On October 11 of each year, people across the world celebrate National Coming Out Day as an occasion to speak openly about being gay and to advocate for equal rights for the LGBT community. Unfortunately, in the weeks leading up to an event that fosters understanding and support for LGBT people who are coming out, an astonishing number of young people have taken their lives in the face of harassment, homophobia, and a culture that too often permits this kind of discrimination to take place.
What’s most alarming about these already horrific events is that it’s far closer to the status quo than many may have realized. Recent high-profile advocates for safe schools like Ellen Degeneres and Anderson Cooper broadcast important messages on compassion to their viewers, but the surge of media attention to the topic belies the fact that this kind of bullying has been pervasive in schools for far too long.
There are few more vulnerable groups in the hallways and cafeterias of American schools than LGBT students. According to a survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), 90 percent of LGBT students experience harassment at school and 60 percent feel physically unsafe at their school. Not surprisingly, LGBT youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual classmates, particularly if they also feel ostracized by their families and communities outside of school. In nearby Mentor, Ohio, Eric Mohat committed suicide in 2007 after reportedly being bullied with homophobic epithets and violent harassment for years.
My first real experience with homophobic bullying did not occur when I was a high school freshman, but after I took my first job as an eighth grade science teacher in Brooklyn, New York. Phrases like “Don’t be a fag,” echoed so regularly by my classroom door I sometimes couldn’t tell who had said them or from which direction they’d come. Teachers, including myself, were untrained on tackling the issues of homophobia and bullying in our schools, and many educators ignored insensitive comments as long as they didn’t spark confrontations.
After about two months of teaching, I began receiving threatening phone calls from two of my own students. They repeatedly called and left disturbing messages calling me a “faggot” among other lewd remarks. Despite being an adult and having all the resources I needed to address the situation, I was completely paralyzed by the 14-year-old bullies on the other line.
Even after several days of nasty calls, I made no efforts to tell my co-teachers or administrators, and neither did I confront the students I discovered had been involved. I felt embarrassed, ashamed and uncomfortable, and this was at 23 years old, after many years of working on issues related to gay rights throughout my time in college. Upon reflection, I realize just how debilitating and demoralizing this kind of treatment must be for the countless numbers of teenagers who are similarly bullied in their communities, but lack the support I had at my disposal. It suddenly made sense as to why far too many brutalized kids internalize their harassment and see no solutions to a seemingly endless amount of destructive homophobia that exists inside and outside of school. If I couldn’t speak up for myself as a victim of bullying as an adult, how can we expect children to do it?
