How about “Mentalnormativity” ?

            Most LGBTQ people know that The American Psychological Association once classified Homosexuality as a mental disorder and that in 1986 it was removed completely. While the gay community celebrated this, very few realized that there would now be a stigma against mental disorders. Many LGBTQ people have heard about the “It Gets Better” Project and know that there is a high rate of depression and suicide in gay teens.  In my last post I discussed how depression and suicide last well into adult LGBTQ lives and now I will discuss how obvious mental health issues are ignored in the gay community by looking at the TV show The L Word.

            The L Word was the most popular lesbian themed show at its time and you will be hard pressed to find a lesbian who hasn’t seen at least one episode.  Jenny starts off being portrayed as a straight girl who comes out as bi and then gay. As the season progresses we begin to understand that she has a history of abuse and is very self-destructive.  She is impulsive, narcissistic, manipulative and selfish. She has relatively severe manic and depressive swings, all of which point to Borderline Personality Disorder or at the very least Bipolar Disorder.  All of these other characters who claim to be her friend at some point or another seem to have no deep concerns for her lack of mental stability. Even if they didn’t understand what was wrong with her, in season 2 and 3, she does start self-harming and ends u sent to a psychiatric ward. So how is it possible that, by season 6, every one of them is angry enough to have killed her? We are shown through season 6 all the different things Jenny has done that make her a bad person, but any of them can be contributed to her state of mental health. Her life falls apart, repeatedly, and these other women have no sympathy for her. No one questions her motivations, they are simply angry.  It’s only been 3 years since she was in a psychiatric ward but everyone seems to have forgotten all about that.

            Of course, this is television; it’s not real life. It’s dramatized; most of us do not have a bunch of friends who all have equal reasons to want you dead.  However the ignorance of mental health in the gay community is not dramatized at all.  Rich notes lesbianism -often includes “role playing, self-hatred, breakdown, alcoholism, suicide and intra-women violence” but “we romanticize at our peril what it means to love and act against the grain”  (Rich, 192). We focus on the wonderful aspect of being gay and different, but do not acknowledge the pain and suffering associated with it.  The “It Gets Better” project constantly tells teens that they “may be depressed now” but when they get older and move out and get away from homophobic friends/classmates/teachers/parents/churches, all their depression and sadness will magically go away.  They will be more normal and happy once again.  It’s “the very notion of a normal psyche which is in fact part of the West’s own heterosexual family romance- a narrative space that relies on the normalized, even if perverse, domestic space of desire supposedly common in the West” (Puar/Rai, 124). Even if you are going to be “different” and be gay, you still must be “normal” and “Western” by being psychologically sane.

            It’s not difficult to understand why this has happened in the LGBTQ community. For so long we were associated with “mental disease” that it seems relatively natural to pull away from being associated with a mental disorder. Lesbians, like Jenny, which psychological disorders are “giving gays a bad name” or “making it look like the homophobes are right; we really are crazy”.  This doesn’t even touch on the issue of the stigmatization of mental health disorders in Western Society at large. By rejecting those who are “disabled”, “mentally diseased”, “colored” or any other form of different, the LGBTQ community is tying itself to the idea of heteronormativity. For even if you are gay and abnormal, you still must be normal in every other way, and then society will mostly accept you. Maybe we need to introduce the concept of mentalnormativity, the assumption that everyone is mentally healthy. The L Word, although dramatized, is the perfect example of how the LGBTQ community assumes everyone is mentally healthy and does not recognize the intersectionality struggles of being gay and having a mental disorder. Personally, I believe Jenny killed herself because of her mental disorders, but that possibility that was over looked by even the show, since hey, gay adults don’t have mental disorder, right?

The L Word.  Ilene Chaiken. Showtime. 2004-2009. Television. 

Puar, Jasbir. “Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots” in Social Text 72 Vol. 20 No. 3, Fall 2002.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”  Professions of Desire: Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature. Ed. George Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmermann. New York: modern Language Association, 1995.

The Kids Are All Right

In the movie, “The Kids Are All Right,” a family built by Nic and Jules, a lesbian couple, is threatened when the biological father of their children, Paul, suddenly appears into their lives. The movie depicts the two women and their struggle to let the man that has had very little influence on their family into their lives. Nic is the busy breadwinner of the family while Jules is the housewife seeking attention, which she finds in the arms of Paul, damaging the dynamic of the family they built together. Nic and Jules’ characterization goes beyond the typical portrayal of lesbian women and demonstrates the many layers behind lesbianism. It breaks the shell that lesbians are man-hating women in competition with heterosexual men. It explains the dynamics of lesbian companionship and the family that is created beyond blood ties.

