By now we all should have heard about the recent teenage suicides that resulted from school bullying. If any of our readers haven’t heard about them and in turn thought hard about their own experiences with bullying then become informed. On behalf of the D@2 bloggers I can say that this is a very personal and serious issue for our country, and more specifically to the gay community, and it is deserving of everyone’s attention.
In light of the many It Gets Better videos being sent out by people and celebrities all over YouTube, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to express my thoughts on the topic, and I suppose I’ve reined them in enough by now to share them here.
My main concern with the school bullying/teen suicide thing is everyone’s reluctance to accept the nature, cause, and consequences of it all. I’ve heard a lot of discussion on the lack of parenting and adult involvement in these cases, but am surprised by the failure to recognize that this lack of adult involvement in a teen’s life is natural. In a discussion Dr. Phil had with a group of gay teens he asked them, almost condescendingly, if any of them addressed their bullying with their parents or school administration. I was a bit confused because he phrased it in such a way that one should have expected those teens to take that step themselves. But it seems to me that when young people are bullied they become fearful and ashamed of themselves — the last thing they want to do, as a teenager desperately trying to become an adult, is look like a failure. They are not going to feel comfortable reaching out to adults. And as children without the experience and discipline of adulthood they are allowed this fear. But as parents, mentors, heroes, and teachers it is our job to recognize the signs of their anguish.
Bullying takes place in the halls and lunchrooms of school campuses, on sidewalks of friendly neighborhoods, at school bus stops, on buses, and during recesses, sports practices, field trips, and on play dates. These are all places that adult supervision is present. How is it going unnoticed?! Every adult who is witness to bullying, to a child’s tears, and has heard hateful statements made from one child to another and remains silent is to blame. These children need voices where theirs will not be heard, they need advocates for their safety when they cannot provide it for themselves, and they need our will to make the first step toward help because they will not take it.
And in the regrettable times when we cannot be witness to the problem, we must be confident that we have taught our children well enough the value of kindness, understanding and equality so that the bullying may be prevented. Unfortunately, it is in prevention that our country, our parents, and our schools have failed. We cannot make laws identifying the gay community as second-class without telling every gay child that they, too, are less than. We cannot have our politicians & entertainers who are gay remain in the closet any longer, because coming out of the closet after years of living a falsely heterosexual life also sends the message to these children that they, too, should hide their nature as long as they can, that they, too, should pretend to be something they are not instead of being proud of it, waiting for that undefinable point in time when it will get better. We are the examples that our youth live by. They watch us and learn from us. We must be both the active and indirect advocate for their individuality, confidence, and strength.
Because we have failed in prevention, the consequences have been dire. Still today children are growing up just as my generation and those before mine grew up — in fear of what they are. The amount of personal strength it takes to withstand even brief moments of ridicule as a child is immeasurable, and in most cases these moments are not moments at all. They are bus rides to and from school with a constant stream of spitballs to the back of your head, they are kicks to your chair just before you sit down in them, they are pushes & shoves, jokes & pranks — all visible to as many other children as possible. Who, even as an adult, has so much inner strength that they can stand up to such constant blind hatred? Who among us can endure such cruelty without permanent anguish and damage to your self-esteem? What child should be expected to have the courage to rise above it?
We can hope that our children have it in them to look beyond the present to a time when “it gets better,” but we cannot expect it of all of them — not even from a lot of them. We have heard of only a handful of suicides lately, but there are countless that remain unheard of. And in all other cases, where such permanent consequences have not been rendered, the effects are just as devastating. We continue to have our gay youth grow into fearful and ashamed adults, repeating this endless cycle by failing to themselves become inspirational role models for the next generation. In the discussions we are having today we still seem to place the burden on the bullied children. We are asking them why they didn’t talk to their teachers, and why they didn’t start a GSA at their school, and why, of all things, they didn’t just ignore it now with only hope that it gets better.
Perhaps as teachers we can start the Gay Straight Alliance for them. Or perhaps as a father we can remind a son that we love him regardless of his air of femininity. Or as a celebrity icon we can come out of the closet the second we know we’re gay, own your own individuality and serve as a self-realized role model that others can emulate. Through leading by positive examples we can both prevent and solve this problem. By lending them our capable hands we can offer them the strength they are often naturally still without.
I truly do love and cherish the community of It Gets Better and the faith and spirit of all the messages. They will go a long way to inspire strength and hope in gay youth, but in such a grave situation as teen bullying and suicide, let us not favor hope over action. Is “It Gets Better” all we have to offer these children? An assurance that their present anguish is insignificant because of a vague idea that it all gets better in time? Can’t we see that this is just another way of saying “this is your burden and only you can carry it.” We must take steps toward ending discrimination against the gay community now, and we must, we must!, acknowledge the insecurities of children and compensate for them by our own action. Let us be the adults in this situation.
Because many of us do not have the resources available to us to donate money to charities or time to youth programs, we must find other ways to inspire. I whole-heartedly believe in inspiring change by example. As adults we can touch the lives of every person we come across simply by being open about who we are. We have the unique opportunity at this point in time to shape the future of acceptance for the gay community. By letting our voices be heard, by commanding respect among our peers, and by serving as respectable members of our communities regardless of our sexuality but with it visible on our backs we can inspire tolerance in others who may have otherwise held tightly to their discrimination — negative opinions that would inevitably bleed into the minds of future school bullies. And through ourselves we can inspire our children, and the children that we know, to not only retain hope that it gets better, but also to believe in themselves strongly enough to go against nature and stand up for themselves in their most vulnerable of moments. It is indeed cliche, but be the change that you wish to see in the world. Little else is truer.
And on that note let me point out that October 11th is National Coming Out Day. I, now more than ever, call on anyone still in the closet to come out! And if you’re not gay, encourage and support your closeted friends in their own coming out. Let us all be an example to our struggling youth that we should never, for any reason, be ashamed of who we naturally are.
Here are a few of my favorite It Gets Better videos:
