It's not alright.

It's not alright. It's not acceptable. It's not okay. I'm saying this with the passion, the experience and the fear of someone who has stood in the back of a crowded room while others have trampled her community into the ground.

Being Gay is not a crime. 

But in thousands of classrooms, schools, offices and homes, people are being persecuted for who they are. It is unacceptable to be afraid to walk out the front door in the morning. It is unacceptable to step into a place of work in the morning and have to mask who you are and who you love, or who you could love. It is unacceptable that the only place some of us have to forge connections with people like ourselves, with people in that same downtrodden community, is through the relative anonymity of the internet.

It is unacceptable to hear the word "gay" thrown around classrooms and conversations, to hear who we are used as an insult. It is unacceptable. 

It is unacceptable that hundreds, thousands, millions of people have the ability to control our lives, to control a portion of our lives that has absolutely nothing to do with them. Our lives are our own, why is it necessary that we fight so hard to claim them? 

There are those who have the arrogance to fight us, to condemn us, to say we are immoral, that we are destroying the values of this nation, of this world. Those same voices are the ones driving our children to death, driving our friends, our family members, our youth to end their lives. What moral high ground do they have when the blood of our citizens is on their hands? 

Our lives are our own. Still we are forced to stand in the back and watch as votes are cast and counted. Watch as our rights are granted only to watch them be ripped from our lives again. We watch, we wait, we suffer. 

From the GLSEN 2009 National School Climate Survey:

84.6% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 40.1% reported being physically harassed and 18.8% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.

63.7% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 27.2% reported being physically harassed and 12.5% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their gender expression.

72.4% heard homophobic remarks, such as "faggot" or "dyke," frequently or often at school.

Nearly two-thirds (61.1%) of students reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than a third (39.9%) felt unsafe because of their gender expression.

29.1% of LGBT students missed a class at least once and 30.0% missed at least one day of school in the past month because of safety concerns, compared to only 8.0% and 6.7%, respectively, of a national sample of secondary school students.

The reported grade point average of students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression was almost half a grade lower than for students who were less often harassed (2.7 vs. 3.1).

Increased levels of victimization were related to increased levels of depression and anxiety and decreased levels of self-esteem.

Being out in school had positive and negative repercussions for LGBT students – outness was related to higher levels of victimization, but also higher levels of psychological well-being.

Positive Interventions and Support:

Having a Gay-Straight Alliance in school was related to more positive experiences for LGBT students, including: hearing fewer homophobic remarks, less victimization because of sexual orientation and gender expression, less absenteeism because of safety concerns and a greater sense of belonging to the school community.

The presence of supportive staff contributed to a range of positive indicators including fewer reports of missing school, fewer reports of feeling unsafe, greater academic achievement, higher educational aspirations and a greater sense of school belonging.

Students attending schools with an anti-bullying policy that included protections based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression heard fewer homophobic remarks, experienced lower levels of victimization related to their sexual orientation, were more likely to report that staff intervened when hearing homophobic remarks and were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff than students at schools with a general policy or no policy.

Despite the positive benefits of these interventions, less than a half of LGBT students (44.6%) reported having a Gay-Straight Alliance at school, slightly more than half (53.4%) could identify six or more supportive educators and less than a fifth (18.2%) attended a school that had a comprehensive anti-bullying policy.

I'm standing on my soap box. And I'm angry. I like to think I have every right to be. And the thing is, I normally stand in the back of the crowd. I don't raise my voice, I don't shout out about my anger, about the injustice, about my fear. But I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of standing to the side as I let others trample down on my freedoms. I won't stay silent. I won't lose my voice to the masses. Even if this is the only voice I have, the only way I can share my anger, my frustration, my pain and my love, I will share it. 

I will not let my students suffer at the hands of others. I will not let my fellow teachers insult our students for who they are. I will not stand to the side. 

No one ever stood up for me when I was in school, I won't let my students feel so ignored. We do exist. We are in your schools, your offices, your business, your family. No matter how much you try to ignore us, we exist. We are here. Accept us. We've accepted you. We have a voice.