Large number of teen suicides due to homophobic bullying.

[six45ive]

This is in the US where a Facebook friend of mine has just linked to this video which is extremely moving.

 

These suicides all seem to be from small towns in the US where the young people feel incredibly isolated and the homophobia seems to be endemic throughout the whole of society in these areas reinforcing the feeling that these young people are going to suffer this abuse for the rest of their lives and that their only option of escaping this torment is suicide.

[Suffragette1]

This is absolutely appalling and barbaric. As far as I'm concerned it's akin to assisted suicide and not far removed from the 17th century witch hunts.

[Dozy]

Poor little sods - being a teenager is hard enough, without being subjected to that sort of harassment from ignorant morons.

 

Small towns can be much harder to live in than big cities - everybody knows everybody else and they have less to occupy their time with, than they would if they lived somewhere bigger.

[Suffragette1]

Poor little sods - being a teenager is hard enough, without being subjected to that sort of harassment from ignorant morons.

 

Small towns can be much harder to live in than big cities - everybody knows everybody else and they have less to occupy their time with, than they would if they lived somewhere bigger.

 

And with that parochial outlook goes a narrow mindedness and intolerance. Small town America is also far more likely to entrenched in religion (the same applies to the UK, but to a much lesser extent).

[six45ive]

This is absolutely appalling and barbaric. As far as I'm concerned it's akin to assisted suicide and not far removed from the 17th century witch hunts.

 

Yes, it's pretty obvious that that's what much of small town America is like. They are so isolated that, despite seeing things on the TV or internet, they probably don't relate their backward small town lives in any way resemble things that go on in the big cities.

[skinz]

One of the comments was interesting. Texas of all places, there's hope!

[six45ive]

Poor little sods - being a teenager is hard enough, without being subjected to that sort of harassment from ignorant morons.

 

Small towns can be much harder to live in than big cities - everybody knows everybody else and they have less to occupy their time with, than they would if they lived somewhere bigger.

 

And with that parochial outlook goes a narrow mindedness and intolerance. Small town America is also far more likely to entrenched in religion (the same applies to the UK, but to a much lesser extent).

 

Yes, I think it's hard for us to understand because most people live in or close to large populations in this country so that isolation is very rarely felt.

Certainly, as someone who works in a secondary school, I've come across numerous, shall we say extremely effeminate, male students who have no problem in being loud and 'flaunting their affectations' (as a colleague once put it) attracting all sorts of bullying attention from the chavy lot that they simply shake off like water off a ducks back.

The difference here is that the bullying is small scale and pretty benign in my experience and there is always somebody to support the victim and treat them just the same as anybody else. I don't think that is the case in small town America.

[Suffragette1]

There's a lot of homophobic bullying which takes place in schools here, even at junior level. The terms 'gay' and 'lesbian' are used as insults, sometimes they're applied when there is a perception that a kid is gay and others, it's used indiscriminately. My daughter came home the other day (she's 9) and told me how some boy had called her a lesbian. She retorted with 'So what, I don't care, there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian so that's not even an insult.' Good for her.

 

I complained to the school about some bullying that was happening when my son was there; he brought to my attention what one of his friends was being subjected to. I get the impression that schools do not know how to deal with it, they're hot on tackling racial abuse but not homophobic bullying.

[six45ive]

There's a lot of homophobic bullying which takes place in schools here, even at junior level. The terms 'gay' and 'lesbian' are used as insults, sometimes they're applied when there is a perception that a kid is gay and others, it's used indiscriminately. My daughter came home the other day (she's 9) and told me how some boy had called her a lesbian. She retorted with 'So what, I don't care, there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian so that's not even an insult.' Good for her.

 

Yes.....and as being gay becomes more open and accepted, as anybody who went to this years Pride event in Sheffield will testify where there were a large number of non gay teens, then calling somebody queer will have about as much effect as calling somebody straight.

[six45ive]

I complained to the school about some bullying that was happening when my son was there; he brought to my attention what one of his friends was being subjected to. I get the impression that schools do not know how to deal with it, they're hot on tackling racial abuse but not homophobic bullying.

 

As for schools dealing with homophobic bullying I think it varies from school to school and it varies from child to child. I could tell you some stories to make the point that it's not just a black and white situation but a public forum is not really the place for that and I don't particularly want to lose my job in this current climate.