A Self-Hater Smears Tyler Clementi With A Stereotype

Robert Oscar Lopez may well have the courage of his convictions.  But, it seems that he doesn't have a whole lot of logic to back them up.

He was raised by a same-sex couple but has become an anti-gay activist. I don't even need to speculate about that; if anyone is still paying attention to him in a few years, we'll find out what has motivated him.  Perhaps it's nothing more than the youthful rebellion people often express against their parents.

Lopez claims that Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge not because his roommate secretly recorded him kissing another man and aired that video on YouTube, but because he was raped by gay paedophiles when he was a teenager.

Now, in spite of its reliance on, and reinforcement of, crude stereotypes, I am willing to entertain such a notion pending further evidence and explanation.  Most paedophiles are not gay; they do not engage in sex with adults of their own gender. (I know this from experience; as a child I was sexually assaulted by a man who was not sexually interested in grown men.  Then again, one could argue--as I would--that I wasn't a boy.)  But, even if we allow Lopez the benefit of the doubt when he expresses such crude and misinformed notions, we cannot let this go:  He says that society's acceptance of homosexuality has resulted in the widespread sexual abuse of children by gay men.

I have yet to see a plausible explanation of how "acceptance" of homosexuality results in gay men having sex with children.  In fact, I don't see how "acceptance" of any sort of orientation results in more sex of any kind.  As we have seen, people express their love and attractions whether or not society approves of them:  The only thing that changes is that they become more open about such expression when they are less likely to face hostility.  

And what do gay men express more openly?  Their love of other men.  If we accept all of the research--and testimony of gay men and other people--that "gay" is not synonymous with "paedophile", it's absurd to claim that an "acceptance" of homosexuality leads to paedophilia.

On top of that--This is something else I can say from my own experience and that of others--people rarely, if ever, commit suicide over being sexually abused.  At least, we don't do it in the way of Tyler Clementi: Sometimes we engage in self-destructive behavior of other kinds that leads, over time, to our deaths.  More often, though, we drink too much, take drugs or engage in other self-destructive behavior until something leads us to confront the abuse we experienced.  Or we express it in other ways:  Had Tyler Clementi been sexually abused, he might have expressed it in the way he played the music he was studying.  And, perhaps, he might have had a breakdown or some other traumatic event.  But I have a hard time believing he'd have killed himself over childhood sexual abuse--or, for that matter, had he experienced such abuse, that it would have been committed by a gay man.

How Low Will Cathy Brennan Go--And For What?

In spite of the evil I've witnessed, I still have had hope for this world.  That hope was based on, among other things, that folks like Cathy Brennan and Janice Raymond didn't have children.  


Actually, I haven't thought that much about them, until recently.  Years ago, long before I started my transition, I read The Transsexual Empire and thought it was one of the most ludicrous things I'd ever read.  I still do.  Next to it, any of Professor Leonard Jeffries' rants about "Ice People" and "Sun People" seem like Nobel Prize-worthy science.


As I read further, one of my suspicions was confirmed:  Raymond, Brennan, et al, have no influence outside of a very small circle of so-called Second Wave Feminists.  Ironically enough, even though their hatred has more in common with that of folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps and certain members of the College of Cardinals and the Supreme Court, even they would never pay any mind to the nonsense Raymond and Brennan were spewing.


However, as demented as their so-called theories and arguments may be, I simply can't laugh them off anymore.  At least, I can't do that to the estimable Ms. Brennan.  You see, now she's doing what, in my old neighborhood, would be called some "real bad, real serious shit."


From Kelli Busey of Planetransgender, I have learned that Ms. Brennan has viciously "outed" a transgender teenager.  We saw what happened when Dharun Ravi, in essence, outed Tyler Clementi.  Making a trans teenager's identity public puts him or her at even greater risk  for being subjected to violence, and committing suicide (whether in the way Clementi did or slowly and more painfully through substance abuse or other means) than "outing" a gay or lesbian teenager would .




As vile as his actions were, at least Darun Ravi could claim, and many people would agree, that his actions were childish pranks gone horribly wrong.  However, Brennan can make no such claim.  In fact, she has no defense at all.  The only rationale she has is her own hatred, whatever its sources and purposes.  


In other words, it was a purely malicious act.  What I find really reprehensible is that she is trying to use the fears and stereotypes some people have about trans people to destroy a young man's life.  That stereotype is the transsexual-as-sexual-predator whose modus operandi--in sex and everything else in life--is deception.


