Rant

Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the internet or to the news over the last week can sense that there is something going wrong.  Over the past week alone, there have been three gay teen suicides.  Three.  In one week.  And those are just the ones that are reported and connected to homophobic bullying.

These three incidents have taken place in the land of intolerance to the south.  That doesn't mean that homophobic bullying is non-existent in this great land of "tolerance" and "acceptance". It happens everyday.  We should not be so deluded to try to convince ourselves that here in Canada, because the gays can marry, everything is a-okay. Hardly! I can't count the number of times I walk down the street and get some random slur thrown my way because it happens every time I leave the house.  And it happens to everyone I know every time they leave the house.  

Bullying in schools needs to be addressed and dealt with at the very root of the problem.  Children need to be able to grow up without fear of having a sexuality, without fear of crossing an imaginary sexual line across the holy grail of abstinence.  The societal pressures that are put upon children to act like mini-adults and to conform and be constrained by these hair-brained binaries -  gendered and sexuality - are killing them.  

In reaction to the situation in the States Dan Savage has started a YouTube channel called the "It Gets Better Project" where people who have dealt with homophobia and bullying are invited to post a video about their experience and how life gets better once you leave the bullshit of adolescence - which even stems into the college ages now.  

Ellen DeGeneres also came out with a video today calling attention to the dire situation of gay teens.  

It's true, life does get better.  And it gets better not because people get better, call me a cynic but I haven't seen it yet.  They learn how to keep their mouths shut at "appropriate" times, but what actually, who actually gets better is you.  And it's wonderful.