A message to troubled gay teens: It gets better, but you gotta help it along

We’ve all been shocked, angered, and saddened by the recent suicides of gay teens like Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi and high school student Justin Aaberg of Andover, Minnesota.

From all across the nation and around the world, messages of compassionate solidarity have poured forth, many of them through writer Dan Savage’s It Gets Better campaign.

There has also been an escalation of the debate about how society, and schools in particular, should handle the issue of bullying. We may disagree about the particulars, but I think there is widespread consensus that the kind of society we’d like to build is not one in which pathological harassment—especially among children—goes unnoticed.

The ignorant snots in New Jersey who surreptitiously filmed Tyler Clementi having sex with another student and then broadcast their handiwork are just that: ignorant snots. They would also be ignorant snots if they’d filmed Tyler with a girl, and they’d still be ignorant snots if Tyler hadn’t tragically offed himself. Likewise, the sniveling twits in Minnesota who chose to direct their energies toward making Justin Aaberg’s life as difficult as possible would also be sniveling twits if Justin were still with us. These kids did not suddenly become maladroit asshats at the moment their victims abandoned ship.

But, to be honest with you, I’m not nearly as concerned about snots and twits being snots and twits as I am about vibrant young people ending their lives because of said derelicts. The issues are directly related, but are not inseparable. If a person chooses to harass another, that’s his or her fault, and he or she should be held responsible for it.

The same goes, though, for anyone who commits suicide. And almost all of us have stood hypnotized in the face of that deceptively tranquil abyss at one or more points in life. When that happens, you back away slowly. You look at something else. Maybe go volunteer at a homeless shelter, or go weed the yard, or anything, really.

It strikes me that we probably need to be directing at least as much effort to supporting and empowering young people as to building programs and committees and other bureaucratic infrastructures to combat the bullying which has been going on among human offspring for thousands of years and will likely continue in some form or another for thousands more. There is room for improvement in both areas, but ask yourself which approach is healthier and has a better chance of success: educating and toughening up kids who are being trained to believe that their sexual orientation makes them victims, or accelerating the transformation of our schools into mini-police states?

Teachers who turn a blind eye to repeated cruelty and harassment need some further education themselves. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But I am saying that “fixing the schools” is in no way a treatment of the root problems here.

So my message to troubled teens is this: It can get better, it really can. And it will start to get better when you look to yourself for answers.

It’s not your fault that some of your peers behave like idiots. It’s not your fault that sometimes society looks the other way in the face of cruelty. It certainly wasn’t Tyler Clementi’s fault that two of his “friends” mistook abject indecency for cuteness. They don’t deserve to be defended. But the fact remains that they did not push Tyler off that bridge.

One of the hallmarks of being a mature, centered individual is distinguishing what you can’t change from what you can change, and learning to focus on the latter. And it really is best to get started learning that lesson before deciding to go to sleep forever. In fact, you will still be working on this assignment as long as you’re alive. At no point will you ever feel completely and utterly at peace with yourself. If you do, check your pulse and get back to me. Irritability, in the biological sense, is a trait common to all living organisms, from paramecia and pine trees to persons.

I’d like to let you in on a little secret: what societies consider “normal” or “acceptable” changes over time, and it also changes from one person to another in the same time. The people who live next door to you in one direction may not care if you’re a boy that likes other boys, or a girl that likes other girls—it’s possible they might even envy your self-actualization—while your neighbors in the other direction may consider you condemned to eternal damnation because of it, and may try pretty diligently to get you to think just like they do, because of their heartfelt concern for your immortal soul.

It’s very difficult to deal with being “different.” I’m not making light of it. People will call you names, or worse, and it hurts. Sometimes it can hurt more than anything else. And as long as they feel they’re getting something out of it, they’ll continue. Isn’t that a bitch?

So what is the best response to this kind of inanity? It depends on the situation. Sometimes it really is best to do nothing; sometimes it really is best to ignore asshats like the insignificant insects they are. And sometimes it’s not—sometimes you have to fight back, either alone or with others like you. There is a time and place for going to your teacher, or your principal, or your parents, and saying, “Look, I don’t know how to deal with this.” And though many will cringe to hear it, and though I think it’s probably very rarely the smartest choice, there is a time and place for just breaking someone’s face.

Because, unfortunately, some people are tactile learners only.

