Challenges Of Growing Up Gay

Dan Savage’s campaign is to help isolated teens who are suicidal. The target audience isn’t teens who are already comfortable enough with themselves to be activists. He is targeting invisibility and feelings of despair not proposing this as the only solution to inequality.

I had commented on the radio station and botched what I wanted to say abridged so I will write the lengthened:

When I was 12 I was forced out of the closet by the other students at my school who were crazy anti gay. While being bullied, if I were to fight back I would be suspended and the bullies would be praised or pitied, it was truly hypocritical with the schools promise to accept any difference in any child. I became suicidal all the way to freshman year of high school where my old classmates would bully me online for a year after graduating from middle school. In my high school I tried to make a GSA, the staff was all for it, but a few students were dead set against it, though interestingly enough they were only girls, who then severely bullied me until I stopped.

Now I am glad where I am, all my friends are completely accepting me of being gay though they are all straight. This straight factor comforts me because it proves that there are those people out there that will like you for who you are, they do not care what sexual orientation or gender you are. Though my family life was volatile when I first came out, my parents are now my strongest supporters. My mom who was a devout catholic now encourages me to join gay rights organizations and hopes that one day I will marry a great gentleman. Also I feel that the youth of today should not only be propper educated in schools, but (I know this might sound crazy) I feel that they should be given the chance to experience people of the GLBTQ community through volunteer work or other means to experience them and learn head on that we are all normal people. Normal in the sense that everyone is different and it is our differences that makes us unique and worth getting to know. For instance my younger sisters exposure to me from an early age has given her the passion to want to change peoples views on the GLBTQ community, currently she is 14 and finds all the ignorance and bullying to be highly disturbing and ridiculous. She does not see the point in why people have to be so violent towards others just because they are different. This mind set that she has has started to affect her friends. I feel that if there is some way to get the youth to see things this way then maybe everything will just turn around. I know how crazy this all sounds because it sounds so fantastical and unrealistic, but its something that I really think could make a difference if it were to happen. And so I am done with my rant, have a nice day. :)

I wanted just to add a few comments to those that I made on the air. As president of Grear Boston Parents, Families and Friends, Inc., I would like to invite people to review some to the research and resources that are available on our web site. http://www.gbpflag.org/CurrentResearch The Suicide Prevention Resource Center report is available on line at: http://www.sprc.org/library/SPRC_LGBT_Youth.pdf People should also be aware of several peer reviewed articles, one just published in the journal Developmental Psychology and the other in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Pediatrics”, written by Dr. Caitlin Ryan. These and other materials related to the topic can be found at: http://familyproject.sfsu.edu/publications The consensus view expressed in the SPRC report and the articles published by Dr. Ryan’s team is that LGBT youth suicide is the direct result of school victimization and harrassment and parental rejection. Dr. Ryan’s work in particular documents the direct connection between parental rejection and elevated suicide attempt risk (850%), depression (590%), HIV/STD infection (490%) and illegal drug use (480%), all risks associated with low self-esteem. She also documents the link between accepting parental behaviors and positive health and mental health outcomes. Approximately, 40% of LGBT youth are rejected by their parents, leading to increased homelessness and despair. But the good news is that when parents get accurate information about sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, they change; and a small amount of change produces a very large risk reduction effect. So the answer to the problems discussed on today’s program is to promote safe and inclusive schools where all kids can learn and to promote parental acceptance. We need to educate all parents about sexual orientation and gender identity and expression so that a child does not grow up in a homophobic household fearing the loss of love a parent simply for being honest about who they are. And parents need to be educated, because homophobic messages and values inculcated in the home are carried to the schools and contribute to the rampant and pervasive problems of anti-gay bullying in schools. To get more information about how you can help and to volunteer, please contact us: http://www.gbpflag.org/

Have you seen this speech, quite moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax96cghOnY4