36 going on 16…gay isn’t easier or a choice.

The recent publicity on gay teen suicides has hit close to home.  I was a gay teenager once, before things like cable television, the internet and social networking made a small town boy feel a bit more connected to a big city world.  I was left to piece together a fractured gay identity secretly through the JCPenny’s catalog cut-outs hidden under my mattress and some wishful thinking that I could cure myself from being gay.

The saving grace was that my shame was buried so deeply and my desire for acceptance was so great that I never contemplated suicide.  I wanted to hide anything that made me seem different.  Made me seem gay.  I didn’t want to end up on that island that my dad suggested all the fags with AIDS should live on and die.

But fast-forward to now and it is a sad truth that in an all-access wired society, gay kids still feel an incredible sense of isolation and loneliness.  So much so that death seems like the only viable solution for many.

In hindsight, my time in middle school and high school has been reduced to a series of vignettes that center on the cruelty of my peers.  This is not a unique experience for most-I understand this-but when filtered through the lens of a kid struggling to make sense of himself sexually it gets more complicated.  This isn’t just acne, quarreling friends or gossip. It’s the reality of forever…and when you are young, forever feels like a REALLY long fucking time.

At 16, gay is a part of you that you begin to know you can’t fundamentally change but sometimes wish to God you could.  I remember talking to myself to try and lessen a lisp that I worried was forming; walking around in my room to focus on not looking gay when I walked or not having a limp wrist when I talked.

And this is where I completely understand the utter loneliness that accompanies the struggle to find oneself for a gay teenager.  You are left to figure out who you are while trying to simultaneously hide who you are.  At least that was my story. I know sadly this does not make me unique, either-even now.

I was hopeful that 18 years after graduation from a rural high-school that things had improved.  Forever the optimist, I struggle to find the silver lining in 2010.  I teach smart, privileged kids, many of whom know they have a gay teacher, and I still overhear things like “That’s so gay” or “Fag” as part of their robust teenage vernacular.

And it makes me sick.  I diligently correct this language and feel that I have helped to create a safe space on campus for my students, but a small island will not protect kids from the hurricane of hate that swirls around them daily.

I’m not sure how to wrap this up…hope it doesn’t sound too self-indulgent.  It’s just that I’ve been filled with a lot of sadness and despair of late and didn’t know how else to express it…I just want gay kids to know that the struggle, the torture isn’t forever…it does get better.

It does.