Call me selfish, but one of the reasons I think what Brennan did is especially vile is that I have been victimized in the same way.  Someone I've mentioned on this blog tried to destroy my life--and succeeded in causing me health problems which are just now coming under control--by falsely accusing me of sexual crimes against other people.  


So, when I read about that seventeen-year-old trans boy whom Cathy Brennan  "outed," I felt as if she had assaulted me personally.  And, I would expect, a lot of other non-cisgender people felt the same way.


After pressure from Busey and others, the courageous Ms. Brennan removed the post in which she "outed" the young man from her website.  However, one of Kelli Busey's friends, Stephanie Stevens, saved it, and Busey published it on Scribe.  I am grateful to, and for, Ms. Busey and Stevens.

Re:Acting Fairly And Accurately

The political right has its so-called Accuracy In Media.


Now, I am happy to say, I've found a site that takes on, not only the transphobia in the media, but also the inaccuracies (if unintentional) in the way we're portrayed.  It also analyzes some of the hysteria found in coverage related to LGBT issues, particularly crimes and other prejudice against us.


The other day, Re:Act To Your News critiqued the coverage of the Dharun Ravi trial.  Whether or not Tyler Clementi's suicide is a direct consequence of Ravi's actions, it is still a tragedy, and Ravi doesn't seem very moved by his former roommate's death.  However, as the Re:Act piece shows, the very same mentality and processes that led to Ravi's conviction in the media are also, now, portraying him as a victim.  As the Re:Act post shows, neither portrayal of Ravi--as a villain or victim--is completely accurate.  


Why is that important?  Well, if he's seen as the victim he isn't, he won't be punished as he should.  On the other hand, portraying him as more of a monster than he actually is will lead to an over-zealous prosecution of him, which could result in his being punished for a crime very different from the one he committed.   That, ultimately, will not lead to the justice we are too often denied in cases bias-motivated crimes against us.


I am adding Re:Act to my "to read" list of blogs, and encourage you to do the same.

What Happened To Victoria Carmen White

It seems that any time a particularly heinous crime or sensational case is reported in the media, there are remarkably similar incidents--or, at least incidents that have similar circumstances or motives--that are ignored.  As an example, Evelyn Hernandez--whom I mentioned in an earlier post--met with a fate very similar to that of Lacey Peterson.   Yet the world's attention focused on Lacey's disappearance and the trial of Scott Peterson, yet nary a word was mentioned about Ms. Hernandez.


Alarshim Chambers of Newark, NJ is about to be tried for the shooting of Victor Carmen White, a professional lingerie model and dancer whom he'd met only hours earlier.  Two women who were in the apartment, though in a different room from, where White was shot on the evening of 12 September 2010.  They said they heard something said about White's gender identity as a transgender woman, which Chambers supposedly discovered only after becoming intimate with her.  

This shooting occurred just days after Tyler Clementi committed suicide.  The prosecution tried to argue, in essence, Dharun Ravi (Clementi's roommate) committed a hate crime when he used his Webcam to record Clementi kissing another man and videostreamed the images.  


So why was Clementi's death a worldwide headline, while White's was ignored until recently?  Well, call me a cynic, but I think the fact that Clementi was a white Rutgers student from an upper-middle class family and community had something to do with the questions i've been asking.  Plus, Clementi was a talented violinist who was working to parlay his talents into a career.  That elicits more sympathy than the knowledge that someone is a stripper and underwear model.  


Also, the fact that Ms. White was, and Mr. Chambers is, black would all but ensure that their case would be ignored.  And the final coup de grace for their case is the knowledge that White is transgendered.  


So, while Clementi's suicide deserved all of the attention it got, it oversadowed a crime committed by and against members of scorned minority groups.  It could be argued that blacks have it worst of all the races, and that transgender people have it the worst of all.  If some would say "You brought it on yourself" if I were to incur bias or harassment, I can only imagine what some would say about Ms. White.

Darun Rhavi's Crime

The debate continues, and will most likely continue, about Dharun Ravi's conviction yesterday.  Whether or not you think that he is responsible for Tyler Clementi's suicide, it's hard not to characterize what Ravi did to Clementi as bullying. 


