words

Today's class was very interesting. I think that this topic is a hot topic right now and something that we all need to fully embrace. After reading my books for the final project, I must say that my eyes have been opened ten times wider to what we are putting these people through and how they must feel breaks, just breaks apart my heart. To hide, to feel ashamed, to feel stupid and ugly, to feel all these horrible emotions simply because they are gay/lesbian or a transgender? To me it is extremely appalling. As we talked about today in class I am an avid supporter of Perez Hilton and I am checking his site all day, literally, every single day. Within the past few weeks there have been three different stories of a young male, about 11 years old, being bulled for being or thinking they are gay, and that young male taking their life. The mother of one of these young boys was on Ellen today and talked about what happened with her son. Tears were brought to my eyes over what this young boy went through. I myself was harassed and bullied everyday when I was younger in school for being overweight, and some days I thought about what it would be like if I no longer existed, just so the bullying would stop. I overcame what I was going through but the harm was done, and to this day I still am not completely healed. These young boys lives were cut short, because they could just not take the bulling for being gay. GOSH SO WHAT! so what if your gay!! I just cant understand or comprehend why it bothers people SO MUCH! It just makes no sense to me. As a teacher, when I have my own classroom I might have to deal with something like this. Within my classroom I am going to have a no tolerance for bulling, and I hope I can make a difference. I find bulling to be something that can be prevented, all these deaths could of been prevented. I find kids who bully kids who themselves have insecurities and whose parents have no idea what is going on in their children's lives. It makes me sick to think that these kids are the result of these young boys death. No child should ever have to feel unsafe at school, no child should be bullied and no child should ever have to even think about taking their own life for being homosexual. There is nothing wrong with being homosexual, and to me it seems the heterosexuals are the ones with the "issues" because they cannot accept others, they cannot see the happiness of others, and think that everyone needs to be like them. I hope that someday we can get past all these bullshit (sorry for the language) it just needs to be said, there is no excuse for any of this behavior and those who feel that others need to be punished because of their choices, are the ones who need to evaluate who they are and stop worrying so much about other people. I am hoping that through my final project I can connect more with this diverse literature and bring to others information that may be useful to them. Thanks, and if anyone reads this all the way through- thank you for listening to my venting!