“You Forgot Your Knife In My Car.” The Importance of Safe Spaces for LGBTQ Youth.

When Matt Beierschmitt was 15, he met other gay men online--often in dangerous situations--because he wanted connection. It wasn't until he met his first gay friend that he realized the importance of gay friendship and safe spaces.
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[@steveapplebaugh2200]

As a Dad... I am going to tell you that I would have been out-of-my-mind crazy!!! Worried...!!!

[@bodoorgeest]

I agree, terrified..

[@jhb61249]

Perfect story that clearly illustrates the fact that children are children, crazy, unable to make responsible choices, and should be "guarded like a prisoner" and not have tools like internet access out in their hands without strict hard controls. Let'm scream and ramp and rave. You made them.

[@jedislayer9751]

I was 20 or 21 when I met my first gay friend. It was a good time in my life.

[@ruairiodonohoe2533]

Good for u that's really great I don't know anyone who is gay(except me 😂😂😂

[@ohmyblindman]

Every gay guy should have a friend named Liz.

[@sorryfortheinconvenience5216]

We all do period

[@src3360]

At 16 I was sneaking out of my second story window (I had done it before without issue lol) I was pulling my leg thru and the heel of my sneaker somehow got stuck against the window and I lost it. There was a small roof under my window that I normally would step on then jump down. With my foot stuck I fell backwards and hit the house then fell on the roof ledge and then on the ground. Let me paint you a vocal picture of how it sounded.. Scream BANG BANG BANG SCREAM 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Not only did I get the bronze medal for falling from a window gracefully I also dislocated my elbow!!! My mom is an RN so she is screaming at me, smacking me and putting my elbow back in place all at the same time. And I wasn’t a tiny teen, I was 6’2 and weighed 200 lbs!! Oh what good memories 🤣🤣🤣🤷🏻‍♀️🌈

[@tigergreg8]

I was literally LOL reading this. I don't read many comments that make me laugh this hard, Thanks.

[@src3360]

@@tigergreg8 It’s a memory I can’t forget 🤣🤣

[@jonathandow684]

😆😆😆😆 Ohh let me tell you that times have change. The youth of today is fearless. I wouldn’t be bothered with them. You have to be forty years at least.

[@src3360]

@@jonathandow684 Yes, im 38!! Lol Kids these days just walk out the front door. I had to risk my life just to have some fun back then 🤣🤣

[@YoBoyMarcus]

There were safe spaces in 1996. I live in a large city and I used to go to the gay center to socialize when I was a teenager in the early 90's. They've been around for a while. I think the problem is for youth in rural areas who don't have access to such services.

[@kevineeveron2693]

Or a full macho islans. Where gay scene doesnt exist.

[@JidoKashi]

Marcus Divine This! I live in a rural area, and have to drive 30 minutes to the nearest major city if I’m going to meet any other openly LGBTQ people in a neutral meeting space.

[@CoimbraGuy]

15, pretending to be older? For fuck's sake, YOU are putting guys in a seriously dangerous place, Chuck! Seems like the men meeting *you* are the ones who need the knife for protection.

[@SusanOnTVShows]

WTF? What teenager hasn't done that. Most of them don't have the foresight to protect themselves.

[@DharmaDerelict]

I’ve lived this exactly to the letter.

[@adrianghandtchi1562]

I posed as older since I was 16 and did the whole gay sex in strangers cars and houses from Craigslist and chat rooms, my dad found out a few years later and he was furious because I was with men, he told my mom and she was only concerned I was meeting older strangers and putting myself at risk of getting hurt or even killed. I slowed down and upped my safety after that, never thinking I would get hurt.

[@MCMcThriller]

same

[@2degucitas]

You have a good mom. When we fear for your safety it means we love you.

[@tigergreg8]

You have a cool Mom.

[@ferninthehouse]

My friend did the same thing at 16-17

[@k.s.2935]

And everyone is oblivious apparently to the 15 year old running to have sex with a 30 something year old man, and wanting to talk about safe spaces?!? Yeah, don't run off to meet predators, how about that as a safety tip? The hell is wrong with this blind comment section making it out to be some inspiring story and missing some major overlying shit that is wrong here...People....

