by Devin Cornelius ’12

Dear High school,

Dear Bully,

Dear Anyone who will listen,

Imagine being hated. Imagine being bullied, laughed at and humiliated every day of your life just for being who you are. Imagine being surrounded by people who don’t understand you and go out of their way to make sure they never will. Now imagine being a gay teen living in today’s society who calls this an ordinary day.

With legislation allowing gay marriage in many states and the move toward ending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, we have lulled ourselves into the pleasant delusion that prejudice no longer exists.

Well, wake up.

In September alone, six gay teens took their own lives due to bullying. In the most publicized incident, Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old boy jumped off the George Washington Bridge in New York on September 22 due to humiliation caused by his peers at Rutgers University. Gay teens are four times more likely to commit suicide compared to heterosexual teens and 9 out of 10 gay teens have experienced bullying at school, according to The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to teen suicide prevention. More than one-third of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) kids have attempted suicide.

But here at Sherwood, some are fighting to make school a better environment for all students. Stand Proud, the gay-straight alliance, sponsored by social studies teacher Joe Sangillo and science teacher Mary Baker, is dedicated to creating a safe place for students to openly talk to and to educate others on LGBT issues, through such events as Spirit Day, in which participants memorialize gay teen suicide by wearing purple. “We’re 20-30 kids in a school of 2,000 plus kids, but just the fact that there is Stand Proud at Sherwood, even if you’re not part of Stand Proud, I think it sends a good message to the school that there is a gay-straight alliance and that we are a tolerant place,” said Sangillo.

“As teenagers are trying to figure themselves out, they see something different. And they don’t feel comfortable with that difference so they might make fun of it. Being gay is such a minority of society that some people don’t have comfort with it,” said Sangillo. “[In high schools kids are] trying to have the most friends, be in the most popular circles and cliques and one of the ways to do that is to place yourself up and is to push down the people that are considered ‘lower.’”

Unfortunately, in high school, being unique and going against the strong current in an ocean of like minded students is a fault, rather an accomplishment.”When I first came out, I did have problems with certain friends. They did not want to invite me to sleepovers anymore because they felt it would be ‘weird,’” said an anonymous, but openly gay student.

“Faggot.” A word so casually thrown around these days; down the hall, via Facebook, at parties. Some people apparently have forgotten its meaning as an offensive slang term for a gay person. Word bombs such as this are tossed around so lightly. When someone says, “oh my god, that’s so gay,” who hears you? Gay teens go home after hearing that word every day with the notion that who they are is a joke, an insult, something used to hurt someone else. “It creates fear and anxiety in a student. They think ‘why is this person saying that?’ ‘Why does this person think it’s okay to say that?’ You don’t hear names being used to represent other demographics as pejoratives,” said Sangillo.

“Certain phrases like ‘That’s so gay’ have worked their way into every day speak, and it gets very offensive at times. People don’t understand what it’s like to have the name people label you with, as a bad thing,” added the anonymous student.

National support organizations such as “It Gets Better” aims to help LGBT teens by allowing people to upload Youtube videos sharing their experiences and relaying how life as a LGBT teen may be hard now, but to stay strong because as you get older, life gets easier. According to its website, “It Gets Better” wants: “to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.”

In light of so much tragedy, there are still those who care. With a growing family of support at Sherwood alone, a more tolerant world cannot be far off.

Sincerely,

The Change