October is LGBT Celebration Month!

Every day in October, featured on this website, will be an "icon" - someone who has distinguished themselves as making significant contributions to LGBT rights. There’s also going to be a video, biography, bibliography, downloadable images and other educational resources, available as well.

At the top of this blog is the video that changes every day during the month of October. I hope that you will take the opportunity to watch each video and learn more about the contributions of LGBTQ people over the years to the human race.

Part of the goal of LGBThistorymonth.com is to encourage high schools, colleges and community centers to download the materials and create exhibits.

Psychologist: McInerney Had Well of Rage | News | The Advocate

As the defense trial of Brandon McInerney drew to a close Friday, a defense expert testified that Brandon had suffered severe mental and emotional abuse since the age of seven and had developed a wall around him that effectively shut off his emotions and allowed him to not "feel" anything when he purportedly shot Lawrence King, a classmate who was known to be gay. The psychologist testified that by being abused at such an early age by his father he was incapable of feeling anything emotionally and was, most likely, not capable of feeling remorse for shooting King. Donald Hoagland, a clinical and forensic psychologist who evaluated the defendant, according to the Ventura County Star testified, “You can’t go through life feeling like hell every moment, so you learn to shut off your feelings.”

However, if this was true, then I wonder how he could feel hatred against anyone if he had a lack of emotional responses to outside situations.

McInerney, 14 at the time of the shooting,  is being tried as an adult and could face life in prison if convicted. This case could also set some precedents for future cases of hate crimes and violence towards others, in addition to LGBTQ students, and could lead to a forced change of laws regarding how administrators and teachers handle school bullying and anti-gay incidents.

We certainly hope so!

Study: GLBT Youth At Much Higher Risk than Straights for Homelessness :: EDGE Philadelphia

I reported this previously, but with such a high rise in teen suicides in this country and the greater risk of abuse and homelessness for at-risk children in areas and states that have anti-gay legislation on the books (as in the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota -- which lies in the district represented by Congresswoman and anti-gay politician Michele Bachmann), it needs to be emphasized that LGBTQ children are more affected and pay a higher price from the anti-gay rhetoric of organizations, politicians, schools and administration supported bullying, teachers, and especially families who "toss them out" for being gay.

Homeless LGBTQ teens and kids receive less attention and help than heterosexual ones and have a much higher suicide rate. In a study, conducted by Children’s Hospital in Boston, the results found that 15% of GLBT teens are homeless. By comparison, only 3% of heterosexual teens are in similar straits. The American Journal of Public Health published the study on July 21.

That study’s results were confirmed by a study published earlier this year, "Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations." The report shows that GLBTs who live in states where their rights are denied or are subject to popular vote suffer elevated instances of anxiety and depression, along with the kinds of substance abuse problems that are known to stem from those mental states...more

Dr. Phil Testimony

@FosterBoys -- 2 questions Doc:
1. You said that "it is impossible to un-ring the cyber bell". What about that company you featured on your show that, for a price, will monitor and eliminate all negative comments about a person on the web?
2. You said that "the bullies don't understand the gravity of what they're doing". Really? Are you positing that they don't know how hurtful they're being or that they don't understand the legal consequences of their actions? Please clarify.

My Response:Your questions are really 1. That photo, text, lie or rumor that is posted online and spread around grows and grows like the sounds of the bell spread out farther & farther. But once done they can never be taken back & affect that person for the rest of their life. It may be funny for someone at the time, but not for the person being persecuted. It may change their self image, cause depression and end in suicide. It follows them forever like the sounds of the bell.

Bullies very rarely care about the gravity or consequences of what they're doing or they wouldn't do it. Empathy, the ability to walk in another's shoes, doesn't develop in teenagers until later years, so being a bully, either alone or in a group to someone, places them above others and inflates ego's; but in the process destroys others' lives at the risk of civil or criminal liability. Some bullies never grow up and foster that same attitude on their children-now who's liable?