Throughout the movie, Paul challenges Nic’s authority over her children. He constantly questions the rules she has lain out and undermines her power. Nic feels threatened when her children take a liking to their biological father, which creates fear that he takes her family right from under her nose, causing tension between the two and the whole family. According to Rich (1995), Nic’s fear is in response to what is described as a characteristic of male power. This characteristic is the power of men over women is to “control or rob them of their children” (Rich, 1995). A contemporary explanation of this power is the male’s father-right to seize or take their child. While this power of men is not blatantly explained in the movie, it gives better explanation as to why Nic is hostile towards Paul from the start. Nic realizes that he is the natural father of the children she has raised and the possibility of her children being taken away from her, regardless if legally or emotionally is a threat.

Jules and Paul have a sexual affair in the middle of the movie, which nearly tears the family apart. Jules reasons that she only slept with Paul because Nic was always busy and that she only wanted to be appreciated, something she didn’t seem to be getting from Nic at the time. According to Rich (1995), Jules actions are described as a woman’s struggle to find strength through the use of women and men. She seeks sex with Paul because she seeks attention from him despite the fact that he is infantile with the kids and unreliable as a source of stability (Rich, 1995). However, despite their sexual connection, Jules begs Nic for forgiveness because she finds everything she needs within her. She finds companionship and stability, which Rich (1995) defined as the ability women have to make lives endurable for one another. Nic and Jules have built a strong life together and have made living more bearable as each other’s partners.

Nic’s depiction can also be related to that of the role of women in American Indian families. In American Indian families, family is a matter of clan membership (Allen, 1992). The power within the family is not perceived as a matter of economic status or material possession; instead it is represented from innate “virtue of femaleness” (Allen, 1992). This claim suggests that the power within the family is the natural ability a woman has with self-identity as a female. According to Paula Glenn Allen (1992), a woman who is older is more in tuned to the power she has and its ability to shape a family. This idea is embodied in Nic, whose womanpower comes her cognitive behaviors and roles as a mother. She is the breadwinner and provider of her family, which shows that she has control and influence over her family.

The movie portrays lesbian women more than the negative commercial depictions other forms of media has done today. According to Rich (1995), any depiction of lesbian women as the mirror image of a heterosexual male is a weak characterization of the many faces of lesbian women. Both Nic and Jules possess characteristics that can be termed as masculine or feminine, thus demonstrating that lesbianism does not straddle one side of the spectrum. Nic, for example, is shown as the breadwinner of the family as well as the leader. She assumes the role of higher authority and is shown to be tough and rigid. However, upon learning of Jules’ infidelity, she breaks her stoic shell and becomes the fragile and vulnerable depiction of a woman with a broken heart. She displays anguish through her tears and anger through her words, expressing a three-dimensional characterization of a lesbian woman.

The relationship and love between Nic and Jules goes beyond what was once an implication of lesbianism: lesbian existence is created through refuge from male abusers (Rich, 1995). According to Rich (1995), lesbian writer Colette Renee has written unreliable stories that wrongfully depicts lesbians as weakened creatures who find shelter in the arms of one another due to the mistreatment they have had from the higher and stronger male, as if to write to a male audience. The matter of Nic and Jules romance is a matter of chemistry and love born from connection, not through negative past experiences with men. They are drawn together through their own physical and cognitive attractions instead of being drawn together because they share the same wrongful treatment from men, further depicting lesbians as more complex human beings.

“The Kids Are All Right” does an excellent job portraying the intricacy of lesbianism in today’s society. Lesbians are more than the stereotypical portrayal that is seen today. Instead, they have multifaceted characteristics that can be explained through their cognitive and physical behaviors. The relationship between lesbian women is also a dynamic relationship that goes beyond the need for a “masculine” and “feminine” role in families. Instead, it portrays the lesbian relationship role in the family as a need for love, stability, and companionship above all.




Works Cited

Allen, Paula G. “Lesbians in American Indian Cultures.” The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Beacon Press, 1992.

Cholodenko, L. (Director), & Levy Jinte, J., Gilbert, G., Horowitz, J., Rattray, C., Lundberg, D.T., Hellmann, P. (Producers). (2010) The Kids Are All Right [Motion Picture]. United States: Alliance Films

Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." Professions of Desire: Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature. ed. George Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmermann. New York: Modern Langage Association, 1995.

