Edited on Fri Jul-20-07 04:14 PM by dsc
The state is NC. Here is the letter I wrote to my state Senator.
I am writing to ask you to support House Bill 1366, the School Violence Prevention Act. I am writing this as a former student. For me it started in first grade with a gym teacher who repeatedly taunted me for my lack of atheletic skills. By middle school I was widely preceived to be gay and was called fag so often I literally began to think it was my name. In addition to the name calling there was constant humiliating pranks and sometimes violence. By early high school despite being a very sucessful student I hated going to school. I don't really want to go into every detail but I was terrorized at school and even had teachers tell me I deserved it because I wasn't manly enough. Fortunately by mid high school a student I tutored on the football team put a stop to some of the worst abuses. I don't want any other kid to go through what I did. I don't want another kid to think he would be better of dead than gay.
I also am writing to ask you support this bill as a teacher. I am fortunate enough to currently work in a district with an anti bullying policy that includes sexual orientation. That hasn't always been the case. I remember when I first started out as a new teacher and being literally the only one who banned bullying of gay and lesbian students. It is slowly getting better for gay students. One reason is more teachers like me find themselves backed up when we enforce such policies in our classrooms. Both teachers and students need a strong anti gay policy to point to in order to say to parents and students that this behavior isn't right, isn't moral, and isn't going to be tolerated.
This bill isn't about special rights. It isn't even about equal rights. It is about physical and mental safety. It is no less about if LGBT students are people worthy of the very least a society can offer. Bare physical and mental safety is literally the very least a society should provide its members. I made it out of high school. Way too many of us don't. This bill is one small step to lower the number of us who don't.
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