From Twitter 09-23-2010

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

I love this

This is a great story, and wonderful example of Decrease Worldsuck.

Quick — what’s your worst memory from high school?

Try to narrow it down to just one. Does it involve being bullied? Made fun of for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender? Does it involve getting called names, laughed at, ostracized, reviled, and demeaned?

We all, in the LGBT community, have some of those memories. Whether they happened when we were five or 14 or in college or even later, those moments scarred us, they bred fear, they held us back. They damaged our lives. And for all too many of us, they may even have convinced us that life as an LGBT person was not worth living, and caused us to attempt suicide.

Even in this era when the LGBT community is more visible and more positively regarded than ever before in the U.S. — when the federal courts are beginning to rule in favor of equality, the vast majority of the population supports our right to serve openly in the military, and an increasing number of states and cities have found ways to legally recognize our unions and our families — the suicide rate among LGBT youth is still many times that of the general population. Among transgender youth, the rate of attempted suicide may be as high as 50 percent. Of all kids in the U.S. who actually do kill themselves, fully 30 percent are estimated to be gay, lesbian, or transgender.

Thirty percent. Nearly one-third of people between the ages of five and 24 who kill themselves identify as LGBT. When we comprise only 10 percent at most of the total population. Those numbers are huge, and horrifying.

But of course, as all of us who have survived know very well, it gets better. And that is the point of a new project begun by columnist and author Dan Savage on YouTube. Dan and his husband Terry were moved by the recent story of Billy Lucas, a gay teen in Indiana who hanged himself after ongoing bullying. They realized that what kids like Billy need is to hear from adult gays and lesbians who have lived through the misery they’re experiencing, and who have come through it to discover a great life on the other side.

Of course, as Dan points out, gay adults are not invited into schools and churches to offer encouragement to gay youth. But why wait for permission when there’s the Internet?

Dan and Terry launched a channel on YouTube. They made its first video together, telling stories about their struggles as teenagers and, much more important, how happy their lives are now, as adults, partners, and parents. They are soliciting more videos from all of us who have good stories to tell.

Growing up gay often continues to be horrible, even as our community’s situation overall is getting steadily better. Being an outcast, being different, means you’re going to be abused in school. To be gay in a society where issues of gender and sexuality are as incendiary as they are in the US means you’re a magnet for every cruelty your peers have ready to spew out. Those of us who have made it through have a responsibility to share our stories, to tell LGBT youth that life does get better, and to let them know that there is an entire community out here ready and eager to welcome them.