Bullying of Gays

Recently a friend, who has a son who is gay, sent me a link for the It Gets Better Project website, which helps young Gays who are being bullied. She asked me if, because I am an Anti-Bullying Campaigner, I would help promote this website, which has helped her and her son.

This page is one in a series of pages I have written to help the parents and children who are or who have been bullied and while we have no experience of Gay Bullying, my daughter was bulied for three years at school.

I hope you are not reading this page because yoiu, or someone close to you is being bullied, but if that is the case, then I hope this page will help you.

Gay Bullying, or Gay Bashing, as it is sometimes called is no differnet to other forms of bullying apart from the fact that it is Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual or Transgender (LGBT) people who are the targets.

In addition to threats of violence, spreading rumors and intimidation, Verbal Gay Bullying may also involve derogatory comments about the victims' sexuality.

In the US, Gay Bullying became particularly bad during the 40s and 50s, when Presidents Harry S Truman and Dwight D Eisenhower forced gay people out of Government Positions of influence. However, despite his attacks on alleged Communists, Senator Joe McCarthy resisted pressure to conduct similar attacks on Gay people.

According to a report by Mental Health America, published in 1998, Students in the US would hear anti-gay slurs

"about 26 times a day on average, or once every 14 minutes".

And in the UK the BBC, reported that a survey conducted in 2006 by the Schools Health Education Unit concluded that

"about two-thirds of gay and lesbian students in Britain’s schools have suffered from gay bullying. Almost all that had been bullied had experience verbal attacks, 41% had been physically attacked, and 17% had received death threats."

Reports about Gay Bullying have increased in the last 30 years and there have been some cases that have made International Headlines.

In 1996, Jamie Nabozny won a landmark case when he sued his former school in Wisconsin. His case that "relentless antigay verbal and physical abuse by fellow students" had resulted in his ill health hospitalization was upheld.

Even more shockingly, in the UK, even though he was only 10 years old, Damilola Taylor, who had only arrived from Nigeria a few weeks before, died after being stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle. The bottle severed an artery and he bled to death. At school, Damilola had been accused of being Gay. He had to ask his mother what it meant.

These are just two reports out of the many that have hit the headlines. However, due to more recent reports a new website, the It Gets Better Project has been set up to specifically help the victims of Gay Bullying or young LGBT people who are worried about what may happen to them if people find out about their sexuality.

The It Gets Better Project website says:

“Many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”

The It Gets Better Project is the brainchild of columnist and author Dan Savage who, in response to a number of students taking their own lives after being bullied in school, created a YouTube video with his partner Terry Miller to help young people facing harassment.

The video was made in 2010 and two months after it was published on You Tube, the video had inspired over 10,000 user-created videos viewed over 35 million times.

The It Gets Better Project Website has become a place where where young people who are lesbian, gay, bi, or trans can learn from others who share their experiences that love and happiness can be theirs too. And just as important the website provides a place where straight people can visit and support their friends and family members.

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living is a book that contains a collection of expanded essays and new material from celebrities, everyday people and teens who have made videos, as well as new contributors who have yet to post videos to the It Gets Better Project website.