(This was originally going to be posted on Oct. 20th. People wore purple to show their support for the LGBTQ community, in light of all the recent suicides. Unfortunately, my Internet connection's been weird on me for a couple weeks. On the plus side, I got this and three other blog posts written while waiting for the wireless to stop sucking.)
Purple= Spirit.
Spirit.
Spirit is pride, strength, courage. Spirit is when someone at school calls you a faggot, and the teacher doesn't do anything about it, and you stay tough anyways. Spirit is when that jackass in the locker room calls you a gayfer, and you laugh, because you're proud to be yourself. On the rainbow flag, the purple stripe at the bottom stands for spirit. For some people, that means that we're shameless sinners, that we're corrupting traditional values and destoryiong everything America stands for with a smile on our lips and a twinkle in our eye.
At least seven gay, American teens could tell them otherwise- that is, if they weren't dead.
Any suicide is a tragedy. An epidemic of suicides, all preventable, in one month, is appalling. Teenagers, with their whole lives ahead of them, killed themselves, because they couldn't stand the intolerance anymore. I've got my dad, my sister's ex-boyfriend who's still my Facebook friend for some reason, kids at school telling me that they're not gonig to wear purple, that we shouldn't remember kids killing themselves just because they're gay; that if I want to do something useful, stop sticking up for gay kiods and do something about suicides that "actually matter".
Fuck you, with a shovel, in the ass.
There's been a lot of debate as to who is and isn't killing themselves because of gay-bashing, a lot of dispute over statistics like "1 in 3 gay teens will commit suicide", a lot of nitpicking, in other words, over things that don't matter. These kids are still dead. Their families, whether the news is making a big deal out of it anymore or not, are still grieving, every single day. I hardly think "Well, we can't be CERTAIN his death was realted to homophobia..." is going to help anything. The point remains, a lot of kids have killed themselves, and we've got nothing better to do than bicker like five-year-olds.
That means we, as a nation, have failed this generation. Again.
The numbers vary. Some people say it was eleven gay teens, some still stand by the original number, five or six. It doesn't matter, y'all. One is more than enough. One is too much. And everyone can agree, there are at least five. And, as if that weren't bad enough, there is still gay-bashing. There are still kids who don't know anything except hate, and abuse, because of who they are or what other people say they are. for some people, it doesn't even stop when they go home. It HAS to stop. The entire point of Spirit Day, which many people seemed to miss out on, was to remember these kids, and to show support for all the LGBTQ folks out there, and I promise you, it makes a difference to somebody out there. I won't lie, it's a lot easier for me to be bisexual than it is for a lot of folks- it's just more socially acceptable where I live. But even for me, to walk into school and see so much purple was such a lift. Knowing that that many people supported me, and were proud to do it, was one of the best feelings of my life, and I know it was for a lot of other people, too.
This post is shamlesssly late, since October 20th was, you know, two freaking weeks ago. But I just want to say thank you, to everyone out there who wore purple, and to everyone who meant to and forgot, and everyone who would've if they'd gotten the Facebook memo, et cetera. I know a lot of kids out there think suicide is the only way to escape the bullying, and the only way to stop people from giving in to thinking like that is to show them how many people actually do care about them. And THAT, dear sister's ex-boyfriend who was convinced that the point was "showing off how faggoty you are", is the point of Spirit Day.
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/ - LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLs4NCgvNU - Gay, trans, et cetera Google employees telling us it gets better.
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