What is bullying?  To me, it's when someone uses an advantage he or she has to intimidate or harass someone else.  Most people thinking of the big, brutish (or simply pyschopathic) kid in the schoolyard preying on someone who's smaller, weaker, gentler, more soft-spoken or simply pusillanimous.  Of course, that scenario did not transpire between Ravi and Clementi.  However, Ravi used three advantages (at least in terms of life in this society) to intimidate and harass Clementi.


The first was his webcam.  Now, Clementi may well have owned one and could have set it up as Ravi did.  However, I doubt that Clementi would have thought to set up a webcam on Ravi, or anyone else, as he was about to have an intimate encounter with his boyfriend. So, the fact that Ravi had a webcam and was in a state of mind to use it as he did put him in a position of power, vis-a-vis Clementi.


The second advantage Ravi had--at least in terms of the situation between him and Clementi--was a personality that others described as loud, brash and bombastic.  Clementi, on the other hand, was said to be quiet and reserved, and not the type to fight back.  People--especially young ones--with personalities like Ravi's prey upon personalities like Clementi's all of the time.


Third, and perhaps most important, is that Ravi was (presumably) straight. So were his friends.  A gay person can't make a spectacle out of someone having heterosexual relations because it is highly unlikely that someone would lose
"face" (save, perhaps, among the most radical of queers), not to mention a job or an apartment, if he were "outed" as straight.  In contrast, even in this more "tolerant" world, LGBT people still face discrimination and the threat of violence if their identities are known.


So, whatever you think of the trial, it's hard to deny that Ravi bullied Clementi.  Unfortuantely, some in law enforcement seem ignorant of antbullying laws, or simply not interested in enforcing them.  And so there will be more bullying.

Is This Justice For Tyler Clementi--Or Dharun Ravi?

As you may have heard by now, Dharun Ravi has been found guilty of hate crimes.  He will be sentenced on 21 May; he faces ten years in prison and possible deportation to his native India.

As an aside, I think the latter may turn out, in some ways, to be the more severe punishment. Although he was born in India, he has spent most of his life in New Jersey.  His parents brought him to the US when he was a small child, so if he is deported, he will be cut off from his friends and family (unless, of course, they go to India) and, really, life as he knows it.

In any event, although I am satisfied with the fact that he will be punished for his actions, I have mixed feelings about the verdict and the specific punishment he could receive.

On one hand, I know firsthand how serious it is when someone invades your privacy and uses whatever he finds to intimidate, harass or simply embarrass you.  Even if he is "revealing" something people already know about you, he can still use it for the purposes I have mentioned. Also, it makes you feel vulnerable and helpless when someone uses very personal information about you for the purpose of demeaning you in some way. That, essentially, is what Ravi did when he showed his friends the images of Tyler Clementi and his boyfriend.

Also, I know--I've learned the hard way!--that someone who's upset with you, or simply dislikes you, can take the most benign information he finds about you and spin it into something negative or even an outright falsehood.  Such things can put you in physical danger as well as the risk of losing friends, jobs and places to live. (I've seen all of those things happen to people.)  

It seems to me that Ravi was upset because Clementi, his roommate, asked to have the room to himself.  Like most freshman-year college roommates, they had never before met each other before going to Rutgers.  That, I believe, would intensify whatever resentment Ravi may have had--whether or not verbalized it--over being kicked out of his room.  Perhaps videotaping it and amusing his friends with the images was some sort of retaliation for what he perceived to be an unfair demand from Clementi.  

Even if we accept such an explanation, we are still left with this question: Would Ravi have videotaped Clementi had he brought a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend to the room?  I can't help but to answer, "no."  I base that answer, not on any speculation about whether or not Ravi is homophobic:  Perhaps he was, but I doubt that he is any more so than most young men of his age. (I include myself at that stage of my life.)  The reason I think that he wouldn't have run the webcam had Clementi been canoodling with a co-ed is that it simply wouldn't have shocked or titillated his friends--or him.  Clementi would have been doing what the majority of college students--including, I assume, Ravi and his friends--have, or would have done, at one time or another.  On the other hand, even if they were raised in "tolerant" environments and their best friends "came out" to them when they were twelve years old, it's unlikely that they would have seen two men (or two women) in acts of physical intimacy.  

Think of it this way: Has Jerry Springer ever had a heterosexual married couple from Greenwich, Connecticut and their 2.5 kids on his show?

