Time for the Queerty Week in Comments, with some of the most compelling, thought-provoking or just downright bitchy comments that came directly from you, the readers!
“Everybody has to make the decision for themselves whether or not they’re going to fight back against bullying or intimidation. When I was fourteen I told my parents that I wanted to study dance. “Okay,” my father agreed, but he also enrolled me in karate classes. And I got good. As the only guy who actually ever wore tights in my suburban high school, the karate and martial arts served me in good stead. Yes, there were a couple of fights. After all, ballet dancers are supposed to be easy marks. But people learned to leave me alone. I wasn’t popular, but they left me alone.
Now I teach martial arts, and when we had a gay community center here, I taught self-defense classes for gay kids and adults. You have to decide if you want to fight back, and then you have to learn how. Violence may not solve things in the long term, but it can often save your life – or someone else’s – in the immediate now.”
Storm gives some good advice from real life experience in Scott Thompson: Forget It Gets Better—Bullied Gay Kids “Need To Grow A Pair”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
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“Dear Blaine,
Your freaking triangular eye brows are just getting creepy at this point. Please STOP
Sincerely,
Viewer”
Pip is also scared of handlebar mustaches, long sideburns, and spoons in The Not-So-Explicit Deflowering of Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson on Last Night’s Glee
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“Meth will turn me into a creepy gay prostitute? That’s all I ever really wanted.”
Tallest has dreams, big dreams, in WATCH: Meth Will Turn You Into A Creepy Gay Prostitute
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“Can penguins get drunk and stoned? That’s what it took with me when I was 19.”
Greg suggest how same-sex-oriented waterfowl can get it up for chicks in Will Toronto’s Gay Penguins Willingly Impregnate A Female?
Mav
More gay kids SHOULD fight back. As a gay kid I did. As a gay adult, I carry a switchblade and just knowing I have a pretty fierce weapon to fight back with should I get cornered by homophobic jackasses helps me walk with more confidence and avoid such encounters in the first place. I would carry a gun, but my workplace doesn’t permit them so a three-inch blade is the most dangerous thing I can carry with me at all times.
Am I going to win a gunfight? No. But even if two or three guys cornered me with the intent of beating me up or kidnapping me for worse, I’m pretty sure I could hold them off.
If some inbred retards ever dragged me into their pickup truck (like what happened to that Utah college student the other week) and tried to pummel me, I would have absolutely no qualms about pulling out the knife and going all Michael Myers on their asses. No hesitation. I practice getting it out of my pocket alone so it will be muscle memory should the moment ever come that I actually need it. I also practice with it so that I’m prepared in case anyone tries to take it away from me and use it against me, though if you don’t hesitate in your counterattack and strike true, that should be the last thing on your attacker’s mind after OMG HE STABBED ME OMG HE STABBED ME and OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW.
Stabbing someone who attacks you first is self defense. If you accidentally kill someone in self defense who has the intent of committing a violent (or deadly) hate crime against you, I wouldn’t consider it any great loss to humanity. If it was me, you wouldn’t catch me losing any sleep over it.
It’s a dog eat dog world. Welcome to the jungle.
chuck
For those of you who are planning on decrying ‘Mav’ defensive attitude…a lot of women are taking self-defense classes. Better to be prepared than wishing you had taken such classes after you are bashed and having six operations to repair the damage.
the other Greg
There’s no reason to conflate the original point – systematic bullying of children in what is supposed to be a controlled school setting, supervised by adults – with any and all violence directed at gay adults. That’s an entirely different point. But I realize some of you are not very bright.
Mav
In this era of public massacres and senseless murders of people of all ages (gay AND straight) to depend solely on “the system” for one’s personal safety is ridiculously naive.
Violence against gays is violence against gays, regardless of the age of the victim.
Is there really any such thing as a “controlled setting?” I highly doubt it. I immediately question the integrity of any system which *claims* to be a “controlled setting,” because such proclamations are usually fed by an arrogant worldview which leads to carelessness, and that carelessness eventually leads to violence. People in those situations are always “stunned” in the aftermath, and why not? They went around foolishly thinking they were safe and paid the price for it.
