Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center began demanding that officials in a Minnesota school district take strong actions to stop the relentless, often violent, bullying of LGBT students--or face a lawsuit to enforce the students' constitutional rights.

At least four LGBT students have died by suicide in the Anoka-Hennepin school district over the past two school years but the school district has failed to protect others from harassment. In addition, school officials have instituted a policy prohibiting teachers from even discussing the issue which further has the effect of further stigmatizing and isolating LGBT students. Teachers have stood idly by as LGBT students are harassed in front of them.

Comments appreciated.

I was bullied from 7th grade until Senior year. I am not sure if they decided to be nice or they were bored with making my life a living hell. At every class change in high school they would circle around me and punch me as they verbally assaulted and even spat on me. The very closeted gay guidance counselor walked past my assaults many times. Of course this was during the early 70's and in small town Ohio.

Teachers have to be involved to stop bullying and if it takes lawsuits to wake them up sue the hell out of them. I wish there had even been a class on how to stand up to bullies. I did not have a father to give advice and I was so worried about my mother knowing I was hated and why. I remember a girl running up to me as my mother was picking me up with a girls uniform and saying that I had forgotten it. Oh god not in front of my mother.

I have been speaking infrequently with a former classmate and he is surprised how much I do not remember from those days. I remember my name was Helen. I remember the first part of the class was getting over what had just happened and slowly focused on what the teacher was saying. Until of course 10-15 minutes before class change when I would shut down and begin dreading the halls. Then home to slap a smile on my face and tell my mom that school was great. Many nights I was so depressed I did not do my homework. As I have posted before I began to wonder if all my classmates were not correct and I was a loathsome creature.

Now that they are discussing bullying and the impact to the victim I need to say it needs to stop. When you know you are different that is tough but when you have many people abusing you for the differences it is hell. I knew the suicidal thoughts to stop the pain. Bullying must stop!

One way to halt school bullying is to threaten the school with loss of state/federal funding. When their pocketbooks are in danger, they'll take action.

I am somewhat familiar with this case. The school district involved has taken the position that to do other than ignore LGBT issues is to encourage behavior that is unacceptable to most of the parents and other adults in the district. The mantra is that "we are only doing what the people who elected us wanted us to do when they voted for us". To be fair this position is not defended by every school board member, but the dissenters are gradually being replaced at election time. --FLO--

These same idiots are going to blame everyone but themselves one one of these poor kids snaps and does something drastic. THe fact that they are ignoring basic laws of health and safety and allowing children to be assaulted at a place that they are legally required to attend is criminally negligent and morally repugnant.

There are young people that are bullied for other reasons. They need to tackle the issue for all students. If that will make it easier without the focus on LGBT students only and fear of encouraging the behaviors then make it a general student body issue. Absolutely no one needs to feel so bad about themselves that they think of dumping rat poison in a chocolate milkshake. Bullying must stop for all students.

Unfortunately, the Minn. law and schools are under the false idea that Homosexuality is a 'choice' and that if we 'shield the students' from these ideas, then they will grow up straight.

This ignors over 100 years of science. Even S. Freud wrote in the 1800's that the psychological problems faced by homosexual men and women were caused by living in an intollerant society.

tugon (imported) wrote: Wed May 25, 2011 5:05 pm I was bullied from 7th grade until Senior year. I am not sure if they decided to be nice or they were bored with making my life a living hell. At every class change in high school they would circle around me and punch me as they verbally assaulted and even spat on me. The very closeted gay guidance counselor walked past my assaults many times. Of course this was during the early 70's and in small town Ohio.

Teachers have to be involved to stop bullying and if it takes lawsuits to wake them up sue the hell out of them. I wish there had even been a class on how to stand up to bullies. I did not have a father to give advice and I was so worried about my mother knowing I was hated and why. I remember a girl running up to me as my mother was picking me up with a girls uniform and saying that I had forgotten it. Oh god not in front of my mother.

I have been speaking infrequently with a former classmate and he is surprised how much I do not remember from those days. I remember my name was Helen. I remember the first part of the class was getting over what had just happened and slowly focused on what the teacher was saying. Until of course 10-15 minutes before class change when I would shut down and begin dreading the halls. Then home to slap a smile on my face and tell my mom that school was great. Many nights I was so depressed I did not do my homework. As I have posted before I began to wonder if all my classmates were not correct and I was a loathsome creature.

Now that they are discussing bullying and the impact to the victim I need to say it needs to stop. When you know you are different that is tough but when you have many people abusing you for the differences it is hell. I knew the suicidal thoughts to stop the pain. Bullying must stop!

