I woke up this morning feeling good. I have a crush on a cute girl, I’m loving DC, I have a crazy busy weekend planned full of super gay/queer events, AND I get to go back to San Francisco next weekend. I started working on a new story, I love my job and the family I work with, I have a pretty awesome internship, I’m getting through the process of applying to grad school, I have fabulous queer friends, and straight allies. I have an incredibly supportive mother. I am living proof it: It gets better!
But who fucking cares? 5 years, 12 months, 1 week, even an hour can last forever when you’re in so much pain that you can’t contemplate tomorrow. We’ve all been there. Some of us—anyone reading this—made it through to next minute. Maybe you called someone, maybe you started carrying around a notebook, or a sketch pad. Maybe you went running, or put on music and danced. Maybe some stranger noticed and said hi. But at this point I feel like the Queer Youth of America are hitting brick walls.
We’ve lost six, count them S.I.X. children this past month and it’s literally making me (and apparently most of my facebook friends) ill. So WE need to do something now.
I thought I’d start with talking about our 6 lost youth.
Raymond Chase was 19, a sophomore at Johnson and Wales in RI., apparently he liked Harry Potter. He was openly gay and he hung himself on the last day of September, 2010. Apparently the reason why he killed himself is still unclear, but we are the ones who suffer from his death now.
Billy Lucas was 15 and lived in Greensburge, Ind., the kids in his high school continually questioned his sexuality and picked on him for the way he dressed. He killed himself over it. Yeah bullying is THAT bad.
It happens in California where 13 (THIRTEEN) yr old Seth Walsh lived. He attempted to hang himself from a tree in his backyard on September 19. He died this past Tuesday in the hospital. Seth was picked for years because he was gay. “Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears," Jeff Kermode, Tehachapi Police Chief, said. "They had never expected an outcome such as this.” What are they saying now? OOPS?!
Tyler Clementi was 17, just started college at Rutgers University. Tyler’s new roommate and another freshmen decided that it would be…what funny? To secretly film Tyler making out with a boy and broadcast it on the internet. He jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge (connecting New Jersey to New York) on September 22. His suicide note posted on Facebook as simply: “jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.” I could keep going on this. His roommate did it more than once. Using Twitter and iChat.
Asher Brown was 13 and lived in Hamilton, Tx. Headline reads he was “bullied to death.” He was ridiculed for being small, for his religion, his clothing, and because he was gay. Again, THIRTEEN. He came out to his parents this past summer, and they think he started 8th grade Out. “Kids were cruel to my kid. He was very different. He’s not the type of kid that would try to wear the newest clothes or try to do the coolest thing. He was an individual” said his step-father. It was his gun that Asher used to shoot himself with.
17 yr old Cody Barker died on September 13. He liked reading, and Lady Gaga, and WWII. Cody was becoming active in the LGBT community where he lived so much so that he was planning to start an Alliance at his school. He lived in Wisconsin and attended the same school his whole life.
Are you sick yet? We just learned about six kids under 20 who killed themselves in under a month. And it’s not just in Wisconsin or Texas. It’s everywhere. Bullying has become an epidemic. And for just a second, I’d like to say it’s not just queers who are being tormented to death, a supposedly straight girl in Massachusetts just recently killed herself after being bullied by a group of girls, and let’s not forget Phoebe Prince who was 15 and hanged herself after being bullied through text messages—one actually read “Go kill yourself”—and Facebook. Phoebe was straight and recently moved to the US from Ireland. She died on January 14th.
This bullying is out of control. And, we can’t simply tell our kids to hang in there, it’ll get better. Cuz yes, we all know it will, but THEY need it to get better now. Think back to the last time you had a bad day, calling your mom or best friend who says “tomorrow will be better” doesn’t make the icky feeling inside you’re stomach go away.
So what do we do? I keep asking myself over and over and over again. I’m a writer. I’m good at finding people to ask questions, I’m good at manipulating emotions. I’m a nanny, I take care of 2 kids. My best friend is an amazing spoken word artist, and a role model and a teacher. I know hordes of talented writers, musicians, painters, sketchers, PR people, chefs, film makers, people with loud voices, people who are easy to talk to, people who are damn good at throwing parties. What can we do? Because obviously, we all care.
My thoughts on where to start. Let’s start talking. And not necessarily to just each other—we need to talk to strangers, allies, people in our community that we think are too hot or too nerdy or too intense, our bosses our families. A friend of mine commented on one of my many posts about the suicides saying “I can’t even say at 25 that i have a community of people that embrace me…i think the queer community has a lot of work to do to even want these kids to want to be a part of the world they can be a part of.”
I talked to Max yesterday, he’s 9, popular, beautiful kid, gifted in sports and not afraid of much of anything. I believe he’ll be a strong, smart, heterosexual male. My hope is he’ll be an ally because well, he’s popular. Other kids respect him and I think that if he talks to me enough about it, he’ll understand that I’m queer and I’m awesome and using words like “gay” and “faggot” really do affect me. Max is 9, he met my ex-boyfriend; who was trans, and Max knew. He never flinched around my ex. In fact he seemed to idolize him. I think Max gets it. We’re all just people and if there’s one thing I want to leave those 2 amazing kids with is that THEY have the power to include people and to protect people. How many of us stand up for one another? I mean honestly? One of my best friends defended a trans woman on the 22 muni bus line (SF) last year and when the asshole man AND his girlfriend who had been harassing the woman turned on my 4”9’ friend not one person stood up for her. Not one. We’re scared. We’re scared of what the cool kids will think. We’re scared that the people in the Mission wont think we’re hip enough, or we’re scared that we have too many tattoos or we’re not white enough for the Castro. We’re scared to be trans in mainstream culture because HRC lesbians and gays often leave out the T. Ask questions like “have you had bottom surgery?” Imagine if a straight person asked you: “do you use a strap-on?” How is that any of your business? We continually build up walls, draw chalk lines. I do it too. You’ve all (hopefully) read my blogs about DC. I think I’m cool, I judge people by the way they dress.
