Sonoma County LGBTQI Timeline at Central Santa Rosa Library
EXHIBIT RECEPTION THIS SATURDAY, 10/22, 1-3PM
Curated by two local LGBTQI historians, Tina Dungan & Shad Reinstein, the Sonoma County LGBTQI Timeline will be displayed at the Central Santa Rosa Library all of October for LGBTQ+ History Month!
Meet the members of LGBTQI+ LEGACY Sonoma County and learn about their work to preserve, collect, and archive historical materials from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex communities of Sonoma County, California, through the year 2000.
Share your pride and record an oral history for the Here + Queer, Sonoma County project! Your story will become part of the library’s digital collections. LGBTQ+ history materials from the History & Genealogy Library will be available for the public to review. Get a chance to see primary sources up close!
There are “clearly partisan” divides over the inclusion of content addressing LGBTQ+ issues, race, and other supposedly controversial subjects in schools, says a new study from the University of Southern California.
“While Republican state leaders are backing public schools away from directly addressing race, gender, and sexual identity — as well as their historical injustices — in the U.S., Democratic state leaders are pushing in the opposite direction, mandating curricula and coursework discussing America’s racist origins and legacies and highlighting the contributions throughout history of women and people of color,” says the study, titled “A House Divided? What Americans Really Think About Controversial Topics in Schools.”
Among the general population, both Republicans and Democrats surveyed by USC said it’s good to teach high school students about certain subjects, including sex education, voting rights, and racism, but there was a great divide when it came to discussion of LGBTQ+ matters. Eighty-five percent of Democrats approved of teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, but among Republicans, 37 percent said it’s OK to teach about sexual orientation and 32 percent felt that way about gender identity.
Most respondents didn’t approve of assigning books that depict same-sex relationships, but more Democrats than Republicans said these books should be available in school libraries as optional reading for high schoolers — 84 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans.
“Americans overwhelmingly want high school to be a place where students learn about multiple sides of controversial topics, and they are free to access books touching on a variety of controversial content,” the study states.
However, many Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — did not believe that elementary-age students should have access to LGBTQ+ content. About 53 percent of respondents said elementary school students should be able to read books portraying families with same-sex parents; 73 percent agreed to this for high schoolers. But a majority opposed elementary-age children having access to books depicting sexual experiences, either same-sex or opposite, or books that portray what the survey called broadly “experience of transgender people” or “experiences of lesbian or gay people.”
Republicans believe schools deliver what they would deem objectionable subject matter to their children and are more likely to want more control over what their children learn, while Democrats, on the other hand, favor giving teachers more authority over curricula.
Nearly six out of 10 of all respondents said transgender rights should be taught generally, while 65 percent said teachers should teach about LGBTQ+ rights.
Democrats were more willing to teach children opposing points of view on various subjects. Democrats and Republicans support teaching about anti-abortion rights arguments in about the same numbers — 77 percent and 74 percent, respectively. In contrast, as opposed to 60 percent of Republicans, 92 percent of Democrats support teaching about pro-choice positions.
There are deep partisan divides over who should decide what goes into school curricula. Half of Republicans believe parents should be the most influential, compared to 20 percent of Democrats. Many Republican-sponsored “parental rights” bills reflect these views, requiring schools to post all instructional materials online and to provide parental oversight in other ways.
Regardless of their political party, many adults do not comprehend critical race theory, which conservatives have used as a liberal bogeyman in recent years. Right-wingers have thus distorted the term, using it to refer to any issue about race or equity. Some 15 percent of respondents said they knew enough to explain the term to others. However, half of the respondents had no idea what the term was or had heard it but didn’t know what it meant.
Critical race theory was poorly understood even by those who claimed to be familiar with it. Only 16 percent of these participants correctly guessed that colorblindness, which entails treating people equally regardless of skin color, did not fall into critical race theory. According to critical race theory, a clear understanding of race is crucial to eliminating racism.