In any case, I’m not putting my trust in any system where a kid can walk right into their middle school and blow the back of his classmate’s head off without even being charged with murder, simply because he’s a minor.
The system will not protect you. Not as a kid, not as an adult.
Think like a wolf or die like a sheep.
Your choice.
Mav
@the other Greg: Greg, do you honestly think anyone cares whether smug anonymous trolls on the Internet like you think they are intelligent or not? I’m bright enough to recognize a self-righteous douchebag when I see one.
Get over yourself. Nobody gives a shit what you think.
the other Greg
Well you’re even more “anonymous” than I am. What’s a “Mav”? 🙂
I apologize for saying you were unintelligent (I could have left out that remark), but you wrote a very lo-o-ong post about something that was simply unrelated to the article.
Being bullied as a kid has nothing to do with adult life.
“Violence against gays is violence against gays, regardless of the age of the victim.” No, not even close. Childhood bullying often leads to suicide, but how often is there a gay-bashing murder in a school? Fortunately, not often. It’s not just a matter of degree; they are different settings and causes.
I said school is “supposed” to be a controlled setting, not that it is one. School bullying occurs because irresponsible adults allow it to happen. Scott Thompson and others completely twist the argument around to blame the victim, lessen the adults’ responsibility, and conflate childhood bullying with adult anti-gay violence. Besides being offensive, this seems to me a ludicrously convoluted approach to the problem. It’s a hell of lot easier to just have the adults do their jobs for a change and get the damn school under control – we’re not talking rocket science here.
As an adult I have a noticeable disability so, like it or not, naive or not, I pretty much have to “depend solely on ‘the system’ for [my] personal safety.” Actually I might enjoy your suggestions but I would also enjoy being able to fly like Superman, it’s just not an option.
Your S/M fantasies are impressive, maybe even commendable, and they may even work for you in certain circumstances, but that doesn’t mean they would work for every gay person everywhere, which is apparently what you’re advocating.
the other Greg
Also, I’m the Greg who wondered if penguins can get drunk & stoned. Thanks for the recognition! – my first week here too (& I joined as a member). So there, Mav – somebody DOES give a shit what I think!
Mav
@the other Greg: Actually my comment was not unrelated to the original article. Just because you disagree with the correlation between the gay bashing of adults and the gay bashing of students doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It’s just *your* opinion – we’re all entitled to one, and you disagreeing with mine doesn’t make mine wrong.
“Being bullied as a kid has nothing to do with adult life.”
^ As a former bullied kid, I beg to differ. It’s sort of a worldview-altering experience. Yes, you “get over it” to some degree (if you live to tell about it) but you do not forget it.
“No, not even close. Childhood bullying often leads to suicide, but how often is there a gay-bashing murder in a school? Fortunately, not often.”
^ Bullying IS murder, and if you consider bullying murder, gay kids are murdered a lot more often than their adult counterparts, just in a more indirect manner. When the victims end up rotting in a grave regardless, either by being shot in the face or by being bullied into shooting *themselves* in the face, I don’t think splitting hairs really contributes that much to the conversation.
“I said school is “supposed” to be a controlled setting, not that it is one.”
^ Well I’m “supposed” to be able to fly like Superman, but apparently someone didn’t give God the memo, because that’s not the way the world works or ever will. Also, kids are “supposed” to leave you alone if you leave *them* alone, but the Golden Rule theory never worked very well in my Alabama schoolyards. Personal experience has shown me that hypothetical ivory tower suppositions don’t really have much real-life application, as any gay kid hanging in their closet by a belt or lying facedown in class with their brains blown out would tell you (if they still could).
“It’s a hell of lot easier to just have the adults do their jobs for a change and get the damn school under control – we’re not talking rocket science here.”
^ O rly? Is that why our school systems are so safe for gay kids then? If it’s so easy, why hasn’t it been done? I think some educators would probably argue against you about how easy it is to control middle school/high school students, especially with the advent of cyberbullying (which is much harder to regulate than the hallway sort).
