"That's Just Fabulous."

Represent. | It’s Purple Shirt Day! To end homosexual bullying in schools… because bullies aren’t legit.

I feel like I should “get serious” and add to this….

I was bullied in school… a lot. I wasn’t popular. I had some friends, but no one I felt I could confide in when I was falling apart in my teens because of my home-life or through high school when I felt completely out of place. Ultimately it was those same friends that tormented me, funny how that happens. Where should I begin…

Let me preface this by saying I grew up with a lesbian mother. Although I never considered her wife at the time to be my mother or even a mother figure she essentially was a parent to me, and she was there through some very formative years. I learned a lot witnessing their relationship.

When I was in my early tweens before I even really understood what it meant to be a lesbian I was being called one. I can recall being 13 at my Christian school and someone ripping a photo from my locker of me hugging a girlfriend of mine. They swung it above my head taunting me,”ohh you’re a lesbian” making kissy noises as I desperately tried to take it back. I was absolutely devastated, and it didn’t help that those same children had seen me picked up from school by my mother’s indisputably gay wife. To make matters worse as I approached the lockers the next morning I found a paper lying on a lunch table with the picture…photocopied. Under it read something like: “Loren tramp is also a lesbian” in one of my best friend’s handwriting. It was at that point I realized I only had myself, and the word “friend” sort of became meaningless. As you can imagine the taunting didn’t stop there and by my freshman year of high school I was in a pretty dark lonely place. I became very rebellious, only wore black, was high all the time, ditched class you name it I did it— anything to get away from those “narrow-minded religious freaks”— a little hippie caught in a black hole.
Things became better after a while, and then worse the summer after my senior year when some friends at the time found out I was gay. They caught an encounter of mine with a girl on their video camera (while we were vacationing) and showed it to everyone with added commentary. I was heartbroken. Again I was being tormented and abandoned by the very people I trusted. This time around it was easier though. I was older, more evolved… I didn’t care. I realized it wasn’t me there was something wrong with at that point— it was them. They were shallow, narrow-minded, judgmental, and negative. Eventually I stopped talking to all of them, and it was liberating to turn around and never look back. It wasn’t until college that I truly felt comfortable being myself. Doesn’t it always work out that way? ;)

The point I’m trying to make is that we grow; we become stronger. The people, the situations, the trauma we endure growing up molds us. At times I wish I could to return to my 12 year old self and tell her that she becomes such a strong, beautiful, empathetic woman that now serves as a light in so many peoples lives. I don’t foresee bullying in school to stop. Bully behavior is a projection of self, as long as there are negative and insecure people in this world there will be bullies— even as adults. What we can do is empower the children that are facing these situations in schools. Let them know there is nothing wrong with them, that they are incredible and will be humbled and strengthened by these experiences as they grow.