Beginners

The movie Beginners is partially about the life of a man, Hal, who stayed married to a woman until her death, even though he always knew he was gay. After his wife died, Hal came out as gay to his son and put an ad in the newspaper to find a partner. In this blog post I will be analyzing the effect that a dominant heterosexual society can have on the mental health of an LGBTQ individual. Using Adrienne Rich's article on "compulsory" heterosexuality and Martin Manalasan's article on community, I will demonstrate how living in a society in which heterosexuality is the norm can effect one's mental health and take away one's true happiness.

Living a life in which everyone assumes heterosexuality as the norm can be devastating to one's mental health. In beginners, Hal's wife accused him of not showing any emotions, when in reality he was not able to express what he was actually feeling. In Adrienne Rich's article she explains that "if we think of heterosexuality as the "natural" emotional and sensual inclination for women, lives such as these as seen as deviant , as pathological, or as emotionally and sensually deprived" (1995,195). In Beginners, Hal expressed to his son that he had tried not to be gay for all the years he was married. He stated, "She proposed to me, you know? I said, uh look, I love you and we're great buddies, but you know what I am. And then she says that doesn't matter, I'll fix that. I thought, oh god, I'll try anything" (Mills, 2010). This demonstrates how an individual can be so desperate to fit in with society even though it doesn't make them happy. If one continues on to try to "fix themselves", it can lead to the deterioration of one's mental health because there will always be the idea stuck in one's head that there is something wrong with the way they feel. In Hal's case, it took a majority of his life to realize that there were other people that shared feelings like his.

In the movie after Hal's wife died and he came out as gay, there was an abundance of support from his son and his new found community. He was finally able to be himself and enjoy life. Not only was he engaged in a new relationship with another man, but he was also an active member of the gay community. The men often had social gatherings like movies night and book clubs. In Manalasan's article, he describes this community as "a sense of dissent and contestation along with the sense of belonging to a group or a cause" (1993, 275). Even when Hal was diagnosed with stage four cancer, he still seemed to be living his life and loving more than ever before. His son observed that, " for the first time I saw him really in love" (Mills, 2010) when watching his father and his boyfriend interact. This demonstrates the positive effect that a supportive community can have on one's mental health.

Even though Hal was influenced by a heterosexually dominant society for most of his life, he was still able to create a new life for himself with the support of his son and the gay community that he surrounded himself with. As demonstrated here, one can see how living in a society that is heterosexuality dominant can put ideas into one's head that homosexuality is not normal and should be "fixed". However, later in the movie we are able to observe a different side of society, which Hal was lucky to experience in his last few years. Here, it is obvious that a supportive community and family are key to one's happiness.



                                                                Bibliography

Adrienne Rich. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" from Professions of Desire:       Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature. ed. George Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmermann. New York:   Modern Language Association, 1995.

Martin F Manalasan IV "Searching for Community: FIlipino Gay Men from New York City". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Routledge Chapman Hall, 1993.

Mills, M. (Director), & Urdang, L., Knudsen, L., Vanech, D., Van Hoy, J., Pencier, M.  (Producers). (2010). Beginners [Motion picture]. United States: Olympus Pictures.

Bullying to the Point of No Return

Kenia Cruz

            PBS Kids online describes bullying as, “no matter what situation or form it comes in, bullying can make you feel depressed, hurt, and alone. It can keep you from enjoying the activities and places that are part of your life.” If you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, questioning, transgender, transsexual, asexual or anything that is not necessarily heterosexual this could mean not being able to be who you are completely.  When does bullying begin for non-heterosexual people and when does it stop? Does it ever stop? Why does it happen? It begins with society; society makes it okay to bash on gays. We live in a world where the norm is to be heterosexual. On any given day that you walk down the street and see someone, you don’t automatically think, “oh this person is gay.” No, that thought never surfaces one’s mind, even for me who I identify myself to be apart if the gay community. Heterosexuality is normal and homosexuality is abnormal, that is how society has allowed it to be. And everyday there is a gay teen who is being bullied continuously by another one of his or her peers.

            In the month of April 2011, Jamey Rodemeyer got on his webcam and urged every gay teen across America, to not cut their life short. He assured them that “it gets better”. Jamey was one of the few millions of LGBTQ teens who have suffered from bullying. In April he made a video that went out to all the LGBTQ community urging them not to give up because one day “It Gets Better.” His attempt at making an “It Gets Better” video showed his hope that things would surely get better and he was assuring others that it definitely will. But shockingly, unfairly and tragically five months after making his “It Gets Better” video, Jamey Rodemeyer cut his own life short because of bullying. The bullying was so immense that it led him to the point of no return, and that point was suicide, along with the rest of LGBTQ teens who have committed suicide. What makes bullying right I ask myself? Have we as a world society allowed it to be right? What is so right about bullying?

