netwrker/uk

I’ve been following this a lot since the news started breaking on Wednesday and it just moves me. I know in the USA there’s a lot of issue with LGBTQ youth in schools (to which almost anyone with power is largely ignoring), but I think this case is even more significant. Not least because it’s another in a long list of cries for help and/or release, but because for a short time, he had his brief, actual hope.

Despite his hardship for so long at the end of last year and the start of this, he started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Through family, friends, counselling and his music (with tribute to Lady GaGa there), saw hope, so much so that he recorded his own ‘It Gets Better’ video (this video). You can see the pain he’s been through when he talks and even though he is young he wants to pass a true message from someone going through it back out to those that need it.

Four months later, he killed himself.

All this hope, promise and belief that he managed to find in himself once again was taken way, beyond the point of no return, and one final sleep was the only way out he could now see.

All around this world, this must stop. The ignorance portrayed, and the hate give out, by Religion/the Religious or by those who see the world built around their morals, especially in those countries that consider themselves free and civilised, is really angering me. I know there are exceptions to the rule, and I know that there are those with faith that do truly follow the tenants of love, life and tolerance, but something must now give.

To those that use nothing more than belief and ignorance to perpetuate their hate, yet preach love, and want nothing more than to enforce their morals on everyone while at the same time extolling the virtues of freedom and choice - this boy’s blood is on your hands, along with all those before and any in the future that suffer this emptiness (although I hope with all my heart we are so close to the end).

I know my words can never mean much to him now and probably as a single person, my abilities to change the world, or even a small bit of it, are limited, but for as long as it takes, I will stand with those who are bullied or victimised for something they didn’t choose and is simple a part of who they are.

There are people who are white, there are people who are black, there are people who are Latino/a, there are people who are Asian, there are people who are Australian, there are people who areBritish, there are people who are Icelandic, there are people who are gay, there are people who arestraight, there are people who are bisexual, there are people who are lesbian, there are people who are pansexual, there are people who are just plain sexual, there are transgender people, and there are cysgender people (in short, not trans), there are people who are asexual, there are people who are beautiful, there are people who have frizzy hair, there are people who have high cheekbones, there are people who have acne, there are people who are a little larger than most, there are people who are a little bit thinner than most, there are people who wear Lady Gaga tees, there are people who wear strictly Armani, there are people who rock out with their Crocs out, there are old people, there are young people, there are toddlers, there are people who are a collage of all of these identities whom we don’t know yet, because they are still in utero, there are people who boycott Starbucks, there are people who don’t know any other coffeeshops, there are people who work out five times a week, there are people training to be triathletes, there are people who have never seen a dumbell in their lives and have no plans to, there are people who can run five miles, there are people who can walk three meters, there are people who can’t walk at all, there are people whocan’t hear, see, smell, taste, who see colors as sounds and hear sounds in concepts and there are people who are majoring in philosophy and business and recreation and people who will bestereotype straight, fixing up the house on the weekends, and loving his kids, and there will be thegay men who consider homosexuality to be just another trait, and there will be gay men who will be the baddest fabulous-est queeniest bitches on the block, and there will be super butch and less butch lesbians, and there will be people will 1,000 friends on Facebook, and there will be people whoprefer the company of books, because books really GET them, and there are people who will marryand people who will sleep around, people who will marry a career, and people who will devote their lives to what they believe in. There will be people who are confident, but more often there are people who deep down, feel insecure, and not good enough, and though encompassed by a sea of people every single day, they feel alone. There are people who don’t know the meaning of the word “alone” at all, but I’ve never met one. There are seven billion people in the world, but above anything else, there are people, who are really just trying to get by.

So kindly lay off those people you think are weird. If you put that energy you are using to put someone else down into figuring out your own true identity, I promise you that, even for you, your life and your feelings of self worth will get better. And you know what? Maybe the world will be a better place.

R.I.P. Jamey Rodemeyer. Despite people telling you that you horrible and disgusting and wrong for your love, you were, are, and forever will be fucking perfect. I hope you can see that now, wherever you are.

I won’t take credit for this; written by Love, Sex and Ramen.