September 15th, 2011
There’s been a lot of attention given to gay teens — or teens whose peers believe they are gay — who commit suicide following years of torment and bullying by their classmates. If one wanted to compose a list, there would be far too many to count. But one web site says we should provide some balance to the story, by listing the names of “straight kids who have been bullied by gays and lesbians until they were driven to take their own lives.” Their complete list is here.
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Paul
September 15th, 2011
HILARIOUS. :D
A long time ago (two months ago), I was trying to make a point about why we need the IGB project to some random bigot commenter on the Ruth Blog, and all they would counter back with was “4 of my 6 kids are in high school, and every one of them is bullied everyday for not being willing to experiment with their sexuality.”
Cue the violins.
I mean, I wish bigots would at least ACKNOWLEDGE that they are bigots in every which way. As in, not reticent of others’ beliefs/opinions and believing they are absolutely 100% correct on every issue.
Lucrece
September 15th, 2011
This sentiment is horrendous. There are plenty of gay bullies in schools. Bullies come from everywhere.
The difference between straight bullies and gay bullies is that straight people have the power to outnumber and support each other beyond the resources any organized culture of gay bullies could come across.
Straight victims can liberate themselves. Gay victims need to convince their straight oppressors that continuing to opress is not worth their time. Just like about every other minority in the world except for women.
Ian
September 15th, 2011
It shouldn’t even be based on the bully or bullied’s sexual orientation, what it should be concentrating on is whether the bullies are bullying based on homophobic reasons. You can be straight but if they think your gay, your still gonna get bullied anyway and i think that if anyone gets bullied they will be at higher risk taking such actions.
So it shouldn’t be ‘gay kid bullying straight kid’ as ‘Kid bullied for being straight’ should be more suitable. Which no kid will ever be bullied just because they are straight.
Ben In Oakland
September 15th, 2011
I’d also like to see a list of conservative Christianistas getting beat up, ostracized, and attacked for “proclaiming the truth in love”.
Oh, it’s the same list?
John
September 15th, 2011
The only case of a gay kid allegedly harassing a straight kid that I am aware of is the case in California where the straight kid is on trial for killing the gay kid. If there is gay bullying, why isn’t it in the news, especially after the CA case came up?
Regan DuCasse
September 15th, 2011
John, I appreciate you saying ‘allegedly’ in the case of the Brian McInerny murder trial.
But as long as the stereotype that Larry HAD to be the aggressor and harasser in this is being reported as the facts of events, then we’re back to square one.
In that case the reporting is again, inaccurate as to action and REACTION. McInerny was ALWAYS the aggressor and bully. He was bigger and had a gang with him. Larry was easier prey for him.
Larry happened to respond to the bullying and threat by challenging and humiliating BM as BM had been doing TO LK for months.
At no time, did LK actually PHYSICALLY or even emotionally threaten BM.
It doesn’t EVER take even any CONTACT between a gay person and whoever is willing to assault them. All it takes is just being a gay person or THOUGHT to be to be attacked.
However, the anti gay sentiment and defense constantly asserts that gay males are ALWAYS aggressive and lack self restraint and always disregard how their target will respond.
In effect, reducing the gay victim to nothing more than a dog off a leash.
I’ve been listening to talk radio and EVERYONE has got this story down to Larry coming to school in FULL drag, blowing kisses all over the school at whatever male and essentially being complicit in his own murder for waving the red flag of his sexuality at a bull.
Which contradicts the definition of who was more threatening between the two boys.
I have mentioned the truth of events because I spent a day working with one of Larry’s counselors from his group home. She’d known him for a year, and liked him a great deal. Which is true actually for all of his teachers and the boy wasn’t without friends at school.
If Larry had been the one to bring a gun to school and shot McInerny, HE would have had a more legitimate excuse of self defense.
As it happens, BM, the aggressor in all of this at all times, made good on his outspoken plan to kill the gay kid.
And as we know, LK wasn’t the first, and likely won’t be the last.
No one wants to believe the hatred and harassment and threat could be THAT intense without ANY provocation. That LK MUST have done SOMETHING and whatever gesture had to be enough to set of BM, so therefore BM’s response is justified and understandable.
It’s up to us to make people know to what extent the anti gay rely on violent trash like BM to do their dirty work. Not only so that they can keep their hands clean.
But blame the LK’s in the world for not knowing how much they are hated for being alive.
tristram
September 15th, 2011
Touche! (I have no idea how to add the accent mark over the e.)
I started composing a long screed on bullying and then remembered this kid who says it all so much better than I could.
http://www.imfromdriftwood.com/2011/01/13/im-from-las-vegas-nv-video-story/
Rob in San Diego
September 15th, 2011
Over 10 years ago I use to say that gays should go around beating up heterosexuals for being straight just to force legislators to add sexuality as a hate crime. Unless it was being done action would never be taken.