And maybe I’m an asshole. But these lines need to fade. Ok, I know we’re not all going to be friends, hold hands and sing Disney songs together (though some of my friends might think that sounds fabulous). But we need to start being a real community. We need to look beyond Gay Marriage and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We need to make this a safe place for our queer youth to come to, and we need to start getting to them NOW, yesterday, last month.
We need allies. One of my college roommates who I barely talk to anymore emailed me yesterday about Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” because she was concerned. I didn’t even come out to her until I moved far away from my Santa Barbara straight friends and into queer San Francisco. This is an allie. The grandmother I work for getting incredibly upset when I told her about the five suicides (as I told her YESTERDAY and not today), another straight friend commenting about the bullying all over my facebook. We have them and it’s past time we started using them. Do you work with kids? Do you know someone who works with kids? Start the conversation in the class room, start the conversation one on one. Maybe I’m lucky that the kids I take care of do think I’m cool, but if you have that—if there’s even ONE kid out there who looks up to you, tell them. Talk to them about bullying. Talk to them about being an individual and saying: “leave her alone” or “hey, are you ok?” You don’t need to become someone’s best friend to make them feel like they’re a human being. I’m starting by telling everyone I know.
And to you: if you are old enough to type me a note and you need someone to talk to do it. I’ve been there and I can listen. And maybe that won’t help, but how do you know until you’ve tried. Message me on here and you can my phone number, or my email.
Do You Need Immediate Assistance?
San Francisco:
*The LGBT Center http://www.sfcenter.org/
*Community United Against Violence: you can call them any time of day or night at (415) 333-4357, I’ve called them before. They help and if you don’t live in SF they still help. http://www.cuav.org/
NYAC/ Trevor Helpline…866-488-7386…around the clock SUICIDE Prevention and crisis Helpline for gay and questioning youth. NATIONWIDE
Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project: http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject
Thank You Ellen: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=592846987806&ref=mf
Comments
Beautifully written from the heart---- I am in total agreement with you... Heidi
Thank you. I am a public school teacher and more teachers need to learn more and understand how children know they are gay.
It is extremely inappropriate to call or guide a 9 year old child into believing he is gay. While you may be gay, and I am not unhappy with you, it is evil to guide someone so young and innocent into your lifestyle.
In what way is he guiding "someone so young and innocent into your lifestyle"? The author is just hoping the kid would be accepting of gay people and lead by example so that other kids would not bully members of the LGBT. How is it evil to teach someone to love others? You really need to get out there and see that you don't have to be gay to be accepting of gay people. Or maybe you need to improve your comprehension?
In what way is he guiding "someone so young and innocent into your lifestyle"? The author is just hoping the kid would be accepting of gay people and lead by example so that other kids would not bully members of the LGBT. How is it evil to teach someone to love others? You really need to get out there and see that you don't have to be gay to be accepting of gay people. Or maybe you need to improve your comprehension?
First of all let me just say how totally heartbroken I am to have read the tragedies that these young individuals had to go through, it's so sad. These kids were so young they didn't even have a chance to find out that there is life after school. So many kids think that school is the do all and end all. You learn about your sexuality, you get your first crush, you learn about hate, and even prejudice. But what every child, preteen, or teenager needs to know is that no matter what you endure in school, you will survive. The trick is to just be strong, to stick by your principles, and remember that they're just jealous. Most of us gay people are just before our time, and more advanced than your average bully. We are usually the nicest, sweetest, and most compassionate people, and all we know how to do is love. In turn all we get is friction, name calling, ridiculed, and some times beat up. I myself was beat up after school practically every other day. I think they finally got tired of it and they just stopped. Believe it or not one of the bullies became one of my good friends, and he started taking up for me from his jock friends. They think by behaving this way it makes them look big, scary, and popular. In actuality all it does is make them look like idiots, neanderthals, and brainless jerks! Unfortunately if they were brought up that way, I feel sorry for them because they evidently are lacking affection in their life.
I thought by now that we as a nation have matured, and have gotten past the prejudice, and the name calling. Apparently not, It seems like we have gone backwards not forward. I'm not speaking only about gays, it's also the heterosexuals, and the meek. The mentality of the kids these days is out of control, and it's largely due to the parents. They don't know how to discipline their children, and to punish them accordingly. I don't believe that your a product of your environment, you have a brain use it. Don't let the bullies make you feel like your nothing, turn it around on them and show them how stupid they really are!
On the legal side I feel that the schools should start taking more responsibilty, along with your so called friends. Start punishing the ones who are doing the crimes, and not the victims. Where I come from you take up for your friends, you don't let them stand alone. Watch out for each other, and for the ones who are asking for help. God Bless you, and may you and your children stay safe!
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