One problem is this: it’s very difficult not to internalize the negative things that people might say about you over and over again. When someone gets beat up, verbally or physically, a common reaction is for that person to end up feeling that he or she somehow deserved it. As much as we like to pretend otherwise, we are not entirely rational beings. But if you identify that tendency, and say to yourself “No—that’s stupid—I won’t do that, I am not that,” well, that’s a step in the right direction, at least. The kind of confusion we’re talking about here is the result of bottled up, misplaced anger. As different as they may be in virtually all other respects, one thing that all of the world’s major religions and psychoanalytic traditions agree on is that anger is self-destructive. To paraphrase what Buddha is supposed to have said, “Harboring anger is like picking up  a flaming coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else—it is only you who will be burned.”

In no situation is hanging yourself or jumping from a bridge the best response. Because however much you may think those bullies have gotten under your skin, by taking your own life, you’ve just hurt everyone who cares about you much, much more. You’ve taken pieces of them with you that they can never get back. And you’ve taken from yourself something that you can never get back.

Let me tell you another secret: in the vast majority of cases, shithooks don’t really care what you like to do with your private parts. You’d be surprised, in fact, how little people in general care about whether you like girls, or boys, or both. Sure, they can get all worked up about it if their pastor or their favorite politician gets them rolling on it. We’re really good at thinking what others tell us to think—and somehow there are those who still doubt that we’re monkeys at heart. Luckily, we’re capable of being much more than that.

All a bully cares about is getting a reaction from his victim which will enable him to feel better about his own gaping insecurity. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you don’t give a bully what he’s looking for, he’ll  look elsewhere. And if he experiences that obliviousness enough, he’ll learn to keep his misery to himself until he finds a healthier way to deal with it.

You should also be aware that you live in a society which encourages you to wrap up the bulk of your ego in your sexual activity. In my opinion, if we’re going to change anything about society which is going to help put an end to this kind of discrimination and harassment, it will be that. I sometimes think it’s taken for granted that this is just a part of human nature. And it’s true that, as organisms with hormones, we are easily mesmerized by the pretty lights of sex and sexuality. But our culture also encourages many young people to become sexual beings way, way ahead of schedule, and the subdivision of human beings into separate sub-species based on their preference of sex partner at any given time is far from natural, and you can empower yourself by refusing to stand for it and choosing not to embody it in your own existence.

If you’re safe and responsible, you can choose to get it on with boys, or girls, or both, or—newsflash—no one at all. It’s up to you. There’s probably some genetic component to the choice you’ll feel most comfortable with, but then again there are genetic components to all kinds of behavioral patterns. It doesn’t mean we don’t have brains and can’t make decisions, can’t try things or choose not to try them.

Maybe you’re concerned about what your family’s, or your own, religious beliefs say about being attracted to people of the same sex. I can only repeat something that has been often noted elsewhere: many of those same traditions also advocate publicly stoning unruly children, eating certain things at certain times of day, punishing adultery with death, the silence and complete obedience of women in many contexts, and so forth. People ignore the parts they don’t like, and they do it all the time, no matter what they say. How you interpret a given religious tradition, or if you follow one at all, is your choice and your business. You have to take responsibility and ownership of that. It doesn’t make it easy, but it does put you in control.

Maybe you’re worried about what your friends and family will think of your sexual behavior. Again, there’s no easy answer, but let me assure you of this: anyone who truly cares about you and is deserving of being in your life will come around eventually if not immediately. You may have to allow them space and time; you may have to get through some serious emotional hurdles. But you must also be true to yourself and remember that if you can’t respect and love yourself, you can’t really respect and love anyone else.

So feel free to do your thing without feeling that you’re marked for life. You can “be gay” without wearing extremely tight clothes or listening to Lady Gaga all the time, although that’s fine if it’s your cup of tea. You can “be straight” without buying a pickup truck, a gun rack, and covering your walls with centerfolds. You are who you decide you are; you are not who society says you need to be based on what you do with those things down there. There is a difference between Planet Television and Planet Earth.

The only thing I would advise you to be, without qualification, is safe.

And since—like Tyler and Justin—you only get one go at life, it’s best to make yourself comfortable in your own skin as quickly as you can. The alternatives are not very attractive.

There is always someone you can talk to, and we all need help finding ourselves. Don’t be a martyr. Be an example.

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