“As an adult I have a noticeable disability so, like it or not, naive or not, I pretty much have to “depend solely on ‘the system’ for [my] personal safety.””
Don’t really know how to respond to this. I’m torn between two: a) Wheelchairs have plenty of pockets for concealed weapons, and b) hopefully if someone comes after you, someone like me will be around to protect you. I am as quick to fight in the defense of other innocent people as I am to defend myself.
Obviously not everyone has the means to protect themselves, but anyone who DOES and doesn’t take some measure to do so is foolish in my humble opinion. Can’t force people to be cautious, but I guess Darwin called that one.
“Also, I’m the Greg who wondered if penguins can get drunk & stoned. Thanks for the recognition! – my first week here too (& I joined as a member). So there, Mav – somebody DOES give a shit what I think!”
^ I’m sure stoned penguins find your commentary riveting. =)
In any case, you missed the very first word of my comment.
MORE gay kids should fight back.
Not all.
Not even most.
Just more.
the other Greg
You stress our difference of opinion, then you universalize your own experience: “As a former bullied kid, I beg to differ. It’s sort of a worldview-altering experience. Yes, you ‘get over it’ to some degree (if you live to tell about it) but you do not forget it.”
Really? I was bullied very badly, and I remember researching methods of suicide, but… pfffft, I mostly forgot about it. I occasionally think about it when the subject comes up (like now). But a few short years after the bullying, I had grown-up stuff to think about, was far away from where I grew up, was in the military, had responsibilities, had the future to think about, then a little later I had to figure out how to deal with gay adult life, sex, boyfriends, jobs etc. I doubt I’m all that unusual – I pretty much forgot about the bullying because adult life (even when bad) is fairly compelling and requires some attention, and for most un-closeted gay people, adult life is more satisfying and fun to think about (most of the time) than some long-ago childhood stuff that was, you know, bad.
“MORE gay kids should fight back.”
Sure, and that’s always been the message anyway. There has always been some bad-ass adult male figure around to say the kid should fight back – and imply if they DON’T fight back, they deserve to be bullied. Nowadays we have gay men like Scott Thompson simply adding themselves to the bad-ass coach / father / driver-ed-teacher mix. Progress?
If a gay kid feels confident enough to fight back and manages to do so effectively, that’s great, that’s hunky-dory, but is anyone really telling him NOT to do that? A few “zero tolerance” school distracts, and… that’s it. Out of the 100+ Queerty comments in the past week on this subject, I don’t recall anyone saying gay kids should never fight back. (Maybe there were one or two total pacifists in there someplace.)
If a gay kid has it together enough to fight back, he’s probably not suicidal. “It Gets Better” is directed at the more suicidal audience. It doesn’t say not to fight back either; it merely urges them to focus on the future a bit and hear that adult life will be better. You can say maybe IGB is a little too sanguine since adult gay life isn’t always *dramatically* better, but it’s just… better. And different! – it has nothing much to do with childhood. (For a lot of us anyway… okay I won’t universalize it. If any grown-up here has one of those bad therapists who wants them to wallow in childhood trauma, wallow away!)
“hopefully if someone comes after you, someone like me will be around to protect you. I am as quick to fight in the defense of other innocent people as I am to defend myself.”
Damn… I have to admit that’s sweet. Thanks!
the other Greg
You can’t have it both ways. Is fighting back effective for kids, or isn’t it? Make up your mind.
If you’re not suicidal about it NOW, that’s the point – they are kids, you are not.
If you fought back, but still the bullying changed your “worldview” forever, keeps you miserable decades later, gave you a permanent martyr complex, etc…. then, uh… what’s so great about fighting back, exactly?
If you’re still all psychologically fucked up about the bullying decades later, even though you DID fight back… maybe you should avoid piously lecturing adults who were bullied too and did NOT fight back, yet who are less miserable than you are about it now.
Another reason not to confuse anti-gay violence in general from the specific crisis of child suicide.