Tell us what its like being a gay/bi teen were you live
Myself. it is hard in my community. not a lot are out and a lot of hate for
us. I think if more. would come out maybe. we would be accepted. more .
At my school there. are a lot but they. are not out.
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I'm older now, but as a teenager I lived in a very difficult place, often threatened with homelessness and being beaten for things not even related to sexuality. Example of thing worthy of being threatened with homelessness: Sneezing in the middle of the night.
You might imagine how I fell for the mistake that I was "trapped'.
My best friend's dad offered me an out, and while I never took it, the fact that I had this amazing "option", a place to live, another family, if that's what it came to... It changed my life, and I made the conscious decision to never give up, ever. And because of that, I'm being a witness to how my own choices are, in fact, making my life better.
Being a gay teen is difficult, there's bullying, if you have poor parents your life is going to be difficult, and you have to go through a difficult time for an extended period of time. I experienced both things. There's also homelessness that can happen, living in shelters, leading to an incredibly difficult course if a homeless teen wants to have a happy life. But there's always the hope that it will get better as you progress through life. But isn't that the hope of all teenagers?
Yes, being gay is difficult, but honestly, there are people who aren't gay that go through all of these things as well. What connects us is that our experiences have the potential to give us a unique perspective, to increase our intelligence, to make us better. I say potential, because going through bullying and abuse can destroy a person. While I don't know if I would survive living the first decade and a half of my life again, now that I have, I don't regret it.
This is my experience as a "gay" teenager, but at the end of the day, I believe this could have been the experience of any teenager.
Just my opinion.
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You wanted a "generic" example of "where I live" too.
I attended a Catholic high school where essays and projects related to homosexuality were banned.
There was an openly gay student who had the support of his parents. Just the one. There was literally one openly gay student in my school. He had come out in late grade 9, or early grade 10.
He determined to make a gay straight alliance. The teacher who was in charge of the antibullying group helped him and he fought for the group and won. A fair amount of students went to the meetings. In his last year, he decided to do his research essay on homosexuality, and all but dared the English teacher to fight him on it. He got to do his essay.
He was bullied, he had gay slurs carved into his locker, he didn't care. He was an inspiring person to me, and also not in my grade level.
His efforts did make it easier to be a gay teenager in my school. Your wondering in regards to whether it would be easier if more teens were out is a good question.. The answer is yes, as it forces the faculty to admit they exist, and once there's a presence in the school, the drive for a safe environment for everyone can begin.
Note that you will never be accepted by everyone, and... at the highschool level, bullying will always exist, however the presence will simply put more of a stigma on bullying, and give victims powers to fight back.
My city is also rather conservative, so that's an important point, since many parents wouldn't care to hear their child bullying a gay kid, but they will care when their child is suspended and has criminal charges pressed against him on behalf of the school --- which is the response my school has to bullying.
And of course, with a higher rate of success in school will mean a higher rate of success of gay people in society, which makes it easier for gay people in future generations to be seen as "normal"... since when you've got successful individuals from a demographic, they have a voice and power in society as well.
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I live in a country with relatively limited homophobia, but the town I grew up and live in can be pretty homophobic at times. I'm not endangering myself in anyway by being openly gay and the worst kind of mistreatment I ever get is pretty much straight guys being sort of grossed out and uncomfortable. That's not very common though. I was verbally harrassed like once or twice but that wasn't very extreme.
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the main problem, if I werr to go looking for problems - my city is pretty damn fine with gay people - is that people don't say anything and so a lot of people don't have a very deep understanding of it. I find myself having to explain myself to people, which can be kind of awkward.
And obviously like everywhere you'll find people who just don't like gay people like my teacher who went to australia to be a monk, who would always go and insult protestant christians and gay people, without realising he's making the entire class uncomfortable.
But for the most part, aside from me having to hide it from the asian community because my mum's friends won't understand (the korean representative MP told me practically 99% of her korean constituency asked her to vote against the marriage equality bill and so she was forced to even though she had diffrrent personal views.) Auckland is a very liberal city and it's pretty nice here.
