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Do anti-marriage equality ads just teach our children to bully?
My parents are grateful I didn’t kill myself while in school. The truth is that they didn’t know how close I came. Six out of ten teenagers, in 2011, witness bullying at least once a day in school. Those who are bullied are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. When you add those numbers together, there are a lot of children in our school systems who are isolated and alone and hurting…
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When will real change happen in Anoka-Hennepin schools?
Today — over 2 years after that awful summer day when I first learned about the bullying and harassment that Justin faced in school on a continuous basis, and confronting the Anoka-Hennepin school board for my first time at a public meeting about what my son and other gay students like him have endured in the schools — my family is still not able to heal the way we should have been able to…
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Spirit Day founder: ‘Go outside your comfort zone, make a stand’
NEW YORK — After a spate of teen suicides in the Fall of 2010 as a result of anti-gay bullying, one Canadian high school student decided that she was going to make a difference.
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A letter to my bully…
I have hated you almost every day since we first met. But for different reasons altogether than you might expect. I still remember the terror I felt, every time I approached the soccer field. It was junior high, a difficult time for almost everyone, but for me, especially so. You see, I’d always known I was gay…
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Questions remain after Long Island teen commits suicide over alleged anti-gay bullying
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — The Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Network said it would fast-track its efforts to open an LGBT community center in Suffolk County after learning that an East Hampton, N.Y. teen who was reportedly the victim of anti-gay bullying took his own life last week.
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LGBT-inclusive national suicide strategy unveiled
A new strategy unveiled Monday aimed at reducing the suicide rate in the United States includes a section on the rate of suicide for LGBT people — saying they may be particularly at risk because of “minority stress” and “institutional discrimination” resulting from anti-gay laws on the books.
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Remembering Alan Turing, prolific computer scientist, ‘convicted homosexual’
Today marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing, a brilliant British mathematician and computer scientist who was highly influential in the creating what would become the modern computer, and is most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes during World War II.
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El Paso gay teen, bullied for 2 years, commits suicide
EL PASO, Texas — Another bullied gay youth lost to suicide. El Paso teen Brandon Elizares, 16, took his own life on June 2, according to family and friends.
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Ravi to begin serving 30-day jail sentence, apologizes for his actions
Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student convicted earlier this year of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate who later committed suicide, will turn himself in Thursday to begin serving a 30-day prison term.
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Tyler Clementi’s suicide: Best to look not only at Ravi, but at society at large
The lack of public figures or role models for teenagers, and the hesitancy of schools to include same-sex sexualities in sex-ed curricula, despite these being a normal part of human sexuality, give these negative attitudes more influence by not contrasting them with the more positive reality. Given the body of mental health research that has consistently connected stigma and suicidality, and despite the progress we’ve made, the present state of society leaves me concerned…