            In a study conducted by Theo Van Der Meer about gay bashers, he reveals that many of the Gay Bashers legitimately find it okay to bully homosexuals, predominantly homosexual men. Van Der Meer points out that the “respondents considered themselves to have acted on behalf of, or with the approval of, society.” Such study reveals the state of mind many gay bashers are in when they are bullying and the zero remorse they have about their actions. Of course there is so much fear instilled within many people of LGBTQ community, they feel alone in this grand scheme of things, they can’t turn to society when they are being bullied, because society does not accept them.

            So what then must be done in order to stop Gay Bullying and to stop all the attempted suicides that many LGBTQ youth must battle with? In his article, “Bullying, Harassment and Violence Among Students,” Nan Stein reveals several ways to stop anti-gay bullying. Stein states, “I suggest that we call this “zero indifference,” rather than “zero-tolerance,” which would mean that we plan to notice the behaviors, comment on them, intervene, and make corrections accordingly.” By addressing the problem from the beginning and correcting so much can be prevented. Bullying has a ripple effect, it has long lasting consequences that only time and counseling can help people getting bullied. Gay bashing and bullying can get so bad that it will cause some people to commit suicide. How far are we as a society going to allow gay bashing and bullying to continue and escalate, because according to many gay bashers, they bash and bully because society tells them. It is up to us as a society to put a stop to this injustice.  

Works Cited

O’Connor, Anahad. “Suicide Draws Attention to Gay Bullying.” Health. The New York

Times. September 21, 2011. February 3, 2012. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/suicide-of-gay-teenager-who-urged-hope/

PBS Kids. Bullies: What is Bullying? It’s My Life. PBS Kids. February 3, 2012.

            <http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/friends/bullies/>

Stein, Nan. Bullying, Harrassment and Violence Among Students. In Radical Teacher,

No. 80 “Teaching Beyond Tolerance” Winter 2007 pages 30-35

Van Der Meer, Theo. “Bashing a Rite of Passage?” in Culture, Health and Sexuality,

Vol. 5 No. 2 pages 153-165

The Lack of Community and its Effects on Mental Health

In October 2011, openly gay 15-year-old Jaime Hubley committed suicide after suffering abuse from bullying while others turned a blind eye (Scheinert, 2011). Jamie Hubley was unfortunately just one casualty of the many suffering LGBTQ individuals who are unable to gain a sense of community in their own school. And while the school acknowledged the bullying, very little was done to placate the issue. However, acknowledging the issue does nothing but establishes that there is a problem. The next step in the fight against gay bullying is the education of others in order to build and shape a stronger community not just for LGBTQ individuals, but for their allies as well. Community and action are the greatest tools in the fight against antagonism and hate, and it is with these tools that zero intolerance can become zero indifference.

Martin Manalansan (1993) mentions the need for the multiple voices and faces of LGBTQ individuals to come together and build a community all on their own. Such example was Santacruzan, which was successful in attracting Filipino men to join the community. It is arguably the most successful practice of identity and community building that Filipino men have ever had (Manalasan, 1993). Taking this concept to high school campuses can be effective because it will bring not only members who identify as LGBTQ together, it can also bring in members who identify as allies, or members who were too scared to be openly queer or supportive. Jaime had his own experience at trying to create a similar haven for LGBTQ students by creating the Rainbow club. It was struck down due to lack of support from faculty, the harassment bullies wreaked, and the fear it instilled in others (Scheinert, 2011).

The lack of support from authority figures gives a younger audience the idea that some things are too trivial to care for. The staff of Jaime’s high school were knowledgeable of the bullying Jaime had faced, however, their approach to the situation was minimal (Scheinert, 2011). Bullies would get suspensions or worse: no punishment at all, while Jaime’s parents were called to pick him up because he got bullied. No follow-ups were given and addressing the issue was barely a priority.

Much like Stein (2007) and Manalansan (1993) mention in their articles, there is a need for training and educating within the staff to build a better community not only for the LGBTQ students, but the staff as well. Educating the staff teaches them how to approach the issue and emphasizes the importance of being supportive to LGBQT students facing harassment. It helps build a better mind frame for educators to realize the devastating effects of bullying and suicide. When ignorance becomes educated, educators can use what they learn as a way to help students. These students will then have a stronger support system and will know they have someone to turn to if they need help, further creating a zero indifference community like Stein expresses (2007).

