Gay teen bullying needs to be taken more seriously
During most of my life, bullying has been addressed in different ways in various attempts to eradicate it. Gay teen bullying, however, has always been overlooked. Many people are either uncomfortable dealing with it, don’t care about it at all, or believe that the gay teen probably deserves it because they’re “claiming” to be gay. This is precisely why the “It Gets Better” campaign was launched.
It Gets Better is a series of videos aimed at teens that tries to inform them that it will get better once you leave school. It’s a great idea, but one that I think isn’t totally received by gay teens. It’s difficult for a 14-year old to believe this message when they know they have another four years of schooling to suffer through before things might start getting better. Unfortunately for Jamey Rodemeyer, even though he made his own It Gets Better video four months ago, he committed suicide last week.
And when he was online, he wrote about it.
“I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens,” he wrote Sept. 9. “What do I have to do so people will listen to me?”
On Sept. 8, he wrote: “No one in my school cares about preventing suicide, while you’re the ones calling me [gay slur] and tearing me down.”
The warning signs were there. According to the Buffalo News article, he spoke of bullying and suicide starting about 12 months ago. He spoke of it often. People ridiculed him on his tumblr account and said they didn’t care if he was dead. The bullying continued and, even though he was getting help, nothing seemed to work.
In his video, he says that it does get better, but I’m not convinced he believed it would. He seems to be trying to convince himself more than convince others that things will get better.
It’s a shame that Jamey couldn’t hang on and that he didn’t feel there was more local support for him. It’s hard enough being a teenager, but I can’t even imagine what it’s like being gay in an unsupportive atmosphere.
The bullying may stop once you leave school, but the psychological scars of never being able to trust people and speaking up and defending yourself do not come easy, especially if a teenager doesn’t have the support they need to help them through their teen years.
Bullying is harassment and often assault as well. We have laws on the books against these types of behavior and they need to start being enforced against those who commit them. It shouldn’t matter that someone is bullied because they are gay, fat, look funny, or any other reason. It needs to start being taken seriously or many more teenagers will be taking their own lives.
While it’s a start, we need to do more than tell kids that it gets better. As adults, we actually need to do something about it and stop ignoring the problem.
