Last week I predicted that Cornell’s LGBT community wouldn’t miss the opportunity to get involved with a movement called ‘It Gets Better,’ an anti-gay-bullying video series and online support group. Sure enough, the lead story of today’s Daily Sun reported that a video by Cornellians will be posted shortly. Accompanied by an email this evening, Cornell’s LGBT groups are submitting the video and encouraging students to protest ‘gay bullying’ by wearing purple this Wednesday. Via an email:
On October 20th, 2010, let’s wear purple in honor of the 14 young men and women who committed suicide in recent weeks and months due to bullying. Some of these young ones were of the LGBTQ community and some were bullied just for being different.
The author of this email may be overstepping their deductive bounds a bit when they conclude the suicides were “due to bullying.” egardless, Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of developmental psychology and director of Cornell University’s Sex and Gender Lab, recently said in a statement that labeling gay suicide rates as an epidemic is scientifically false. More importantly, it is a dangerous way of thinking that sends the wrong message.
Savin-Williams said, “It is important to point out in these moments of grief that there is absolutely no scientific evidence of an ‘epidemic of gay youth suicide,’ or even that gay youth kill themselves more frequently than do straight youth. […]
“Thus, to assert that there is an epidemic of gay youth suicide is not only speculative but also irresponsible because of the message it delivers to gay youth: ‘be prepared to kill yourself.’ Indeed, most gay youth love their life and wouldn’t change their sexuality even if they had a magic pill to do so. Is this not the better message to deliver?”
The type of misinformation Savin-Williams talks about is precisely what I mentioned in the last post. Anyone of sound mind will agree that bullying and prejudiced behavior against any group of people is terrible, but misrepresenting an issue can have greater, more longer-lasting consequences.
Oliver Renick blogs at the Cornell Insider. He is a member of the Student Free Press Association.
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