5 Suicides in 3 Weeks: The Hate Has Got to Stop

Asher Brown and Seth Walsh were only 13 years old. Billy Lucas was an Indiana 15-year-old, Raymond Chase was a sophomore culinary arts major, and Tyler Clementi was a freshman at Rutgers University. All five kids committed suicide in the past month because they were harassed on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.

Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students report being bullied and harassed in school or elsewhere. And terribly, this is part of what accounts for the fact that LGBT students are four times as apt to commit suicide as straight students, according to the Massachusetts 2007 Risk Youth Survey. All of these kids named above suffered so much at the hands of their peers that they felt they needed to take their own lives; the hate of others made them hate themselves, and they did not want to go on living. It is indescribably awful that people will harass someone to the point where he hangs himself, overdoses, or jumps off of a bridge.

Can you even imagine feeling that way?

In some of these cases of bullying leading to suicide, investigators were able to pinpoint “bias” as the motive for the behavior, and treat the harassment accordingly as a hate crime, and in others not. What is clear is that these five young people – these young people who had their whole lives ahead of them, full of bright possibilities – were picked on because they were gay or believed to be. No one should be made to feel that they don’t deserve to be alive.

My fellow GLSEN Student Ambassador, Alyssa, volunteers for an organization called The Trevor Project, a national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth. The Trevor Lifeline is 1 (866) 488-7386, and Trevor volunteers have saved many lives by being there for kids who feel desperate, depressed, and on the verge of making a huge mistake. Their website is: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Another fellow GLSEN Ambassador, Jesse, was on CBS news earlier tonight, discussing his trying experience as a transgender teen but how he is prevailing, and how the night is the darkest before the dawn. He spoke in reference to the suicide of Tyler Clementi after Tyler’s roommate streamed video of him being intimate with another man on the web, violating his privacy. : http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/01/national/main6919765.shtml

This past Wednesday, I actually met with Jesse, GLSEN staff, and out country music singer Chely Wright to shoot a PSA about the importance of supportive educators toward keeping schools safe for all students. The tragic events of the past month only make me feel that this work has magnified in importance. Chely said of the shoot, “this is how you empower young people: to say ‘hey, you’re okay.'”

Besides The Trevor Project and GLSEN, Dan Savage has started a new initiative to let LGBT kids in need know that they are not alone. High school, and sometimes college, can be hellish for LGBT youth, and many students feel like their situations will never improve. That simply isn’t true. So to prove it, Dan Savage started a youtube channel called “It Gets Better.” The channel has rapidly become a collection of inspiring and tear-jerking videos by LGBT adults who want to send floundering teens the message that it does get better. They insist that gritting your teeth through high school, biding time until you can be with people who will love and accept you for who you are, is worth it. And is a million times better than the alternative.

View it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject

Terry, Dan’s partner, tells his viewers that “living well is the best revenge. And if you can live through high school, which you can, you can totally live through high school, you’re going to have a great life. And it’s going to be the envy of all those people who picked on you while you were in high school and middle school. So just stick it out. It’s painful now, but it’s going to get so much better.”

Another man, a seasoned youtube user, spoke about how “one time in middle school I had to write a paper about how homosexuality is wrong and how it’s a sin and how you’re going to hell and they shouldn’t legalize gay marriage…that was kind of a terrible thing and it really affected me…My father was such a homophobe and I grew up in this Christian house…It gets better. Once you get older, you expand your social network, you expand your freedoms…and you can hang out with people who will accept you.”

They and hundreds of other contributors spoke into the camera with such sincerity and wisdom. They know what they’re talking about – they’ve been through the ordeal and emerged as wonderful people with wonderful lives.

“It breaks my heart – these children, these teens, are killing themselves and not seeing the world that is amazing,” said one woman in her video. “I have an amazing life, I have friends who love me, I have my parents, I have my art, I have my studies, and I almost threw it away when I was younger. I was not myself for most of high school…They will accept you eventually. It does get better.”

The channel has way over 500,000 views already, and it is going to disseminate a whole lot of hope and save a whole lot of people.

A few people were so inspired by the project that they made youtube videos for the first time in order to share their encouraging stories. One young woman said she was a “freshman in college; I moved in, like, two-and-a-half weeks ago, and,” an incredulous smile stretched itself across her face. “It is amazing here. I mean, the first day I got here, I was recruited into the school’s QSU – the Queer-Straight Unity Organization…I just came back from a rally calling for the end of homophobia. I mean, it was incredible to see that many people come together in a movement of love against hate…it’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. And I know being queer in high school sucks, like really bad; you feel separate, and alone, and like you’re so different from everyone else…but hold on just a little longer. Because it gets better. I promise.”