Tag: suicide

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Gay Teen Leaves Behind Heartbreaking Suicide Note

(stock photo via Pexels)

An article no one ever wants to write.

This past Saturday, in a lengthy Twitter thread, Peter Delacroix shared the story of a gay 17-year-old who had committed suicide as a result of bullying and ridicule.

Delacroix woke up to an email from a teen he referred to as “Max” that was clearly a suicide note. Max was one of a group of queer teenagers that Delacroix counsels as a Youth Pastor at his church.

He immediately rushed to Max’s house, but it was too late. Max had hanged himself, and although CPR was administered, paramedics were unable to save him.

Delacroix described young Max as having “the heart of a lion, the soul of a poet and the smile of an angel.” Apparently a budding musician, Delacroix says the 17-year-old’s music could “bring you to tears.”

We have lost an amazing, talented young man, lost his voice amid the howling storm of hatred that finally proved too much even for him.

Max’s grandmother asked Delacroix to share Max’s heartbreaking suicide note with the world. The pastor says he struggled at the request, but eventually shared via Twitter because “I cannot in good conscience silence his last words.”

Repeat – this is being shared by request from Max’s family.

Dear World

You are ugly and dirty and you make me feel ugly and dirty. I have heard all my life that I am a sinner even though I love God and I like to think God loves me too.

I’m sorry Jack that I didn’t kiss you that day. I’m sorry Pastor Pete but please don’t be sad. Mostly I’m sorry Gramma because I know you tried really hard to love me when no one else would. I’m sorry I let you all down. I’m sorry but I’m just tired of all the hate.

I’m tired and want to sleep forever but maybe I will wake up in Heaven and there will be no hate there and only love. No one will call me bad names or hit me or remind me of my accidental place here.

Everyday I watch the news and see the hate against people like me and I realize I have no future. This country I don’t recognize anymore hates me and makes laws to punish me just because I’m gay.

They hate me because I love too much and love too wrong. I learned that my kind of love is bad. I heard it enough to believe it a long time ago.

Everyday someone comes along that tells me that I am worthless and my love, how I love, who I love is an affront to God as if anyone truly knows God’s mind.

I love beautiful things and I cry when they are gone. There is no more beauty left in the world. It has been replaced with this alien thing called hate. Bad people killed all the beautiful things. This is not a world I want to live in.

This is my choice the only choice I was ever given and it is mine alone.

I love you but I won’t miss any of this and I don’t think in the end I will be missed much at all in a world that looks at me like I’m something dirty they found on the bottom of their shoe.

I’m sorry I was weak and that I loved too much.

Max

The pastor did have a final message for Max: “You are wrong about one thing: you *will* be missed, by the entire world, who has been robbed of your beauty.”

And Delacroix had this to say to parents of LGBTQ kids: “Parents, if you have a queer child, hug them and tell them you love them. Do this every day. Tell them they are beautiful and have worth, no matter what anyone else might tell them. Be their armor against hate.”

Max’s grandmother has asked those moved by Max’s loss consider donating to The Trevor Project or to a local homeless shelter dedicated to LGBTQ kids.

IMPORTANT: If you or anyone you know is in emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, please call The Trevor Project 1-866-488-7386 (thetrevorproject.org) or the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 (suicidepreventionlifeline.org).

(h/t LGBTQ Nation)

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Podcast: Marriage Equality In Chile & Australia; National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month; “Where The Bears Are” Premieres 6th Season

In this week’s episode of The Randy Report podcast:

• Progress for marriage equality in Australia and Chile

• Gay and bisexual men are escaping persecution in Chechnya

• Acclaimed web series, “Where The Bears Are,” debuts its 6th season

• Facts, figures and more about National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255
The Trevor Project’s 24-hour crisis hotline for youth – 1-866-488-7386
The Trans Lifeline – 1-877-565-8860

All that and more on this episode of The Randy Report

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News Round-Up: September 1, 2017

(via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Roberto Caccamo gets a jump start on the weekend. #ThisBeMeIn321

• Four-time Grammy Award winner/out singer-songwriter Sam Smith announces new music due out next week.

• L’Oréal fires transgender model Munroe Bergdorf for speaking out against racism.

