Thursday, October 21, 2010

Growing up gay

In response to the recent rash of gay teen suicides, The Boston Globe has prominently displayed "Growing up gay" on Boston.com. The article includes personal stories of Bostonians who open up about the homophobia, fear, and isolation they endured as teens — and how they made it through.

This is just one example of why I moved and stayed in Boston some 13+ years ago. How many cities and parts of the country have so directly and compassionately addressed this issue? Certainly many sympathize privately with this situation, but the key to addressing this issue is publicly proclaiming your frustration and saying "life gets better." This is not an issue to be meek or shy about if you hope to make a difference so I wanted to thank my hometown paper, The Boston Globe, for taking on this issue and sharing so many stories with its readers. I'm sure somewhere there are teens reading these stories, nodding their heads identifying with those same issues - even here in liberal MA.

The Globe cautions that some of these stories contain homophobic epithets but you can check out The Boston Globe article here.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

That is terrific to hear. Our whole country (Canada) takes on the issue with a vengeance. Our GLBTQ community within my community is a strong force. It really takes a whole country to stand up against homophobia.

WranglerMan said...

Excellent piece. We can all relate!

Anonymous said...

Boston is a pretty cool city. I love it when I get up there.

Looking for IT jobs around there is pretty good too though I've managed to stay employed here in Providence.

Robyn said...

I have a friend who forwarded this article to me a few days ago and I finally got a chance to read it yesterday. I not only loved it but when I'm financially able to I'm going to move back to the city where I can be me and live without fear.

BosGuy said...

R.J. I wish you well. Boston is a great city to live in if you're gay. What we lack in good weather we make up for in other ways.