In any event, if Ravi showing his friends what that webcam revealed really drove Clementi to his suicide, Ravi was, indeed, responsible for Clementi's death. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have to wonder what crime--among those defined by law--describes what Ravi did.  I would guess that it's probably not murder. So, then, is it manslaughter?  Involuntary manslaughter? If it is, my admittedly sketchy knowledge of criminal law tells me that ten years in prison and/or deportation is probably an appropriate sentence.

The real tragedy is, of course, that Clementi is dead and Ravi's life is effectively over at the age of 20.  Also, the lives of Clementi's family members, and others who were in his life, will never be what they were.   There is no way to redress those things--not under the law, anyway.  For that reason, there is simply no way that justice can be done--not for his family, and not for Ravi. But most important, not for Tyler Clementi.  I can only hope that he has gone to a place where there is love and acceptance, not to mention more maturity about sexual matters and other people's lives.

Beating and Killing Ourselves

Tis the season.


A couple of weeks ago, Tyler Clementi committed suicide.  Last week, in the Stonewall Inn, two young men shouted anti-gay slurs as they beat up a man.  And, this week, nine young men--who claimed to be part of a group they called "The Latin King Goonies"--beat up two gay men in the Bronx.


I used to think summer was the time when LGBT people had the greatest chance of meeting our end, or simply getting the shit beat out of us, by someone (or, more likely, a group of thugs) who hates us simply for being who we are.  But now, it seems, there are more--or simply more gruesome or pointless--attacks in the early fall.  I'm thinking now of Jack Price, who was beaten to within an inch of his life just a few miles from my apartment  at about this time last year. I also recall that last week, the third of October, was the date on which teenaged transgender Gwen Araujo was murdered in 2002 in Newark, California.  And, the other day--the seventh--marked a terrible anniversary:  that of the 1998 murder of Mathew Shepard in Wyoming.
AWhy is it that so many anti-gay or -trans attacks happen at this time of year?


I believe that it may have to do with a particular quality of the season itself.  On some level, I think that however much we may love the crisp air, the foliage and the sunsets that reflect them, we sense our own mortality, or at least vulnerabilities.  After all, those leaves turn all those beautiful colors because they're dying. Facing our own mortality causes us to realize that, perhaps, we weren't who we thought we were--or, worse, that we are something that we never wanted to believe we were.


Those Latin King wannabes in the Bronx found out that one of their recruits was gay. Gwen Araujo's was killed by someone who was attracted to her and, upon realizing that she was transgendered, said something like, "Shit! I can't be gay!" as he beat her.  Matthew Shepard's killer claimed that what is now known as the "gay panic" caused him to act as he did.


And what, pray tell, were those two young men doing in the Stonewall Inn? What kind of people did they expect to meet there?


Well, I think you know how I'd answer that question:  The same person Dante met in the middle of the journey of his life, or whom Marlow meets in "Heart of Darkness."  That is to say, the same person I met when I saw a middle-aged woman walking home from work in St. Jean de Maurienne.  


Yes, we all encountered ourselves.  And we were all, in David Crosby's immortal words, "scared shitless."  


I know I'm not the first to say this, but I'll say it anyway:  Crimes against LGBT people are particularly brutal because the perpetrators are flailing, beating, kicking, shooting, stabbing or hanging a reflections of themselves.  And they are attacking in the hope of extinguishing, in themselves, what they see--of themselves--in their victims.


A corollary of this applies to Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, who videotaped Tyler Clementi.  Why did they record him having sex with another man and post it for all the world to see?  Could one or both of them have been "coming out" in his or her own way?  Or, perhaps, were they simply doing what so many straight people do to LGBT people:  Assume that our lives begin and end with sex because they themselves can't think about anything else.


The reason I don't condemn them, or any of the other perpetrators, more than I do is that I understand the enormous, gnawing spiritual and emotional poverty of anyone who commits the kind of violence they committed.  In brief, if those people loved themselves, they never would have acted as they did.  That's the ironic thing about selfishness and self-centeredness:  They come from a sense of feeling worthless, or simply wishing they weren't so.


I know that because I've been in their shoes.  At least I learned, however late in my life,  that I didn't have to walk the same path.  And, hopefully, others won't have their journeys end in the same way as the journeys of Matthew Shepard, Gwen Araujo or Tyler Clementi, or that it won't include what Jack Price or that gay recruit in the Bronx experienced.  

Tyler Clementi, Rutgers and Me

Tyler Clementi's suicide prompted me to do something I don't do very often:  I found myself thinking about my own days at Rutgers.  I'm not going to express shock and disbelief, or murmur that what happened to him was inevitable.  However, I must say that even though I am upset, I am also not surprised.