• Hollywood is singing the blues as summer comes to an end and the LA Times reports the lowest number of movie tickets sold in the U.S. since 1992.

• Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers says society is getting better about accepting gays in the locker room, but players still have “a fear of job security” if they might come out.

• September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time to connect with those affected by suicide and to share resources to better support individuals to prevent suicide. According to a 2016 study by the Center for Disease Control, 43% of lesbian, gay and bisexual high school students seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months, compared to 15 percent of their heterosexual peers. Find more info at the Human Rights Campaign.

• Dance into the weekend with these new remixes of “Carefully Taught” by Tony/Grammy Award winner Billy Porter and India.Arie. The first is by Quentin Harris, the second by John J-C Carr.

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LGBT Teen Suicide Front & Center In Logic’s Evocative Music Video “1-800-273-8255”

Dark societal pressures come down heavy on a gay teenager in the new video from Logic titled, “1-800-273-8255.”

The title is the actual phone number of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, where those in crisis can find confidential support.

The haunting short film tells the story of a gay teen (played by Coy Stewart) who is slowly coming to terms with his sexuality and his burgeoning relationship with another boy (Modern Family‘s Nolan Gould).

But the two boy’s fathers (played by Don Cheadle and Matthew Modine) are not down with the gay thing, and life begins to spiral out of control.

Throughout the song, Alessia Cara and Khalid are featured offering positive counterpoint to the teen’s turmoil.

The track appears on Logic’s new album, Everybody, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200.

Watch the evocative video below.

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Former NFL Player Ryan O’Callaghan Comes Out

Ryan O’Callaghan

In an deeply personal interview with Outsports, five-season NFL veteran Ryan O’Callaghan (New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs) came out of the closet having conquered years of suicidal thoughts.

O’Callaghan learned very quickly that football was the best place in the world for a gay teenager to hide. The brute, physical nature of the sport went against every stereotype of gay men he knew. At his size, few people would suspect he was gay, and if he was a football player on top of that, he felt his secret would be buried.

“No one is going to assume the big football player is gay,” he said. “It’s why a football team is such a good place to hide.

So he dove into football and made a pact with himself: As long as he put on those pads, he was good to go. Once football was over, he’d take a gun to his head and end it all. That was the deal, and he would hold himself to it.

Watch the video interview below, but make sure you head over to the full article here.

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Newsweek: Aaron Hernandez Committed Suicide Over Secret Bisexual Life

I’d seen reports earlier today about this theory, but ignored them thinking they were just salacious, tabloid tales.

But when Newsweek is reporting, you sit up and take notice.

He [Hernandez] was convicted in April 2015 for shooting and killing his friend, Odin Lloyd, seemingly without motive. But interviews with multiple law enforcement officials directly involved in the case say Lloyd—a semipro football player who was dating Hernandez’s fiance’s sister at the time—had information the football star did not want out: that he was bisexual.

One of the notes left by Hernandez was to his prison boyfriend, who is now on 24/7 suicide watch, multiple law enforcement sources confirm. Hernandez’s sexuality would, of course, not be relevant save for the fact that an intimate relationship he allegedly had with a male former high school classmate was at the center of the investigation into Lloyd’s murder.

Ernest Wallace, a co-defendant in the Lloyd murder case, told detectives the victim had called Hernandez a “schmoocher,” which was taken by Hernandez and his companions as a gay slur.

Wallace was also recorded saying during a jailhouse visit with Tanya Singleton, Hernandez’s cousin, that he would not have helped Hernandez get rid of the murder weapon—a crime for which he is now serving a 4½-to-7 year sentence on accessory to murder charges—if he had known Hernandez was a “limp wrist,” multiple sources say.

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Study: Teen LGB Suicides Dropped Thanks To Marriage Equality

(image via Youth OUTright)

According to a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics today, marriage equality has been linked to decreases in teenage suicide.

In studying suicide among high school students over 17 years, researchers found suicide attempts fell 7% for all high school students.

But, in states that legalized same-sex marriage before the June 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court ruling, suicide among LGB students dropped 14%. States that did not adopt marriage equality saw no change in the statistics.

Suicide ranks 10th in causes of death in the United States, but much higher (number 2) for young people age 10-24. But the numbers are much higher for those students who identify as LGB.