[@JimmiAlli]

I met this guy at a beat many years ago and we go to his place. After we both got undressed, and about to get passionate, he went into the bathroom (I think to get a condom) and l realised that l was so not into this, so l decided to do a runner. I grabbed all my clothes and ran out of the house into the garden. Unfortunately l had to jump over the fence and his dog chased after me too. It was horrible. I managed to get into my car and drove home naked. When I got to my garage, l saw headlights behind me and l was convinced he had followed me. I immediately turned off my lights and ducked my head so no one could see me. It was nerve wracking but the car just passed my house and that was the end. It was very scary while it lasted.

[@archietheproto7706]

Bruh what

[@JimmiAlli]

@@archietheproto7706 TMI right?

[@SeanShimamoto]

I watched your video a couple of months ago and laughed at the “you forgot your knife” story...and then I was just watching some videos and it cycled back to this one and laughed just as hard the second time. LOL. Thank you for sharing your life with us. 😁🏳️‍🌈🤙🏽

[@jeffmorse645]

lol - I'm in my late 50s. Trying cruising Buena Vista Park in San Francisco when you a teen or contacting guys in the classifieds of gay papers. I didn't know where else to go. The 90s sounds like a dream by comparison.

[@2degucitas]

You lived in S.F. Gay mecca U.S.A. How were there not other ways to meet up? I'm seriously baffled!

[@geoffdundee]

2degucitas.....it was NOT a gay mecca in the 50,s

[@kevinl6231]

Jeff, was that youuuu that I hooked up with??

[@jaylin6663]

Lol this man left me all alone in this this really big house at night. He just disappeared. I was spooked

[@justsomedudeyouknow8372]

When i was younger and still experimenting(in the closet)i used to cruise. I look back on those couple of years as a terrible idea where i put myself in lots of dangerous situations(drugs, repressed violent people, hitch hiking)that at the time i was totally unaware were so dangerous. We have all seen the news stories about famous serial killers targeting gay communities, but when i was younger none of that was known yet. One time many years later i was sitting in my car on a break at work having some coffee and this guy walks up to my car(industrial area)and he strikes up a conversation. I'm a friendly guy so we start chatting. After about 10 minutes or so he makes a few obvious comments and i figure out pretty quick that he's cruising. I was like "oh sorry. I don't cruise anymore but thank you". He says to me that he's parked a few cars up and we could fool around a bit in his car. I look to the car he's pointing at and its a truck with a box trailer on the back. That's when he says to me we can go in the trailer and fool around in there and that he has stirrups and a massage table and all this stuff in there. I politely said no thank you, rolled up my window, started my car and drove away. I saw him in my rear view and he looked pretty mad. I parked around the corner and waited until he left before going back in to work. No public situation is ever 100% safe. Remember that. I really feel i avoided becoming another statistic that day.

[@RobertFleming]

So true. Safe spaces are important.

[@forkhole]

I am a Korean living in Beijing. My Chinese is not good and our LGBT center obviously does not have a lot of services catered for non-Chinese LGBT youth. I have never actually known a gay person in my entire life.

[@forkhole]

And I'm even almost fully out.

[@forkhole]

Oh and the center is like a fourty minutes drive from my house

[@src3360]

We’re out there, keep looking 🌈🙏🏻

[@thestepfordlife2015]

I'm @ 01:50 and this is like an " I survived " episode. I'm scared for him.

[@kevinl6231]

w w w w w w waiiiiiiittttt 😦 Matt, you were the one with the knife. So who’s the creep? edit: why did I get this 2 years later?

[@SusanOnTVShows]

How does hat make him the creep?

[@theilliad4298]

there should be places where gay youth can come together and have like discussions, or game night you know?

[@charwyrm8702]

@Quazi Roberts I think that says more about you than it does about gay kids.