The USC Rossier School of Education and Dornsife Center surveyed 3,751 households nationwide for the study.
Access to physical and mental health care, free or discounted meal deliveries, caregivers and other forms of support are now easier for LGBTQ seniors in New York state to get.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law this week making New York the latest state to expand the accessibility of services to LGBTQ people ages 60 and over, who are disproportionately affected by poverty and isolation.
The legislation requires the state’s Office for the Aging to consider gender identity and expression, sexual orientation and HIV status when it calculates which seniors need the most help. It now considers other noneconomic factors including disability, language barriers and isolation caused by race or ethnicity, too.
“This legislation is an important step in addressing those inequities while helping ensure LGBTQ older New Yorkers receive the same respect and support as anyone else in the state,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday.
The measure clarifies the state’s interpretation of a statute in the Older Americans Act of 1965, a law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as a counterpart to the Social Security Amendments and the Medicare and Medicaid Act. The 1965 law provides funding and community-based services, such as the popular Meals on Wheels program, intended to help older Americans with the “greatest social need” live at home and in their communities “with dignity and independence for as long as possible,” according to USAging, a nonprofit group that supports agencies for the aging.
The premise of the law is to let people “age in place” in their own communities, said Aaron Tax, the managing director of government affairs and policy advocacy at SAGE, the country’s largest organization supporting LGBTQ seniors and their caregivers. However, he added, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer older people — who are often in greater need of social services than their straight and cisgender counterparts — can be averse to seeking out the help the law provides because of stigma and their historical exclusion from government programs.
“In a nutshell, what we hope this legislation will accomplish is to help bridge that divide,” Tax said.
A national AARP survey published in June of more than 2,000 LGBTQ people ages 45 and older found that nearly half of the participants were either extremely or very concerned about having enough family and social support systems to lean on, and 85% of respondents said they were at least somewhat concerned about having enough income to retire. Many participants (52%) also reported feelings of social isolation.
LGBTQ adults over 80 are also at higher risk for developing chronic diseases, and they have increased disability rates compared with straight and cisgender adults in the same age group, according to a 2019 study published in The International Journal of Aging and Human Development. LGBTQ elders living with HIV can also suffer from comorbidities that require an even greater level of access to health care than they already have.
In recent years, LGBTQ senior housing projects have cropped up around the country in part to combat homelessness and provide access to more culturally competent care. A national surveypublished in May 2020 by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law painted a bleak picture when it comes to LGBTQ adults experiencing homelessness: When compared with non-LGBTQ adults, lesbian, gay and bisexual adults are three times more likely to report being homeless, while transgender adults are eight times more likely, the survey found.
To address the disparities,Massachusetts, California and a number of other states have enacted laws in recent years expanding their interpretations of those with the “greatest social need” to include LGBTQ seniors and elders living with HIV.
Tax said SAGE, which runs LGBTQ senior centers in New York City, has long been fighting for the change in New York. Now that it has passed, aging networks will be held more accountable to serve this particularly disadvantaged group, he said.
“We need to recognize that people have differences, and people come to the table with different needs,” he said.
Gubernatorial candidates Maura Healey and Tina Kotek are no strangers to political firsts.
In 2009, Healey, who is now the Massachusetts attorney general, led the nation’s first successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages. And in 2014 she broke barriers again, becoming the nation’s first out lesbian elected state attorney general.
Nearly 3,000 miles west, Kotek became the country’s first out lesbian speaker of a state House of Representatives in 2013. She made history again by becoming Oregon’s longest-serving House speaker, before stepping down in January to run for governor.
This coming Election Day, these lesbian trailblazers could shatter glass ceilings once more, simultaneously becoming the first out lesbians ever elected governor in the United States.