About 1 in 7 heterosexual students (15%) had seriously considered suicide compared to more than 2 in 5 lesbian, gay and bisexual students (43%).

(source)

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News Round-Up: November 30, 2016

Fitness model Nick Sandell

Some news stories you may have missed:

• Who can ever get enough of fitness model Nick Sandell?

• After closing all LGBT charities and legally banning sexual lubricants (because they “promote” homosexuality) earlier this year, the government of Tanzania has now banned all HIV/AIDS outreach programs.

• After years of physical and verbal bullying, 13 year old Tyrone Unsworth of Australia committed suicide last week. “Faggot,” “fairy,” and “gay boy” were daily taunts Tyrone heard at school until he took his own life.

• Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price, opposes same-sex marriage, opposes protections for transgender folks, says LGBT rights cost too much and wants to completely cut off all federal funds for Planned Parenthood. Sounds like a great guy, huh?

• Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is prepping legislation to extend legal protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. This is in anticipation of Donald Trump revoking the executive orders by President Obama which has protected over 700K young people to avoid deportation.

• More from calendar season! Today, we’ve got out singer/songwriter Tom Goss offering up his “beefcake” calendar. Head over to his official website to order.

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Utah: Transgender Woman Steps In Front Of Truck After Leaving Suicide Note On Facebook

According to Gay Star News, 26-year-old transgender woman Ashley Hallstrom of Logan, Utah, posted a suicide note on Facebook detailing her journey with depression and ‘lifelong struggle with being transgender,’ left her home, and stepped into traffic where she was killed by a truck this past Wednesday.

It seems the police were alerted to Hallstrom’s note, but were unable to reach her before she made her fatal decision.

This breaks my heart.

You can read Hallstrom’s suicide note below.

“These are going to be my final words. I can’t stand to live another day, so I’m committing suicide. The reason why I’ve decided to do this is because I’m transgender. For those of you that unsure of what that means, it means that even though I was born in a male body, I am and have always been female. I’ve known I was female for as far back as I can remember. This caused me to become severely depressed from a very young age. From a very young age I was told that people like me are freaks and abominations, that we are sick in the head and society hates us. This made me hate who I was. I tried so hard to be just like everyone else but this isn’t something you can change.

It wasn’t until I was 20 that I found out I wasn’t alone. I had hope that I would finally be able to live as and love who I am. I finally came out as transgender and began transitioning. For the first time in my life I could say I was genuinely happy. Despite this huge change in my life I never completely got over the depression being trans caused me. Everywhere I’d turn I’d see the hated that society had for us. I had already been poisoned by a society that didn’t understand us and, even worse, didn’t want to even try. I saw the pain it caused to people like me and going though this same hurt myself it has just become to much for me to take anymore. I wanted so much to help those going though what I had to because nobody should ever have to feel that they hate their life so much that they want to end it all just so they won’t have to experience another moment of this sadness. I’m not the first to feel this way and sadly I know I won’t be the last.

I’m writing all of this because I’ve need my story to be shared. I don’t want to be just another number of a tragic statistic. People need to know that I’m not just another face of someone they never met. I was alive. I have a family and friends that I love very much and I’m so sorry to them for the hurt this will cause them. I loved being around those that I love. I loved listening to music and singing. I loved going out to eat with friends and enjoying good food. I was a real person. I still want to help people and I believe I still can. Please share my final words. I believe my last words can help make the change that society needs to make so that one day there will be no others like me. Please help make this change because trans people are everywhere. You may never know who you’re hurting until it’s too late. Please help fix society.”

It’s important to note that Trans Lifeline, a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to the well being of transgender people in the US, is available via hotline staffed by transgender people for transgender people. They can be contacted: US: (877) 565-8860, Canada: (877) 330-6366.

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Dan Savage On The Death Of Transgender Teen Leelah Alcorn

In the aftermath of Ohio transgender teen Leelah Alcorn’s suicide, the LGBT community has rallied in her memory.

And none more fervently than Dan Savage, who calls for criminal charges to be brought against the teen’s parents:

Speaking to CNN, Leelah’s mother Carla Alcorn said, “We told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy.”