It's either that or everybody secretly hates me o.o
I'm sure it's not.
The thing about central auckland is, if you're even slightly annoying or stupid or asshole, people will talk shit about you all day, regardless of sexuality.
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Being different where I live is hard, extremely hard. Being a woman is hard and being a transexual? You have no idea how many transexual people get murdered by strangers and their parents. A total stranger gets in their house and murders them???? Who the fuck are you, not just to kill a transexual person but a human being?? Of course not everyone here is ignorant like the others, well educated people who are smart enough to understand our situation and gay friendly people exist ofc. Everybody uses the word "faggot" all the time like a british person uses the word "mate". Don't get me wrong of course you all have different issues, different people around you, I have no idea what you're going through but I believe I can say that it's at least %80 harder here than where you live.
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Well when I was a gay/bi teen I was probably the most popular kid in school...
I wasn't popular as in all the cool kids thought I was popular. I was popular as in I had more friends/fans than anyone. I had friends in all different years while I was out at school. ranging from 12 year olds to 18 year olds. (This is during my gay life at school 15-18)
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in 1981 it was a different time, homosexuality had only just been taken off the the list of 'Mental Illness' and not classified as a disease, BUT homosexuality in Australia was still illegal for another 8 years.
I was 12 years old and in my first year of high school when I met and fell in love with another boy. We struck up a friendship which lead to a lot of other things...he was my first boyfriend.
This relationship lasted a few months, we would spend every waking moment together...if we weren't together we would be on the phone to each other.
A mutual friend discovered what was going on and he was ultra religious and encouraged my BF to go to Youth Group and that is where they got into his ear with fire and brimstone stories about homosexuality. My BF then came to me and tried to talk me into get involved with the youth group, I declined and he gave me the ultimatum 'Join or I will shame you by telling everyone about you.'
The next 2 years of high school were torture with daily bashings, cigarette burns, humiliation and alienation. I started wagging school and doing things that no 15 year old boy should do or see which ultimately lead to several suicide attempts.
To be a homosexual teen in the 70's and 80's was not a good thing. Gay bashings and murders were common place and never really investigated because 'if they were going to be that way, they are just provoking this violence', so the general attitude was gays and lesbians deserved to die. There is still that element in society today, but not as prevalent as it was 30 years ago.
This little story isn't to say to you teens out there now 'We had it tougher 30 years ago, so shut up.' The purpose of my story is to tell you 'We went through these times that are far more repressive than you will most likely ever experience, but we hung in there, we hoped for better times and some of us fought for better times and guess what...here we are and here I am...gay, completely out, 100% accepted by my society, content and very happy.
So rather than ignore or reject older people, stand next to us, we know your battles, we can be your strength in your times of need.
Remember this (I Read this on Facebook recently) Suicide doesn't stop things getting worse...it stops things from getting better.
It does get better  .
FOOT NOTE : Such is the weirdness of the world, my first Boyfriend now has a wife and 3 kids, we both live 10km apart even though we grew up in the same home town 2 minutes apart from each other which is 1000km away frome where we both live now. AND the boy that was ultra religious and broke us up because homosexuality was a sin...oh! he is a faggot and one of Australia's most staunch gay rights campaigners...such is life hey?
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In High school a few students had some idea of me being a nerd.
Few figured me out but never let on.
Was I teased or bullied ?
Of course.
My attitude was these folks are ships passing at sea.
Nothing drastic...did get pushed into the shower but the gym teacher turned off the water before it happened.
I survived but never hide.
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My life currently is pretty good. I have a very easy time at school. I'm a big post of our school's social ladder as I bring all the groups together as a sort of bridge. It makes everyone love me, but people do genuinely like me, that's how I got there.
The only problem is my Mormon past. I was raised Mormon and it caused a lot off problems when I left the church. So that's about it. My mom and I have problems but they're more don't ask don't tell policy
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