“If I can be someone who represents and also gives others the belief that they can be anything they want to be and do anything they want to do, regardless of race, gender, identity, religion, that’s where I want to be,” Healy, 51, told NBC News. “That’s something I take seriously, and I think that’s what other LGBTQ+ leaders do as well — recognizing that we’re not just in a vacuum.”
To achieve that, Healey, a Democrat, will have to get past Republican Geoff Diehl, a former state representative endorsed by former President Donald Trump. If Healy wins — which she’s projected to do by a wide margin — she’ll also become her state’s first elected female governor.
For Kotek, who is also a Democrat, the odds are less promising. She not only faces Republican Christine Drazan, the former minority leader of the Oregon House, but also a third-party candidate, Betsy Johnson, who recent polling suggests is dividing Democratic voters.
If either Healy or Kotek succeeds, they will follow two other out LGBTQ Democrats who have been elected to lead their states: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who is bisexual and became the first openly LGBTQ person to be elected governor in 2015, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man to be elected governor in 2018. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey was not out when he was elected to office in 2001, though he did come out as gay during his 2004 resignation speech.
“We’ve come a long way,” Lisa Turner, executive director of LPAC, a political action committee dedicated to electing lesbians and other queer women to political office, said of how far Healey and Kotek have come. “It validates the amount of work and effort that LGBTQ women have been putting into the community, into equality fights, into the electoral process.”
Sean Meloy, vice president of political programs at the political action committee LGBTQ Victory Fund, which has endorsed both Kotek and Healey, said seeing more LGBTQ candidates run formidable campaigns for governorships “shows that this is not a one-and-done kind of occurrence.”
“It shows that we are indeed part of the American political experience and that we need people to continue to come out of the closet and step forward and serve their communities,” Meloy said. “That inspiration is key to making sure that we are equitably represented in government.”
Healey was born in Maryland but said she was born “over” Massachusetts: Her longtime Bay State family placed soil from the New England state underneath Healey’s delivery bed before her birth. As a child, Healey grew up as the oldest of five siblings in an old farm house in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.
She first planted her seeds in Massachusetts when she attended Harvard College, where she captained the women’s basketball team. After playing professional basketball in Austria for several years, she returned to Massachusetts to attend Northeastern University School of Law.
Several years after graduating, Healey began her life in public service working for the office she would one day lead, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office. During that time, she had the opportunity to work with someone she described as one of her lesbian role models: American lawyer and civil rights advocate Mary Bonauto, who is best known for arguing on behalf of same-sex couples in the 2015 Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S.
A New Jersey high school tried to cancel an adaptation of the LGBTQ+ musical The Prom due to “community concern” over its themes.
Officials at Cedar Grove High School in Essex County, New Jersey planned to cancel a student production of The Prom – which sees a lesbian student try to bring her same-sex date to a school prom – but were forced to backtrack after opposition from the community.
The district’s superintendent Anthony Grosso told those concerned in a Friday (14 October) statement that the play would not be cancelled, but that students would perform a “High School Edition” of the play.
“After further inquiry with the licensing organisation, we were informed that a High School Edition of The Prom just became available,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, Cedar Grove Public Schools fully supports producing the High School Edition.
Cedar Grove’s music department issued a statement on Instagram after administrative officials initially told them that the play would not be going forward due to vaguely described “community concerns.”
The department called on members of the community to voice their concerns in a future meeting with the district’s Board of Education on 18 October.
“For a program that has run for over 20 years under the same director and never had a question of content for any show in the past, this is a first,” the statement read.
“After seeing [The Prom] a few years ago and learning that it was now available for schools to produce, the students themselves chose this musical as our next production. We would actually be the New Jersey high school premiere!
“We secured the rights, paid for the materials, and announced the show to students but have now hit a bump in our normal road.”
Supporters of the post included The Prom actor Josh Lamon, who replied to the statement saying: “Whatever we can do, I’m here for it.”
He shared the statement on social media, adding that the cancellation was “infuriating and deeply homophobic,” and that there is “nothing inappropriate in or about the show.”