Marauder
September 18th, 2011
I’m with Lucrece. There probably aren’t any straight kids who killed themselves because a gay kid picked on them for being straight, but it seems awfully flippant and dismissive to assume that no straight kid has ever, ever killed him- or herself due to being bullied by a gay kid. Bullying happens for all sorts of reasons from all sorts of people.
John Lenox
March 31st, 2016
My friends that recently joined my group were actually bullied for not being willing to experiment with their sexuality. They said that they we’re fine being straight. The people of other sexual prefrences bullied them and called them losers and that they will never be happy unless the experiment with other sexualities. So don’t just assume it doesnt happen. Ask look.
dave
February 15th, 2017
I’m being bulied at this moment and the way they are doing it (gays) is vile, using care homes who have internet sex workers working for them and the owners of the homes allow it, I’m a cook who they manipulated off face book after they hacked it, I was manipulated to a doctor who gave me citalopram to assist in the journy toward suicide and they know that I know what they’ve done but failed, just today they had funeral cars waiting for me when I went out organized by the care homes I worked for, I was manipulated by a sex worker who seduced me and got me to rent a house where gays live and now when I go out they start bullying, hence the funeral cars because they know I’m gonna report them and they are trying to scare me. Pathetic, they must pay for what they have done \doing.
Timothy Kincaid
September 20th, 2011
Marauder,
I am perfectly willing to go out on a limb and declare that at no time ever has there been a straight kid who killed him- or herself because a gay kid bullied him for being straight. You left out that all important last part.
Sure bullying happens for all sorts of reasons. But in our society, gay kids are bullied because they are gay and straight kids are not.
No flippancy, no dismissiveness, and especially no excusing for bullying.
dave
February 15th, 2017
They play mind games and I can prove it, if you don’t like gays they bully you using plausable deniability. They must pay for the people they have drove to suicide, haunting them with things they have aquired through hacking fones and computers finding things to break you down.
Anonymous
October 17th, 2011
This is ridiculous.
What you’re basically saying by putting this “list” up is that homosexuals are generally nicer people that heterosexuals and would never commit such a heinous act of bullying?
I personally find this extremely offensive, as I had shared my opinion on gay marriage on a poll, saying that “Homosexuals should not have the right to marry religiously, but should have the ability to have a legal partnership.”
For saying that, I got abused by many (at least 10) homosexual students from my school, leading to verbal and at times physical torment every day at school and online. This has led me to feel emotional distress and fear to come to school and sign in to my social networking profile all because I am scared of what they will say next. Day in, day out. How can you not consider that to be bullying?
You think your snark and witty “post” is really that intelligent? Think again – because it honestly isn’t. Not to me, and not to anyone. So before you dare to go ahead and post such outrageous things, have a think about what you’re doing.
Timothy Kincaid
October 19th, 2011
Anonymous,
If you received verbal abuse, that’s a terrible thing to go through. Without question, I denounce any abuse. I suggest you go to your school authorities and get it to stop.
However, your brief and limited experience with abuse should have caused you to gain empathy for those gay kids who experience constant and unrelenting taunting gay in, day out, year after year.
You did not. And that is to your shame.
Anonymous
October 22nd, 2011
Dear Timothy,
I have seen what gays go through as I have very many gay friends of my own and I do stand up for them if any bullying occurs.
Yes, I have gone to the school and told them all about it, but as there are quite lot of homosexuals within my school, they feel as if it isn’t an important enough issue.
I have respect for the GLBT community, because as I said, quite a lot of my close friends are a part of it and proud, but I just disapprove of the view that states “Gays would never bully or torment a heterosexual person due to the strife that they have gone though themselves.” and that homosexuals should automatically be given compassion and understanding compared to a straight person.
Timothy Kincaid
October 24th, 2011
Anonymous,
I don’t think anyone has a view that “Gays would never bully or torment a heterosexual person due to the strife that they have gone though themselves.â€
There are some pretty nasty people of all stripes, wouldn’t you agree?
But it is absolutely right and appropriate that when considering bullying and establishing policy that extra consideration be given to those who are most often bullied and who are bullied to a greater extent.
This might feel “unfair” to you, but think of it this way: if there is a traffic accident, the paramedics respond to the person who is suffering life-threatening injuries. And they do not pay as much attention to the person who got a bruise.
Even though the gay population is small, over the past few years there have been quite a few gay kids who have been bullied so badly that they killed themselves rather than continue on. So that is where we need to focus attention and resolve the problem.
If it had been Lutherans or left-handed people or kids with red hair, then I’d say we focus there. But it hasn’t been. It’s been gay kids.
