Carl Walker-Hoover would have turned 12 on April 16th. Unfortunately, the extension cord he fashioned into a noose ten days earlier ensured that he wouldn’t live to see his birthday.
Carl was a victim of anti-gay bullying at his school in western Massachusetts, and had been for a long time. He didn’t identify as gay, at all, but it didn’t take much for the Neanderthals to set upon him. His mother contacted the school frequently to demand that something be done, but nothing was. Nothing except being forced to eat lunch with his bully for a week.
Really?
Carl’s birthday this year coincided with the National Day of Silence, which raises awareness of GLBT bullying. School can be a scary, scary place for children who are gay, or questioning, or even perceived as gay. Taunts of “gay”, “faggot”, “queer”, etc. denotes that one is the lowest of the low, not worthy of respect, not worthy of dignity, not worthy of happiness.
Not worthy of life.
Predictably, the mouth breathing protesters have come out in force. “Religious” groups (and I use that term loosely) have encouraged parents to keep their children home on this day, that it’s simply “propaganda about homosexuality” or it “promotes a social and sexual agenda”.
I have two words for these people: Fuck. You.
Seriously. Fuck you and the horses you rode in on. Fuck you and your uptight, fundamentalist bullshit. Fuck you and your cold-hearted hatred. Fuck you and your fake holier-than-thou morality that you spew while you beat your submissive wives and tapdance in public toilets and warp your children in the name of Jesus (or someone you think is Jesus, because the one I’ve read about doesn’t act like a sanctimonious hypocrite). Fuck off and die.
I have zero patience for these people. I can’t chalk it up to differences in philosophy, or agree to disagree. I can’t blow it off because I don’t think like them. I can’t take the opinion that “everyone has a different opinion” in this case. Because kids are fucking dying and they don’t care.
Listen, morons. It’s really quite simple. Every single child has the right to go to school without fear. Every child has the right to not be bullied. Period, paragraph, end of discussion. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re freaks or if you think they’re sinners or if you think they should be killed because they don’t fit into your narrow view of what’s acceptable. All too often, gay kids suffer in silence, and when they do go to teachers and administrators for help, there is usually one action taken: nothing.
Schools frequently do absolutely nothing to stop anti-gay bullying. These kids are frequently getting it from all sides: parents, teachers, administrators, churches, peers, politicians. Imagine having everyone in your life telling you that what you are is shit. Something you didn’t ask for and is really confusing, and it’s you, and you can’t change it any more than you can change your skin color (and shouldn’t have to, really), and you’re being told that people like you are immoral, less-than-human creatures who wish to promote a weird, bizarre sexual smorgasbord on the human race (maybe I’m a Bad Gay, but I still haven’t been apprised of the so-called Gay Agenda). It’s no wonder that so many gay teens (and perceived gay) are killing themselves. Check out the Lifetime movie Prayers for Bobby (I can’t watch it because it upsets me too much) for a small glimpse of this. It’s a true story.
Point is, these are children. Children deserve to be protected, and loved, and respected. It’s not okay to bully kids who are different. It’s not okay to believe that “religious freedom” gives one a license to abuse others, and anyone who believes this, in my opinion, is rotten to the core and worthy of scorn and mocking.
I have a friend who I’ll refer to as TJ (his name is John, but he’s not my partner John, so I don’t want to confuse people. Don’t ask what the T stands for). TJ lives in Livingston, TN near the Kentucky border. He’s a direct descendent of Alvin C. York, the most decorated soldier in WWI and the subject of a 1941 movie called Sgt. York starring Gary Cooper. TJ is also a cross-dresser – not full on drag, but a sort of gender-bending hybrid.
TJ probably emerged from the womb with lip gloss in one hand and a makeup bag in the other. His parents knew from the start that he Wasn’t Like Other Boys; he shunned sports, dressed in his mothers clothes and heels, and otherwise minced, prissed, and pranced about with a florish. He’s that way today, and I will fight to the death for his right to be who he is.
That’s not to say that I understand it; I don’t. Not at all, because I’m not him. Neither John nor I are feminine, nor do we have the desire to wear women’s clothing or makeup. But that’s not us. It is TJ, and it always has been. It is simply who he is. Whereas John and I could “pass” for straight, TJ could never. Not even with a gun to his head.
Surprisingly, TJ has never had many issues with anyone, even in the Tennessee hills. John explained it this way: people in the hills stick up for their own, even if they think you’re a freak. You’re their freak, dammit, and they’ll defend you.
The only times I’ve ever nearly gotten into a physical altercation were both related to TJ. Both times we were here in Chattanooga, and both times he was being ridiculed and disrespected by strangers near us – middle aged men, who should have known better, making fun of him not five feet away, out loud, like he wasn’t present.
Like he wasn’t human.
He told us to ignore it, that he was used to it, but I wasn’t having it. John and I made choice comments of our own, and left.
This is why we fight. It’s for people like Carl and TJ and all the others who are berated and disrespected when all they want to do is live their lives as they see fit. TJ has been lucky so far, but all it may take one day is some drunken redneck to hurt him or worse. That’s something all GLBT worry about, really. John and I could hold our own, easily, but TJ would never be able to defend himself. So it’s for all of us, really. We deserve to be safe. Children deserve to not have to feel like suicide is their only option. When children are dying, it’s time to take to take a long, hard look at your soul, and decide if you’re helping or hurting. Too often people are hurting them, oftentimes grown-ass adults who should be protecting them are too busy being petty and hateful to give a damn or using the words of Jesus as an excuse to hate when these attitudes are diametrically opposite of his teachings. There are no words for how excruciatingly ugly and sad that is, and I will spend the rest of my life fighting for these people, as well as for myself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment