On Friday, April 20, students across the nation went through their entire school day without speaking a word. The annual Day of Silence, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, aims to draw attention to the harmful and pervasive anti-gay bullying that takes place regularly in middle schools, high schools and college campuses across the nation.
On Friday, April 20, students across the nation went through their entire school day without speaking a word. The annual Day of Silence, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, aims to draw attention to the harmful and pervasive anti-gay bullying that takes place regularly in middle schools, high schools and college campuses across the nation.
According to the GLSEN website, students pledge to be silent for a day in order to emphasize “the silencing effect of bullying and harassment on LGBT students and those perceived to be LGBT.”
And, of course, there is a no more potent silencing effect than death. Chillingly, this year’s Day of Silence occurred just days after an Iowa teen was pushed to take his own life after enduring vicious anti-gay harassment from his peers.
Kenneth Weishuhn, who was just 14 years old, had come out as gay just a month before. His family says at that point all of his friends turned on him and he became a regular target for abuse at school.
But it didn’t stop there. He received numerous threatening messages on his phone, and an anti-gay Facebook page was set up to ridicule him. His mother reportedly told a local news station: “He [said], ‘Mom, you don’t know how it feels to be hated.’”
Is Kenneth Weishuhn an anomaly? Or is anti-gay bullying an epidemic? There seems to be a steady stream of these tragedies reported in the national media—young lives being cut short because of unbridled hate.
The 2009 National School Climate Survey, sponsored by GLSEN, found that “nine out of 10 LGBT students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school.” It then went on to say that “more than 30 percent report missing at least a day of school in the past month out of fear for their personal safety.”
And people have the gall to wonder why those who are LGBT suffer higher rates of depression and suicide than their heterosexual and cisgender/non-trans counterparts.
To address this issue, a few states have passed laws mandating that schools take bullying seriously and protect students from discrimination and harassment. At the federal level, both the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act have been introduced to the Senate.
The bills, both of which were recently endorsed by President Barack Obama, address bullying in different ways. Currently, federal civil rights laws make clear it is illegal to discriminate against individuals based on their race, color, sex, religion, disability or national origin.
The SNDA would expand that protection to prohibit discrimination and harassment in public schools based on a student’s actual or perceived LGBT status, while the SSIA would require schools to adopt anti-bullying codes and submit disciplinary data on bullying to the Department of Education. The bills are expected to come to a vote later this year.
Republicans have come out against legislation of this nature in a wide range of ways—from claiming that students have a right to bully each other based on “moral beliefs” to simply deeming the bills unnecessary. Some say ridicule between kids is “natural” and “builds character.”
Last week, Heather Wilson, a Republican running for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, asserted that the SNDA would “criminalize teasing,” while in actuality the bill would do no such thing. It would simply prohibit schools themselves from discriminating against students and ensure that a school responds appropriately to cases of severe harassment that interfere with a student’s education.
I know what it’s like to be bullied. I know what it’s like to be laughed at. I know what it’s like to be hated and then hate myself because of it. Suffering in silence is one of the most awful feelings imaginable, and while I didn’t take my own life because of it, I did come close.
It’s easily understandable how someone else might, if they felt there was no other way out of the situation. To be frank, harassment “builds character” like a leg amputation augments one’s ability to run.
What really builds character—what really makes us grow—are things like respect, acceptance and friendship. With the support of peers (or at least without the torment of peers), a person is free to be who they truly are without fear of rejection or ridicule.
This fosters a healthy security in one’s own skin that many people take for granted, a security that is essential to leading a happy and fulfilling life. A life without it, as demonstrated by Kenneth Weishuhn and many others, is not a life worth living.
Is anti-bullying legislation the best way to address this problem? It makes sense that if harassment between adults is acknowledged to be extremely damaging to the victim and is consequently prohibited by law, we shouldn’t allow the same to go on between kids and teens either.
The real question, though, is this: How much longer will we need a national Day of Silence? Hopefully, LGBT bullying will soon be a thing of the past.
