<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have never been pushed down a flight of stairs. No one has ever spat at me and called me a dyke. I\u2019ve never been beat up in the school yard or verbally harassed.<\/p>\n
[img_assist|nid=357|title=|desc=SPC has marched in the Syracuse Pride Parade for decades, expressing our commitment to the inextricable link between peace and social justice. Above Jessica Maxwell, Mike Pasquale, Wendy Yost and Jerry Lotierzo march with our rainbow> peace banner. Consid|link=none|align=right|width=302|height=305]And yet I am a victim of homophobic bullying.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s backtrack for a second here.<\/p>\n
\u201cBullying.\u201d It\u2019s a very popular word amongst politicians and public figures right now. Good. It should be. With queer teens committing suicide at a rate up to five times greater than that of their straight and cisgender (when one\u2019s gender identity matches the sex one is assigned at birth) classmates, it\u2019s about time we sat up and paid attention.<\/p>\n
But bullying doesn\u2019t start and stop at the schoolhouse door. These kids abusing and dehumanizing their peers aren\u2019t getting their sense of superiority out of thin air. Our culture is saturated with homophobia and transphobia, and those of us who don\u2019t fit neatly in to the pretty little heteronormative (cultural bias favoring heterosexuality and clean-cut, binary gender) boxes face bullying everywhere we turn. It\u2019s very easy to say that children\u2014no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation\u2014shouldn\u2019t commit suicide. It takes a little more effort to examine the reasons so many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children are<\/em> committing suicide.<\/p>\n In eighth grade, my Catholic school\u2019s religious education teacher stood up in front of the class and explained to us\u2014in the same tone of voice used by our earth science teacher to explain to us how air naturally moves from a high to low pressure system\u2014that homosexuality is a mental disorder. I cried myself to sleep that night. That was bullying.<\/p>\n My dad stopped talking to me for a month when I came out to him. That was bullying.<\/p>\n A stranger once approached me at the state fair to tell me how my rainbow buttons made him sick. That was bullying.<\/p>\n New York, the state I live in, has yet to pass a law protecting me from discrimination in jobs and in housing on the basis of my occasionally masculine gender expression. That is bullying.<\/p>\n\n\n
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