Stein’s steps towards zero indifference can prosper a better learning and living community for LGBTQ students and supporters. The staff is not the only ones who need educating, but the kids as well. A classroom curriculum can be created to help inform many students who are ignorant, misinformed, scared, or intolerant to be submersed in the culture to gain an understanding a new perspective. As mentioned earlier, the bullies of Jaime’s high school harassed him and his efforts to build a strong community while others turned a blind eye (Scheinert, 2011). Creating LGBTQ education and support as a curriculum can allow students to become engaged with the subject without fear of what others may do had they gained education voluntarily. Required education on the subject creates a much safer learning environment when there is an authority figure to help facilitate discussion.

Jaime Hubley was in world where he felt nobody could understand him, and as a result, took his own life. Jaime’s suicide, the countless past suicides of others, and the possible suicides of the future must be put to an end and it is up to the people of today to begin this journey. Education and community are two of the strongest factors in combating intolerance, hate, and bullying. It is through these tools that we teach the ignorant and enlighten the intolerant. The tiny efforts of today can grow and blossom into a much larger movement and community in the future, which can hopefully rid fear from the minds of queer students and the hate from the intolerant.

Bibliography
Manalasan, Martin. “Searching for Community: Filipino Gay Men from New York City." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Routledge Chapman Hall, 1993.

Scheinert, Josh D. “Jaime Hubley Didn’t Have to Die.” The Huffington Post. 18 October: 2011. 17. Print.

Stein, Nan. “Bullying, Harassment and Violence among Students.” Radical Teacher No. 80 “Teaching Beyond Tolerance” Winter 2007, 30-35.

Depression in the older LGBTQ community

            LGBTQ teens depression and suicide rates have become much more present and popular in the media. We are constantly reminded of the pain from another gay teen who was bullied into suicide. However, it is important to acknowledge that gay teens are not the only ones with higher rates of depression then their heterosexual counterparts; this is also true of the baby boomer generation. 4 out of ten LGBTQ adults surveyed in the article “Gay, Lesbian Older Adults Face Adversity, Depression” stated they had thought of suicide and they report higher rates of physical and mental disabilities, depression and loneliness. (Melina, 2011). LGBTQ members face homophobia both during their youth and well into adult hood, which can cause long-term psychological illness.

         The baby boomer generation came from 1946-1964, and as they came into society there was huge unrest against homosexuality. There was an increase of police brutality and socially, being LGBTQ, was a death sentence. (Rubin, 20). The stigma was impossible to escape. Being openly gay in this time period meant losing your friends, family, job and even your life.  “The vast majority of homosexuals had to choose between honest poverty and the strain of maintaining a false identity” (Rubin, 21) Growing up in that era cause deep mental scaring, where these feelings of "not belonging" embedded in their psyche. These feelings can stay with them through adulthood.

         Another causation of depression in the older LGBTQ group is modern discrimination. Homophobia is still very present in modern society. “One third of teens report that’s students are harassed due to perceived or actual sexual orientation” (Stein, 32) Its not hard to imagine that this discrimination also extends to the older crowd, after all, teens often learn these homophobic views from their parents. The article notes 80 percent of the participants had been victimized and discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (Melina, 2011). Feeling out-casted or uncomfortable in society can lead to long lasting depression. A study at the UCLA Williams Institute found that “Minority stressors were significantly associated with mental health, heightening depressive symptoms.” It goes on to establish that stressors in older gay peoples are significantly higher because discrimination has “impacted their ability to be financially secure and independent.” (Ford,2012).

         Being a member of the LGBTQ community has many wonderful aspects, but also, many difficulties. We are constantly reminded to wear purple to remember the gay teens that have committed suicide because of bullying, but its important to understand that the depression and suicidal thoughts do not stop in youth. Discrimination as a youth can cause mental health problems that carry into adulthood and, even in this modern age, LGBTQ adults still face homophobia. The media spreads a message of “it gets better” but until homophobia is eliminated from society, LGBTQ members of all ages will face depression and other mental health disorders at much higher rates then their heterosexual counters. Instead of falsely telling teens that it will get better, we should instead focus our efforts on actually making it better and spreading awareness of the plight of ALL members of the LGBTQ community.