[@charwyrm8702]

@Quazi Roberts me too, and you're wrong, I'm in a lot of social groups and there's like ten private relationships in a sample of ~60 people

[@charwyrm8702]

@Quazi Roberts 19, attractive (or so I've been told) and I have nothing against what you do for fun. I'm just saying that doesn't apply to any LGBT social group I'm a part of.

[@charwyrm8702]

Also I saw your deleted comment, don't be a dick online.

[@charwyrm8702]

@Quazi Roberts Are you okay? Seriously, you seem pretty hateful over nothing.

[@lisathomas3082]

😱 Collingwood, nj!! Very close to my hometown of Camden, nj! Probably the Cooper river, at the Cooper river park in pennsauken/ cherry Hill NJ. 😃🙋

[@louisdewit4429]

15 is dangerous. Also depressing to have had your first sex experience with someone you didn’t want and felt you couldn’t say no mainly because of age and because very dangerously you went in the car with him depending on him.

[@howardstrauss5166]

Gays can befriends with each other? Nice idea.

[@frigglebiscuit7484]

my safe space is my conceal carry handgun.

[@Fandango541]

Uh, yeah dude, it's great to have 'safe spaces' and you thought that first guy was weird, but just remember: You were the one who brought the knife, not him. He had more to fear about you than you did about him.

[@harrisond8132]

I met so many cool people on AOL chat.

[@zzzaaayyynnn]

great message from this guy

[@tom-ss2mn]

I carried a pistol

[@wallacyryan8211]

It's 2020, I'm 19, and don't have any gay friends. I have female (trans and cis) friends, one male straight friend from childhood. But no gay friends. I think I miss it, but how would I really know?

[@BujoldComa78]

I love his voice.

[@melvinnixon2378]

So very true. I agree 100%. That was a glorious story with a happy ending!!!!

[@scottburbridge9285]

scary knife situation.

[@Dayglodaydreams]

A kitchen knife?!

[@00inwiththenew00]

I'm sure the knife freaked the guy out too... esp if he felt weird vibes, but he probably liked you so much that he mentioned it as a way for you to meet again to return it lol.

[@cubesolid153]

I maybe mess in not my busines. I am a gay person, but can ask, do you have the train, strength, experience and knowlege in cut weapons?,( sorry I can't resist post this but this pandemie is bore and tease) the fihgt with such elements is very dangerous even in treath. Bye

[@src3360]

He didn’t I’m sure he also knew how to stab and run

[@RavenheartIndustries]

safe space to be yourself? I'm down. Safe space to not hear anything you disagree with? Nope! Sadly the latter is all that the term "Safe Space" means anymore...

[@JidoKashi]

Tenpin Plays The idea behind “safe spaces” means that you’re free to be yourself without prejudice or violence. Anything that discourages any kind of peaceful dissent isn’t a safe space....it’s an echo chamber. Those usually don’t last very long.

[@steevadams1750]

He is gorgeous!!!

[@user-be5qg7mr1s]

I love dark beards

[@SicilianStealth]

I remember

[@drmc3617]

Thank you, your story is awesome

[@MrAcook61798]

Oh dear, . . ."like, you know" . . .

[@7u655]

The gay safe space is called Disney!

[@fishbord]

this guy is advocating for safe spaces? with is outlying horror story? yea called gay bars there everywhere. admitted some are shady but do your homework and you'll be fine.

[@ruffey1748]

He was talking about safe spaces for youth. Young people are not allowed in bars, especially not young teenagers who can't get decent fake IDs.

[@MuffyTurnblad]

LOL I know this guy from dudesnude. He's not a very nice person.

[@Thesoloflight1]

Xevious Turnblad Thank you for your random character assassination. First of all, why would your opinion of this kid be the one anyone needs to hear. That's the kind of assessment one would share with a close friend, assuming they gave a shit. More like Devious.

[@dolf6222]

Thesoloflight1 No need to cry! Bitch

[@Dako108]

LyinBitch, shut yo trollin mouth, you never saw him on dudesnude and you're the not very nice person.