When I attended Rutgers three decades ago, campus social life was still driven, to a very large degree, by the fraternities.  That might have been a consequence of the fact that Rutgers College (RC), the "original" school of Rutgers University (RU), was all-male for more than two hundred years and had begun to enroll women only four years before I started my freshman year.  So, by that time, there were only a handful RC alumnae, and nearly all of the college's faculty, administration and staff worked at the college when it was all-male.  

Then, as now, Douglass College (DC) was a school whose student body was entirely female.  It is to Rutgers as Barnard is to Columbia or Radcliffe to Harvard.   DC and RC students took courses on each other's campuses, though not as much as one might expect.  As a result of the small numbers of DC students, and even smaller number of female RC students, on the RC campus, women were still seen as the "other" --if they were lucky.  If they weren't, they treated as merchandise, especially if they were to go to, or even pass by, a frat house. 

I have been in environments that were even more dominated by males, at least in terms of numbers and male-to-female ratios.  But I don't think I've ever been in any situation in which as many men were as ignorant or contemptuous of women as the ones at Rutgers were in those days.  Because I was living as male in those days, male students often told me what they really thought about women, and referred to them by a few names I won't even soil my tongue by uttering.

In such an atmosphere, you can guess how gays and lesbians were seen.  (I don't think transgenders were even on the radar of most people.)   The term "hate crime" didn't exist in those days, but what we now refer to by that term happened with disturbing frequency.  I knew of a few gays who were beaten and a few more students who beat them up.  And I heard more than a few who bragged that they'd "beat the shit out of" some "gay-bird."

The gay-bashers, and more than a few who never would put a hand on anyone, made gays--whether or not they knew any--the objects of their prurient fantasies.  Some would follow gays, while pretending not to, and find out where they hung out. Still others posted placards or graffiti (We didn't have chat-rooms in those days.) on billboards, sign posts or other public places.  And, of course, speculation about some men's sexuality was scrawled inside bathroom stalls and over urinals.

From what I've heard, things haven't changed much at Rutgers, and I can say the same about the the wider world.  I know firsthand that if you don't fit into cisgender/hetero norms, people not only speculate, in ways they never would about straight people, they also think they're entitled to know, and to broadcast, the details of your actual or imagined sex life.  Why else would Dharum Ravi feel no compunction about secretly videotaping his roommate Clementi while he was having sex with another man?  And, worse, why did he think there was nothing wrong with posting that video on the Internet?

I'm glad that so many spoke up at the Rutgers rally today.  However, I'm sure that there are many more students who don't feel safe in letting their sexuality or gender identity become public knowledge.  Long before I got to Rutgers, I knew I didn't fit into any of society's notions about gender and sexuality.  However, I tried to fit into one or another of them; by the time I started my sophomore year, I was at my wit's end and thought, perhaps, that because I didn't feel the same urgency about having a sexual relationship with a woman as other males seemed to feel, I was gay.  

In fact, I "came out" to my mother and a few friends.  Ironically, those friends were in the campus Christian fellowship, which I joined (as I did so many other things) in desperation.  While some expressed disapproval, others said they "loved" me even as they "hated" my "sin," and still others told me to place my faith and trust in Jesus,  I actually felt safer there than I would have in almost any other venue in the university.  Part of that may have been a result of the esteem some of them--including the leader of the fellowship, who was my roommate for a year--felt for me personally.  It was such that, at the invitation of that leader, I was editing the fellowship's newsletter and leading a prayer and Bible study group, even though I hadn't been in the fellowship very long and, only a few months earlier, had never before read the Bible.

Although I am not religious--and, truthfully, never was--I can say that I graduated from Rutgers intact (more or less, anyway) in part because I was in that fellowship.  If nothing else, they encouraged me to study and even, at times, to stay in school. I was probably unhappier then than I've been before or since and, even though I was not reluctant to drink, I despised the frat parties and bars--and, in fact, pretty much the whole social scene, such as it was, that existed there. Even more important, I felt safer in that fellowship than I felt anywhere else in the university.  In fact, it was the only place where I felt safe at all.  The worst things I experienced there were somewhat sanctimonious or condescending lectures; elsewhere on campus, I could and did experience much worse.

Unfortunately, thirty years later, Tyler Clementi did, too--only even worse.

