Gay Teen Suicides

There have been a series of stories in the news lately about young gay people committing suicide, it has sparked a lot of attention and begun the marvelous It Gets Better Project started by Dan Savage.  The project is videos posted by LGBT (and straight) adults who are telling what its like to be an out adult and trying to show them that once they get through high school they will go on to live full lives and leave the bullies behind.  I have watched a few of them I would love to watch all of them but they usually leave me a blubbering mess, especially Tim Gunn's video.

I'm not gay but I have struggled with depression and thought about suicide and did not particularly enjoy high school.  A few days before I heard Dan talk about the Project on his podcast I had given a friend who is 16 the same advice.  Just put up with the rest of high school, once you get out into the real world you will be able to meet all kinds of new and interesting people, people who you choose to associate with.

Now here's the other part and tell me if this makes me a horrible person.  If I had a teenager and they told me they were gay and we lived somewhere other than the Bay Area I would probably tell them NOT to come out at school.  That is not to say that I would tell them not to come out at all, I honestly believe that being gay or transgendered isn't a choice its how you were made.  I think that homosexual people should have exactly the same rights as straight people and the in the future people will look back at us and study our debates about gay marriage the same way the study the civil rights movement and wonder how we could believe that anything other than equality was a logical position to take.  I think teenagers who come out and campaign for fairness and equality are genuine heroes of our age, but for every teen that is able to rise above the discrimination they receive there are others who can't and it destroys them.  I would want my child to live a full and happy life, and live with honesty and integrity in their affairs, be out at work, college and find their path in the world just not in high school.  High school is hard enough and teenagers are little shits and can be cruel and horrible to people who's differences are less obvious.

Does that make me a bad person, to tell my child to keep their true self hidden and live a lie even if its only for a couple of years? I've heard how much damage being in the closet causes to people and I wouldn't want that for my child but I also don't want them to end up on the growing list of teenagers who can't handle the bullying and take their own lives.  Maybe the answer is to pack up and move, if I lived in the bible belt and had a teen tell me they were gay and wanted to live as an open homosexual person maybe that's what we would have to do.  Move to a bigger city, where they could go to a school with a large LGBT population where they may still get bullied but there would be a support system around them to help them deal with it.

I hope that by the time I have kids, if I ever do, I won't have to deal with these problems.  By the time my imaginary child is an imaginary teen there won't be these problems.  Shut up, I can live in a nice pretty fantasy world, where in 20years we will be as anti-homophobic as we are anti-racist...
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Really? Racially segregated proms?
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But that's from like the 70s right?
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No?
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Is this from the Onion or something?
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No?
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Fuck me we suck as a species.

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