Compared to that, I had an easier time of it, but my bullying started with K and continued to 12. Not as bad as you describe, only beat up twice. I was once told that I should commit suicide because I would not amount to anything. (so far, they are right. a Janitor, a Tech Supporter, and a Security guard. all low life positions) but yet I persist, I have come here because I have this strange fascination with depriving others of sexuality, sometimes I imagine it's me, other times I am the cutter. I do not know if it's an abnormality, something needing changing, or something that will disappear if I ever get laid without first paying for it. but here I will agree. Bullying must stop. it ruined my life and I am sure many others. I think the worst cases I ever read were just before 9/11, when Slashdot ran a storyline called "Voices of the Hellmouth", which detailed the after-effects of the Columbine massacre. Nerds that already had issues were removed from school because they knew of the anger that was initially attributed to the shooters.

They had made no threats, just understood the mindset, and that was enough for the school to expel them. all this because they had been bullied, too. There's more to say, but I am out of steam at the moment. more later.

Eunuchorn (imported) wrote: Sun May 29, 2011 6:27 pm Compared to that, I had an easier time of it, but my bullying started with K and continued to 12. Not as bad as you describe, only beat up twice. I was once told that I should commit suicide because I would not amount to anything. (so far, they are right. a Janitor, a Tech Supporter, and a Security guard. all low life positions) but yet I persist, I have come here because I have this strange fascination with depriving others of sexuality, sometimes I imagine it's me, other times I am the cutter. I do not know if it's an abnormality, something needing changing, or something that will disappear if I ever get laid without first paying for it. but here I will agree. Bullying must stop. it ruined my life and I am sure many others. I think the worst cases I ever read were just before 9/11, when Slashdot ran a storyline called "Voices of the Hellmouth", which detailed the after-effects of the Columbine massacre. Nerds that already had issues were removed from school because they knew of the anger that was initially attributed to the shooters.

They had made no threats, just understood the mindset, and that was enough for the school to expel them. all this because they had been bullied, too. There's more to say, but I am out of steam at the moment. more later.

Thank you for sharing. If you were beat up two times that was two times too many. Neither one of us deserved the physical pain nor the verbal abuse. Of course it took me a long time to believe it.

My favorite movie used to be Stephen King's "Carrie" where she killed her classmates after they ruined the only good night she might have had. I could also understand the desire to shoot the bullies but back when I was in school that was not thought of yet. Funny they removed those who had been bullied as opposed to those doing the bullying. Lets revictimize the victims and allow the bullies to win.

I agree that being told repeatedly you are not going to amount to much can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Please stop repeating their messages to you. If you still have those thoughts sadly they win again. We must make sure they do not win again. Believe people when they tell you good things about you. They are correct and those from the past are wrong.

I do not think my desire to be a eunuch had anything to do with them and I never had any desire to emasculate them but I did want to be the Invisible Man. I thought it would be cool to torment them without them seeing it coming. Being invisible I think was a sign of how powerless I felt in those days.

Today I do not think of them except when it comes to the bullying issue and I want others to know how devastating it can be. Then I will dredge up the pain so others might understand. Today please look within yourself for the great person you are and not the false images they gave you. We all have our talents and they are not always defined by the job we are doing at the moment. I am an in home devastating who bathes, cooks and cleans for an elderly couple. I am so much more than what I do for a living. I am a traveler, art collector, photographer and a good friend to some.

It's a bit hard to do anything about LGBT bullying when the teachers in the institutions aren't LGBT and don't really know sh*t about it.

Some of you may have been aware of my year long ordeal.

The equality officer in my university's department was way over her head when it came to the issue of passive discrimination against trans people.

She effectively said a line to me that implied I do not have the same rights to socialisation and privacy as a cisgendered person. Whether she realised what she was saying or not, is perhaps debatable. But even if it was unintended in the way it came out, it just goes to show how over their heads institutional staff are when it comes to issues that are very much on the forefront of social evolution.

Hell I bet if I did a survey here on passive discrimination, I would get a LOT of people who would disagree out of sheer ignorance. Many of EA's members have already demonstrated in the past that they're simply not as progressive as they'd like to think, if people on EA can still be lacking in such key areas, what hope for the regular straight public?

My problem has still not been resolved and has severely impacted my studies (long story short, I may have to repeat the year, IF i can afford it, or drop out), even now the only way I can deal with passive discrimination is to suppress my own emotions at being subjected to it.