Words hurt, more than the people wielding them may realize.
LGBTQ youth, like the ones in these videos, suffer from bullying and harassment more than other students.
This student delivers a powerful message without uttering a single word.
Seth Walsh hung himself in 2010. He had come out in the 6th grade and had faced intense bullying ever since. Watch his mother, Wendy Walsh, with the following words.
According to the National Education Association’s report on LGBTQ youth in America, these students face intense bullying and harassment that leads to lower grades, dropouts, hostility at home, homelesseness, anxiety, depression, higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide. Many school employees ignore homophobia in the classroom and around the school. The NEA estimates that millions of individuals are victims of bullies, and that millions more are the bullies themselves (2009).
The Day of Silence is coming up (April 15). It's a day to bring this issue to the forefront of people's minds. Check it out.
This is so powerful, so disturbing. Thank you for posting this. WE NEED a federal law to protect our youth in schools!
ReplyDeletethis is heartbreaking. i wish every middle schooler and every high schooler would watch these videos.
ReplyDeleteThere is an extreme lack of education on:
ReplyDelete-families with LGBT parents and/or members
-homophobia
-gender nonconformity
-bullying/harassment of LGBTQ kids/teenagers
..among other things. I'm doing a study on it right now, actually. People need to understand how much their words hurt other people, often irrevocably.