Driven to Kill (Themselves)

I used to think that summer was the most dangerous time to be L, G, B, T or some combination or version thereof--or simply to be so perceived.  After all, the dense, sultry air is like alcohol:  Both are catalysts that stir up volatile, and often dangerous, reactions between hormones and hostility.  And, the most terrible and unspeakable of acts can pass, if they are at all noticed, like the most surreal, if lurid, dreams in the viscous, almost liquid heat that fills summer nights.


However as I continue in this strange journey of mine-- which led me to begin a new life as I entered middle age--I've come to realize that for LGBT teenagers and young adults, the first few weeks of the school year may actually be more dangerous than the summer vacation period that precedes it.


Much of what I've seen and heard, in regards to violence against LGBT people, has taken place on or near school grounds, and was perpetrated by students (or their friends or family members) against fellow students or peers.  And then there are those who've taken their own lives because the ostracism, harassment and violence they incur simply for being who they are--or because someone perceived them to be so.


In the latter category is Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman who, it is believed,  threw himself  off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly videotaped him having sex with another young man and broadcast that tape over the Internet.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that even at this late date, some are calling Mr. Clementi a coward for ending his life.  Some of the people who are so judging him are not acting out of any of religious or moral objection; rather, they think he should have faced his dilemma "like a man" and that he should've "grown up" and "gotten over it."  


What they don't realize is the struggle of  so many young queer people (like Clementi) who are living, for the first time, in a wider world where the possibilities for love--but also the prospects of violent death-- are  expanded and deepened, leaves them in a vulnerable state.   It's not uncommon for straight or simply "normal" kids to fall into confusion or, worse, depression and despair, when suddenly  faced with the prospects of having to make decisions that will affect the course of their lives while knowing, deep down, that their inner resources have not developed in tandem.  Young men are particularly vulnerable at that time of their lives, for that is also when they are expected to become men, or at least to be well on their way to that goal.  Yet too many are not (if through no fault of their own) emotionally mature enough to handle what may be their first, or at least most visible, failings in their young lives.  Many "act out" through binge drinking and other kinds of compulsive acts; unfortunately, some enact their frustration and rage in more violent ways.


Ironically, that same insecurity and fear underlies the trepidation of a young gay person, particularly if he is a mild-mannered and sensitive male, who is faced with, for the first time, some freedom to love whom he loves but not the support he'll need for the wrath he may incur as a result of it.  And their surging hormones fill them with a sense of urgency about finding the love, or at least the sense of freedom, they may not have known before.  Some are having their first same-sex relationships, or at least the first ones they're not hiding.  That, at the same time some of their more testosterone-besotted peers are knowing their first failures and rejections, whether in the arenae of school or love.  Some need someone to blame, or at least to lash out against, for their loss of  or in those things about which they felt most confident in themselves.  Nothing is more of a recipe for anger and resentment than to see the ascent of someone who was thought to be an inferior; all you have to do is look at the so-called Tea Party movement to understand that.


If Tyler Clementi--who hasn't been seen since the videotape was posted, and whose car was found near the bridge--did indeed kill himself, then Dharun Ravi is as responsible for his death as the ones who bullied Seth Walsh and Billy Lucas (who was merely perceived as gay) are for the fact that those two teenage boys hung themselves.  Of course, Dharun Ravi is not wholly to blame, any more than the tormentors of Seth Walsh and Billy Lucas are:  All of them undoubtedly experienced difficulties from many other people and institutions.  However, it's difficult not to think that the bullying of Walsh and Lucas, and the violation of Clementi's privacy and personhood, could have "pushed them over the edge."


Now, I am not an expert in bullying, teenage suicide or any related field.  So if you are willing to accept what I've said, you should, as the recipes tell us, add salt to taste.  However, I have been, in my own ways and circumstances, been in the shoes of the tormentors of those young gay men as well as, in some way, those of the young gay men, and any young man or woman who realizes he or she is not going to fit into his or her family's, society's or religion's ideas about love, sexuality and gender.    So, if nothing else, I know that it's not enough to simply condemn the perpetrators or pity the victims.  Nothing will change until more people understand that the perpetrators are not simply mechanisms of evil or bad karma:  They simply are reacting in ways that make sense, even if they're not to be condoned, for people who feel that the way of life they've come to expect is threatened, and who have simply nothing and no one else to blame but the nearest peer who is coming into his or her own.