we gotta give them hope

In the last twoa weeks, we've learned of five more teenagers who were being bullied and took their own lives: Cody Barker, age 17, of Shiocton, Wisconsin; Asher Brown, age 13, of Houston, Texas; Seth Walsh, age 13, of Tehachapi, California; Tyler Clementi, age 18, the Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge; and Raymond Chase, age 19, a student in Providence, Rhode Island. Their deaths come after the suicides of Justin Aaberg, age 15, of Anoka, Minnesota, and Billy Lucas, age 15, of Greensburg, Indiana. -Dan Savage

i loved high school. i loved my friends. i loved my family. my growing up was good.

i grew up in a moderately conservative home and a traditional, but liberal, church. i did most of my growing up in arkansas, the buckle of the bible belt.

i grew up believing that my straight peers would grow up, get married, have kids, and eventually go to heaven. i grew up believing that none of those things would happen for me. when i started coming out to friends the summer i turned 17, i was pretty consistently met with, 'i still love you, but your choice is wrong... not natural... an abomination... and don't you want to go to heaven?'

it was always the 'don't you want to go to heaven' question that tortured me. for a long time, i actually believed the bible condemned queer life in the same way it condemned murder. it doesn't.

i grew up in an amazing church community- trinity episcopal church in searcy, arkansas. it's amazing for many reasons. it's a small church, in a small town. the population of the church ranged from very conservative to very liberal. the priest i grew up with, is the man who gave me hope. in a world where i felt i wrong and guilty and deserving of every bad thing that could happen to me, it was father gary who gave me hope that none of that was true. that i deserved love, and peace, and faith, and hope. as much as the person sitting next to me, who happened to be my twin brother. mike is my favorite person ever, but it could be hard growing up next to him sometimes. he is smart, and funny, and gregarious, and charming, and the boy next door, but better. i'm awkward, and quiet, and so, so queer. and have always been those things.

as far as school went, i was called names, i had shitty notes left in my locker and on my car. it felt awful. it reinforced all of my fears for my life.

and i had allies. i wasn't ready to come out until i went to college. so, while i came out to a few people that summer i turned 17, it was just a few people, and no one i went to school with. so, while i hadn't told anyone at school, i have always been easily identified as queer. and every single time someone called me a name, there was someone there to tell them to stop, put their arm around me, and walk me to my classroom. every time a shitty note fell out of my locker or off my car, there was a friend to tear it apart. and talk to the person who left it. without any words from me. i know i was lucky. i know other kids in my school got beat, and tormented every day. and they didn't have anyone taking care of it for them, including me.

i thought i got out of high school pretty unscathed. until i recently realized that i still don't always know that i deserve the same rights as my brother. last year, my mom convinced me that i deserved the right to get married, and have kids, be safe and happy, and go to heaven, just like my brother.

i don't have any physical scars from high school, but i struggled with depression, and wondering if i deserved to live, much less deserved to live my life the way i was. i wasn't a 'late bloomer' because i didn't know who i was and how i wanted to live my life, but because i felt ashamed. that's not unscathed.

to my family, and the other people in my life as i was growing up, who knew i was queer, and gave me hope and safety, thank you. to my family now, who are mostly still pretty conservative, but who give me hope about the possibility of marriage equality because they support it, if only for my sake, and stopped throwing around the words 'gay' and 'fag' as an insult, because it bullying behavior, even if they didn't mean it that way, thank you.

to all of us, we have to give lgbt kids hope. part of that is giving the lgbt community equality. i'm sick of DADT, and marriage equality debates, and bullying conversations. stop it. give us equality and safety.

whether it is visible to you or not, you know someone who is lgbt.

give them hope.

we are near mid-term elections. please keep these kids in mind when you make your voting decisions.