“I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you… have got to give them hope.” Harvey Milk
In the past few months, there have been strong reactions to several suicides in the American gay community. However, in addition to the usual expressions of sorrow for the victims, there have been efforts to do exactly what Harvey Milk suggested.
Sex advice columnist Dan Savage, along with his husband, recorded a video recounting how they were bullied in high school, and how years later they realized things do improve. The end result was “It Gets Better”, a channel on YouTube, and now a website where anyone can record their experiences growing up gay, lesbian, transgendered, (etc.). This has resulted in several prominent individuals sharing their story, including fashion maven Tim Gunn, Chris Colfer from Glee and even Joel Burns, a city councilman in, of all places, Texas. All these stories ended with the person telling the viewer to embrace hope, and know that it gets better.
Other similar projects springing up recently included “Spirit Day”, when people were encouraged to wear purple to show support for LGBT youth who were being victimized by bullies, and locally in Calgary “Project Blue Sky”.
The question is - why the sudden attention? After all, LGBT Youth have been bullied for years, and a significant portion of those youth go on to commit suicide. Yet, the level of awareness regarding this problem seemed to explode in the last few months, which was a bit unusual. Additionally, these calls for hope and support mostly originated from the States, so I wondered if we had similar concerns in Canada.
James Demers: Come out at a younger age, and face a strong backlash.
James Demers is currently with the Miscellaneous Youth Network (MYN). MYN was created to provide and increase education, support and resources with regards to and for gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, questioning, two-spirited and trans-identified youth.
James suspects there are two reasons why we are seeing so much coverage of queer youth suicides in the media. In the past, when a gay youth came out, they came out later in their teens or in their early 20s where there was a possibility they could grasp and handle greater autonomy. Presently, queer youth are coming out younger to parents and the community, and this means that they could be exposed to longer periods of bullying; never mind the possibility unsupportive parents or unforgiving religious backgrounds to compounds the situation.
Second, James believes the increased exposure of queer culture is causing a backlash. “Where in larger cities there is more acceptance,” James told us, “...smaller towns are reacting worse than in the past, creating a witch hunt out of outing queer people in their community and ostracizing them. Exposure to queer culture without education backfires dramatically for kids in this situation.” And furthermore, many small towns lack the LGBT support network that a large metropolis usually has.
As for comparisons to the US, in Canada we have positive influences and protection coming from government bodies and our laws. For our American brothers and sisters, they are backed into a corner – how can you demand equal treatment when you’re not granted equality under the law? This is not to say we should be complacent here in Canada, James adds: “I believe we take for granted the severity and frequency at which anti-gay crime happens in Canada because there is an assumption in the broader community that queer bashing and violence don’t occur here. Our silence is our plague in Canada, where discrimination and inequality is the larger issue in the States.”
Michael Phair: The impact sexuality has on becoming an adult.
In 1992, Michael Phair was the first openly gay man elected to Edmonton’s city council. Currently he is the Director of Community Relations at the University of Alberta, as well as an adjunct Professor of Education and a board member of the University’s City-Region Studies Centre.
While Michael knows there may be many reasons a young person considers suicide, he told us, “a major step in becoming an adult is expressing oneself sexually. Accepting and expressing one’s gayness can be overwhelming in many communities in the US and Canada - and may lead a young gay man to fear and/or see no future for themselves.”
Michael suspects this recent rise in attention to the situation our youth face does come from the media and especially the social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter). Additionally, while people in Canada are learning certain behaviours are not tolerated, in the United States hatemongers are still allowed a degree of openness. Consequently, “Canada has seen substantial positive changes in the last 20 years in attitudes towards the GLBT community and I think that the numbers of suicides, although still too frequent, have not increased as seen south of the border.”
Brendan Van Alstine: In the past, a suicide victim’s sexuality was hushed.
Brendan is the Social Work & Fund Development Coordinator for the Pride Centre of Edmonton. He thinks this uptick in awareness of the problems facing queer youth is due to a number of factors, including both increased acceptance of sexual minority communities and the increased awareness of how sexual identity may play a role in a person’s decision to take their life.
Furthermore, Brendan knows, “there have always been queer teen suicides, but up until very recently, the queer factor may have been unknown to anyone but the person taking their own life, or the family may not have wished to discuss the sexual orientation of (or ‘out’) their dead loved one.”
This last point struck a chord with me as I remember such an incident from Edmonton, in the mid-1990s. A young man - well known to our community - had taken his life. The family (of Christian faith) denied he had any issues with his sexuality; instead it was labelled the copy-cat act of a troubled young man emulating his hero - Kurt Cobain.
Nate Phelps: Do not hide who you are, and let no one deny you equal footing with another.
The difference this time regarding the response to these deaths has been the push to give hope: to shine light, while hatemongers spew out darkness. Someone with first-hand experience of a group that bullies the LGBT community is Nate Phelps. Born of Pastor Fred Phelps, coming out of the shadow of Westboro Baptist Church, he is now an atheist, a speaker about his experiences, an ally of our community, and Alberta Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry.
Nate knows that despite how nasty some of the bullies can be, our society is changing for the better. He watches as his family pleads their case to the American Supreme Court to justify their protesting at funerals, knowing even if Westboro Baptist Church wins this legal case, their days and the days of inequality towards the LGBT community are numbered.
“Be clear about this,” Nate told us, “...you are on the side of right. The cruel rhetoric of social conservatives, the outrage of the religious community, the sometimes brutal insensitivity of family and friends will - no - MUST, give way to the righteousness of your cause. The obstacles continue to fall and the truth of the vibrant, creative, intelligent, intrinsically valuable LGBT community will finally be realized. Do not hide who you are. Do not accept the condemnation of the ignorant. Look at yourselves, recognize and rejoice in your strengths and let no man, Pope or peasant, deny you equal footing with any other.”
In the end it comes down to providing inspiration, educating others, and giving hope. We also have to remember, just because we have equal rights in Canada, our fight isn’t over. It would be nice to say, by talking about this problem, we’ll prevent another teen from taking his or her life because they suspect their sexuality is different than what their family, friends or church may want; sadly that may not happen. However, if we do talk about it with the younger members of the community, if we do let them know we will help fight for them, if we do provide support and help, and if we do provide them hope, we will replace further despair with love.
