在一起，”拉塞尔告诉我。他的研究发现，“年轻人最初出柜时通常对性并不特别感兴趣。他们在思考爱，而不是性。”父母方面，也通常在思考爱，特别是希望孩子能被某个人无条件地爱。父母本意是想说，“我不希望你滥交”，而孩子们听到的是，“我们永远不会接受你生命中的爱”。

Encircle helps both sides understand each other, lower the temperature, and jointly problem solve, for instance by setting fair dating rules. Parents realized that they could accept their child’s identity without abandoning their responsibility to impart moral values and uphold a high standard of conduct. In turn, children learned that their parents could accept them unconditionally while still setting personal boundaries and expecting responsibility and integrity.

Encircle帮助双方理解彼此，降低紧张气氛，并共同解决问题，例如设定公平的约会规则。父母意识到他们可以接受孩子的身份，同时不放弃传授道德价值观，保持行为的高标准。反过来，孩子们也学会了父母可以在无条件接受他们的同时，设定个人界限，对责任和诚信有恰当的预期。

Encircle’s method provides a strong example of the mentor mindset. Parents send a clear signal that they will value, respect, and give dignity to the child, while also fulfilling their own vision of a good parent as one who upholds high standards for behavior. Interestingly, although Encircle never actively encourages it, they find that highly religious parents tend to become significantly less dogmatic and judgmental as time passes. This attitude change gives their children more hope that the feelings of shame could improve, leading to less despair and suicidal ideation. The parents become almost like a living, breathing argument in favor of Carr’s belief that prejudice can change. That, in turn, can make both sides more open to the honest dialogue that’s needed.

Encircle的方法为导师心态提供了强有力的例证。父母发出了一个明确的信号，即他们重视、尊重并给予孩子尊严，同时也实现了他们自己作为好父母的愿景，即坚持高标准的行为。有趣的是，尽管Encircle从未积极鼓励，但他们发现高度虔诚的父母随着时间的推移往往会变得不那么教条，更少去评价。这种态度的改变给了孩子们更多改善羞耻感的希望，从而导致更少的绝望和自杀念头。这些父母简直就是活生生的论据，支持了卡尔的信念——偏见可以改变。持有这种信念，可以使双方对必要的真诚对话持开放态度。