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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I was just speaking to Brody. We were having a disgust fest over The Lot Project and the asswipe who set it up. And we spoke, pretty much simultaneously about hoping to save just one kid from self harm.
In the last 18 months I have suddenly felt free to become a gay rights activist in my non nom de plume life, in my real world, with my friends who know my name, with my family. I feel safe to do this, late in life for sure, because of those who have gone before me. They are the ones who took greater risks that I take in order to bring us out of the closet into the mainstream.
Their deeds, they will say, were nothing much. But, their deeds gave me the courage to be myself. And my hope is that my small deeds, my own 'nothing much' will give even one person the courage to be himself or herself.
And that is why this forum, while it will naturally have pockets of cosiness, will never be 100% cosy, will always be challenging something, will always be campaigning. And it is why I will always call this war we are fighting a war. And it is why I will always fight hard against those who try to use semantics to gainsay it.
My objective is to save just one kid from self harm. And, when I have saved him, to save another. And to hope that those kids save one kid themselves, and those kids save one themselves.
Those of us who have the ability to do so will continue to fight this war. We will wrote letters to all relevant people, we will sign petitions in case this one actually does something, we will write opinion pieces on small blogs, we will use Twitter and Facebook in our own, real names to push not a gay agenda, but a human rights agenda.
And we will continue to care, here, for those who come here for such small help as we are able to give them.
I know that I have managed to keep one suicidal teenager, a heterosexual kid who hated homosexuals, a lad who had been abused from the age of six until he was 14 by the same man, a friend of the family, alive from the age of 16 or so until he was over 21. I last met him online when I heard he was married. I know of others helped here. I know of three door breakdowns we have caused across the world when someone here made suicidal statements here or in chats. I organised one myself in the UK.
That's what we do.
I know that not everyone can do that because they feel incapable in some way. I'm not saying that everyone should. I'd love it if all of us could, but I know we can't.
But what I want you to understand is why I do it. And I want you to understand the primary purpose of the entire site alongside the messageboard.
This site may have erotic tales. But there is no tale without true affection here. Not one, even if, at first sight, some look peculiar. The site is to show gay kids and the adults they become that pure, simple, romantic love is available to queer kids.
The cozy parts in the forum are great. But they are not its primary purpose.
[Updated on: Wed, 29 September 2010 23:27]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Anti-Gay Industry Responsible For Creating Hostile Climate That Leads To Such Tragedies, Says TWO
NEW YORK – By Wayne Besen |Truth Wins Out expressed a sense of deep sorrow and loss as news of three gay teen suicides in September rocked the LGBT movement. In each case, the victim was a target of relentless harassment and bullying by school peers. Truth Wins Out blames the anti-gay industry and negligent school officials for creating a hostile climate that places lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at risk for psychological abuse, violence and suicide.
“Our hearts go out to the families of these young men and we feel a deep sense of sorrow and regret for these needless tragedies,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We blame the anti-gay industry for fighting measures to end bullying in schools, and school officials who turn a blind eye to brutality. We are fed up with what amounts to anti-gay schoolyard muggings that are foolishly dismissed as ‘boys being boys’. In reality, it is ‘boys beating boys’, and these bullies receive tacit approval for their violent, homophobic behavior by teachers and certain vocal segments of society.”
Through their annual “Day of Truth” campaign and TrueTolerance.org web site, Focus on the Family and the “ex-gay” group Exodus International actively and continuously obstruct anti-bullying programs in schools across the country. Instead of opposing violence, both organizations remain dedicated to pretending the problem of anti-gay bullying does not exist, or downplaying the deadly results.
“The goal of Exodus International and Focus on the Family is to purge LGBT people from society, although they disingenuously frame the issue as eliminating homosexuality, which is not possible,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “When you target homosexuality, the result is persecution and punishment of LGBT people, and in many cases it leads to gay bashing or suicides. The anti-gay industry should dismantle these despicable programs and work towards creating solutions instead of suicides.”
In September, there have been three gay teen suicides as a result of school bullying:
Seth Walsh, the Bakersfield, CA 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his back yard after years of being bullied, died Tuesday afternoon after nine days on life support. Police investigators interviewed some of the young people who taunted Seth the day he hanged himself. “Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears,” Police Chief Jeff Kermode said. “They had never expected an outcome such as this.”
Asher Brown, 13, an eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Houston Texas. Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.
Billy (William) Lucas, 15, a student at Greensburg Community High School in Greensburg, IN, was found dead in a barn at his grandmother’s home Thursday evening — he had hanged himself. Friends say that he had been tormented for years. “He was threatened to get beat up every day,” friend and classmate Nick Hughes said. “Sometimes in classes, kids would act like they were going to punch him and stuff and push him. Some people at school called him names,” Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas’ sexual orientation.
“This insanity must stop and all school districts must commit to making school safe for LGBT students,” said TWO’s Besen. “It is inexcusable and unconscionable that bullying is tolerated in this day and age. Those responsible for allowing such tragedies to occur should be held responsible.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their misinformation and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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This is absolutely not a "new direction" so much as an evolution. The direction has always been to give whatever help we can to those who needs it while maintaining some sort of community spirit. And sometimes we don;t know who it is we're helping.
Consider this: The unknown kid we help by campaigning for bullying to stop may be your own.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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My father and his mother and sisters and brother had the
J
on their passports.
I am a first generation refugee.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Re: Have you ever wondered why some of us bang on and on and on? 