        

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ford, Zack. "STUDY: Stigma Harms Older Gay Men's Mental Health, But Marriage Equality Helps." ThinkProgress. 20 Jan. 2012. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/01/20/407500/study-stigma-harms-older-gay-mens-mental-health-but-marriage-equality-helps/?mobile=nc>.

        

Melina, Remy. "Gay, Lesbian Older Adults Face Adversity, Depression |." Live Science. 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://www.livescience.com/17074-homosexual-seniors-aging-distress.html>.

Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”. Social Perspectives in Gay and Lesbian Studies.  Ed. Peter Nardi and Beth Schneider.

Stein, Nan. “Bullying, Harassment and Violence among Students” Radical Teacher No. 80 “Teaching Beyond Tolerance” Winter 2007, 30-35.

The Effects of Community Interactions on Mental Health

The article from ABC news introduces us to Eric James Borges, a gay teenager, who recently took his life at only nineteen years old. Eric explained the ongoing bullying that he endured at school from a young age and the rejection he experienced by his very religious family. In this blog post, I will be analyzing the interactions between LGBTQ individuals, like Eric, and their communities and the effects that these interactions can have on an individual's mental health. Using Stein's article on bullying and D'Emilio's article on the topic of homosexuality in the United States, I will demonstrate how negative interactions with community members can lead to declining mental health and sometimes even suicide.

Eric, like many other LGBTQ identified individuals, experienced continual bullying from when he started school, all the way until the end of high school. Eric stated that he "...was physically, mentally, emotionally, and verbally assaulted on a day-to-day basis for [his] perceived sexual orientation" (ABC 2012). Sadly, bullying like this seems to be a common theme for the interaction between LGBTQ students and their peers in a school setting. Stein (2007) states that " because of their sexual orientation, two-thirds of LGBT students have been verbally harassed, 16 percent have been physically harassed, and 8 percent have been physically assaulted." While schools have tried to put a stop to bullying, Stein explains that it is still a problem for LGBT students because the schools are not recognizing the gender-based harassment as a separate problem (2007). Therefore, interactions like these with LGBTQ students and bullies can make the victim seem at fault. This sense of having done something wrong can highly impact the victims feeling of self-worth. Overall, these interactions can have strong, negative, and long lasting effects on one's mental health. 

It seems like one of the first reactions to bullying is to go home to one's family and have them make the situation better. However, what if they too, just like the fellow students, thought that there was something wrong. In the instance of Eric, this was exactly the case. Eric grew up in a highly religious household and when his mother found out that he was gay, she tried to fix him through an exorcism (ABC 2012). His family's deep rooted belief of heterosexuality comes from the teachings of Christianity. D'Emilio (1983) explains in his article that "they marked gay people as inferior -- less moral, less respectable, and less healthy..." After realizing that Eric would never change, his parents kicked him out of the house (ABC 2012). This interaction that he had with his family is of great importance. If one's family is not supportive of who one is, then it suggests again that he or she has done something wrong. Eric described his thoughts after this experience:  "My anxiety,  depression, self-loathing and suicidal thoughts spiked. I had nowhere safe to go, either at home or school" (ABC 2012).

With the absence of any support or understanding from one's peers at school and one's family at home, the sense of having a community is lost. One may feel that they have no connection to anyone and that there is absolutely no place to go. These feelings can take over quickly and devastate one's mental health. Not only are these effects very strong, but they can also be long lasting. After Eric left home he was able to find a new supportive community. Not long before he took his own life, he told others not to give up hope in his "It Gets Better" video (ABC 2012). The story of Eric Borges demonstrates to everyone that powerful negative interactions between LGBTQ individuals and their communities, although sometimes in the past, can be everlasting on one's mental health. These experiences even have the ability to overpower any positive interactions that one may currently be experiencing.



Bibliography

John D'Emilio. "Homosexuality and American Society: An Overview" from
Politics, Sexual, Communities in the United States 1940-1970. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Nan Stein. Bullying, Harassment and Violence among Students in Radical Teacher, No 80
"Teaching Beyond Tolerance". Winter 2007. 30-35.

NG, Christina. "Gay Teen Filmmaker Eric James Borges Commits Suicide." ABCNews.com. 13 Jan. 2012. Web. <http://abcnews.go.com/US/gay-teen-filmmaker-eric-james-borges-commits-suicide/story?id=15355142>.


ABC News Article:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/gay-teen-filmmaker-eric-james-borges-commits-suicide/story?id=15355142#.TzMPfyMkhGQ