Several users, including fellow Broadway stars, agreed with Lamon that this was “literally the reason they need to be doing this show!!” while others asked if they should “tell Stephen Colbert” since the talk show host is close by.
After the superintendent announced the change, department member Rebecca Altschul posted on Instagram thanking those who spoke out in support of the play.
A gay couple was beaten and bloodied in front of the Connecticut gay bar they own. The two men say the incident was a hate crime, but local authorities disagree.
In a statement shared Tuesday, Casey Fitzpatrick said he and his husband, Nicholas Ruiz — the owners of Troupe429 in Norwalk, Connecticut — were violently assaulted by a male bar patron who also disparaged them with anti-LGBTQ slurs. The incident, which occurred in mid-September, resulted in Ruiz being sent to the hospital and requiring over 50 stitches across his face and $20,000’s worth of plastic surgery, Fitzpatrick said in the statement, which was published Tuesday on the bar’s website.
Fitzpatrick said the assault amounted to a hate crime and that the incident is “being mishandled” by the Norwalk Police Department.
Nicholas Ruiz and Casey Fitzpatrick.via Troupe429
“As of October 11, nearly two and a half weeks after the assault, no charges have been filed, nor has the suspect been arrested,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “We are asking for your help and support in seeking justice for Nicholas.”
The Norwalk Police Department announced Wednesday that they arrested the suspect, Carmen Everett Parisi, earlier that day and said in a statement to NBC News that they found no evidence that the assault was fueled by anti-LGBTQ bias.
“The arrest follows the Police Department’s warrant issued by a judge, after completing investigative steps of reviewing of video footage from inside the bar and attempting to get sworn statements from the two victims,” Lt. Terrence Blake, the Norwalk Police Department’s public information officer and LGBTQ liaison, said in a statement Wednesday. “Video footage from the body-worn, on-the-scene body cameras show no findings of any racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual orientation (RRES) language or indication of any anti-LGBTQ motivation associated with the assault.”
On the evening of the attack, a male patron “repeatedly harassed and made several female patrons and our staff uncomfortable,” which prompted staff to “respectfully” escort the man out of the venue, according to Fitzpatrick’s statement.
When the man would not leave the bar’s entryway, Fitzpatrick said, Ruiz went outside to de-escalate the situation and “peacefully” pleaded with the man to leave the area. The man then made disparaging remarks about the bar and the people inside it using anti-LGBTQ slurs, Fitzpatrick recounted.
The man then became violent, repeatedly punching the right side of Ruiz’s face and clawing at his chest, causing his clothes to rip and a necklace to be torn from his neck, Fitzpatrick wrote. The suspect also punched Fitzpatrick in the neck, closing his airway, Fitzpatrick added.
The statement was coupled with a graphic image of Ruiz on the evening of the incident. Ruiz can be seen lying on a hospital bed with his cheek torn open and blood rushing down his body.
“As of October 11, nearly two and a half weeks after the assault, no charges have been filed, nor has the suspect been arrested,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “We are asking for your help and support in seeking justice for Nicholas.”
Troupe429 in Norwalk, Conn.Google Maps
The Norwalk Police Department and Fitzpatrick confirmed that the police responded to the incident the evening the assault occurred.
But in the weeks since, Fitzpatrick said he and Ruiz received “zero updates” despite Fitzpatrick’s repeated emails, calls and visits to the department. The Norwalk Police Department said in a statement to NBC News that it attempted to get sworn statements from the victims, “who did not show up for their appointments.”
In an email to NBC News on Thursday, Ruiz and Fitzpatrick said they were thankful that the police had arrested the suspect, but again rejected the department’s version of the events.
“We were always cooperative with law enforcement, never missed an appointment, and remain committed to assisting them however we can,” the couple said. “Our hearts are heavy having lived this experience and knowing violent attacks in our community go unanswered. It was scary having to speak up and not knowing if reliving the trauma would bring justice.”