When you say you disapprove of this focus, please know that it suggests that you don’t care about the problem. You may want to think about what is a priority for you.
reema
March 4th, 2012
NOT CLEVER and NOT TRUE! i take great offense to this. i fully supported lgbt in high school yet was still bullied. my best friend and i were bullied by a group of gay teen boys. i’m sure everyone would like to think it’s because we were homophobes or deserved it but no, we were picked on because we wouldnt let this boy cheat off of us ONE TIME. that’s all it took for him and his friends to harass us for a whole semester. they were the biggest bullies in our school, not some stupid straight kids. we were death threatedned, followed, humilated on a daily basis. i would lie on my bedroom floor and cry like crazy, begging God to not let them jump me. we told the teachers but they told us to “grow up.” my best friend killed herself with C02 bc she was too scared and humiliated to show her face. so NOT COOL, NOT CLEVER, and NOT TRUE!!!!!
reema
March 4th, 2012
and i know it was “just a year when some gay kids get bullied their whole lives.” yes i know! and if someone dare say that, i’m sorry her death doesn’t “impress” you.
Palmer
March 4th, 2012
reema, I’ve been waiting for the monitors to respond to you but they seem to be busy.
I have to say that your story has some holes in it. I tried googling about a girl committing suicide because of gay kids bullying her. Didn’t find anything, zero, zip nada. If this actually happened and the story brought out teh Radical Religious Right would be all over it! I would be a HUGE story! It would be their crown jewel in their arsenal of claiming gays want “special rights”.
And you’re assuming that the people here wouldn’t be willing to stand up for you. That’s completely wrong. All you need to do is identify your school and I assure you hundreds of people who read this site would be deluging the principal’s office telling him to do something to halt the attacks on you. And if you posted it on a Christianist web-site you’d have legislators from your state calling for laws and punishment. My junior high and high school years were a living hell and I strongly support protecting ALL kids from harassment.
Palmer
March 4th, 2012
reema, you don’t have to identify yourself or your friend, just your school. That’s all we ask is the name of your school.
StraighGrandmother
March 5th, 2012
I do not find either Anonymous nor reema to be credible.
From Anonymous = “For saying that, I got abused by many (at least 10) homosexual students from my school, leading to verbal and at times physical torment every day at school and online.”
StraightGrandmother = Tip off here is the use of the word “homosexual”. This is the preferred word of right wing Christians who condemn homosexuality. Teenagers rarely use this term. The style of writing is not that of a young person.
From reeama = “i would lie on my bedroom floor and cry like crazy, begging God to not let them jump me. we told the teachers but they told us to “grow up.†my best friend killed herself with C02 bc she was too scared and humiliated to show her face.”
StraightGrandmother = Why I think this is also not credible is your use of the word God. You are saying you come from a God Fearing family and were bullied by kids who are gay, in fact your friend took her life because of it.
If this were true we would have heard about it because your parents and your friends parents would have been screaming this from the rooftop. Evangelical and Catholic and Mormons are very quick to condemn sexual minorities. Your account is a “man bites” dog attempt.
reema = “my best friend and i were bullied by a group of gay teen boys. i’m sure everyone would like to think it’s because we were homophobes or deserved it but no”
StraightGrandmother = this sentence is also suspect. “gay teen boys” does not ring true to me to how young people write. This sounds like a mother writing this not a young person. Also the use of the word “homophobes.” Very suspect that a young person used that word.
Palmer
March 5th, 2012
I just spent six weeks working with a bunch of teenagers and they didn’t speak in any way like either Anonymous and reema. A very good dissection of their language, Straight Grandmother.
Palmer
March 5th, 2012
Alos, how do you commit suicide with CO2? It would have to be very difficult to obtain for someone underage, there would have to be many easier ways of committing suicide.
bigot and proud
January 10th, 2015
Every so called gay has to overcome the huge pile of evidence of straight behavior is correct. I do mean that the d.n.a. does not and can not be the factor in with causes one to deny the basic instinct to reproduce, in other words most straight people do not understand, just as one without a mental problem can not understand someone who is mental distorting reality. It is a form if mental illnesses mostly relating to the amount of attention and an obvious self harm, much like one who cuts himself/ herself to realize the pain is confirmed to the cutter as good. It is a concern to all parents that children are not exposed to sexual subjects anyway, this problem is an appears to be a lack of values at home and a disregard for keeping sexual content out of schools it is not purelyup to social and individuals outside the problems to fix it. It is a lack of common sense and a disregard for nature that the straight may find expressed by self and groups that advocate that this behavior if gays is correct, the imperial truth is we know nature makes two kinds and if that is offensive it must be that the person offended suffers from psychosis.
Priya Lynn
January 10th, 2015
Bigot, with the planet suffocating from overpopulation we need more people to refrain from reproducing, not less.
Ben in oakland
January 10th, 2015
Honey, really!
There’s not really much to say about or to Someone who says he is proud to be a bigot.
Based upon the general incoherence of what you had to say, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that English is not your first language, and assume that you really don’t know what the word bigot means.
Priya Lynn
April 1st, 2016
John, were any of your friends so unable to escape vicious bullying by gays that they killed themselves?
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