Coco Peru speaks out about gay suicides: “I remember all too well the years of bullying that I silently endured.”
I look at their photos, at those beautiful sweet faces, and I want to go back in time. I want to reach through those photos and pull each of them into my world so I can sit with them and tell them that there is life after their teens, that there are people out there who will love and support you and raise you up and celebrate you. People who want to make this world a better place for you so that you can in turn use your talents to make it a better world for others.
This may sound corny, but I have said it for years that one of the reasons I wanted to create Coco was so that I could celebrate the very things I was taught to hate about myself so that future generations of gay kids wouldn’t have to go through what I went through.
In fact, my heart has soared more than a few times when I’ve gotten emails from teenagers, and one eleven-year-old boy, who have thanked me for being “out” and inspiring them to be themselves. However, today my heart sinks that these four young people fell through the cracks.
I remember all too well the years of bullying that I silently endured. I never told my parents, not once, that I was being called names like fag, homo, and gay. I was so afraid they would ask me if what the other kids were calling me was true.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Mo says:
Greg, have you thought about creating a video for the It Gets Better project on YouTube?
Eyad says:
Oh yeah lovely idea
i agree with Mo !!