The Norwalk incident is the latest in a slew of violent threats and attacks against LGBTQ people throughout the country this year.
At least three LGBTQ events were targeted by white nationalist groups in June — which is designated as LGBTQ Pride Month — and in April, a man walked into a New York City bar with a bottle of flammable liquid, poured it on the bar’s floor, lit a match and set the venue ablaze, police said.
Over 1,300 hate-based incidents against Americans were motivated by their sexual orientation or gender identity in 2020, accounting for 16% of all biased-fueled encounters that year, according to the FBI’s most recent hate crime data.
That was the message from Brett Perry and his husband John Michael Schert while they surveyed the remnants of a Progress Pride hanging on their front porch that was burned overnight last week.
The couple has lived on their street in the North End neighborhood of Boise since 2011. In 2020, the first of three Pride flags the couple has hung on their porch was stolen. A second was defaced. On October 5, the third was set on fire.
“This is our progress flag,” said Perry in a video posted to Instagram on his husband’s account. “This is our third time getting targeted. Someone burned it, it looks like in the middle of the night. There’s melted pieces on the floor, and unfortunately the camera didn’t catch it.” After the first two flags were stolen and vandalized, the couple didn’t report the episodes to police. This time, Schert says, it felt like the vandalism was spiraling.
“We reported this incident because burning feels like so much of an escalation,” Schert told the Idaho Statesman. “It’s quite dangerous and our house could have caught on fire. This feels much more hateful — someone knowing how to cover your camera and then defacing your flag on your property. That feels aggressive and it feels scary because they knew what they were doing.”
Schert says an LGBTQ liaison officer with Boise Police Department responded within minutes, took statements from the couple and neighbors and collected evidence. According to the department, North End residents have reported damaged or stolen pride flags to police seven times in 2022.
Schert and Perry say they’ve been humbled by the support they received from officials and neighbors.
“Two elderly neighbors just knocked on our door, delivering a prayer shawl made by loving hands at the Cathedral of the Rockies,” Schert posted to Instagram. “We don’t know these neighbors all that well, but they wanted us to know they are here to protect us. A care package arrived from Alabama with goods to heal and brighten our home. A Boise 10 year-old tried to surreptitiously leave a gorgeous watering can on our front stoop (good to know the doorbell camera works sometimes) letting us know we are loved.”
Schert had a message for the vandals, as well. “You, the domestic terrorists who committed this act, have failed, for we will never stop living and loving in Boise. And now, hundreds of new progress flags are going up in response to your cowardly actions. Love wins. Humanity wins. Community is stronger than you and your fear.”
LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.
Wednesdays 1:30-3pm. Online via Zoom. Next Wed. 10/19,
we will be talking about SCRAP 6, the local group that helped to defeat John Briggs’ attempt to make it illegal for gays and lesbians to teach in California schools. Contact me to enroll and receive a Zoom link: cdungan@santarosa.edu
LGBTQ beachgoers are wrestling with New York City’s plan to tear down a long-abandoned tuberculosis hospital that has served as a landmark for the community.
Graffiti on the outer walls declare “QUEER TRANS POWER” and “KNOW YOUR POWER.” Air conditioning units rust in the shattered windows of Neponsit Beach Hospital, once also a nursing home, but empty since 1998. A shrine on the chain-link fence memorializes a queer icon found dead off the waters nearby.
The city wants to create a park on the site, wiping out the decrepit structure facing a clothing-optional beach in the borough of Queens.
The LGBTQ community has long embraced that section of Jacob Riis Park, sunbathing nude and holding gatherings such as memorials for Ms. Colombia, also known as Oswaldo Gomez, who is believed to have drowned nearby in 2018.
Novels by LGBTQ authors including Audre Lorde and Joan Nestle helped to turn the area into a fabled haven.
The abandoned Neponsit Beach Hospital in Rockaway Park, N.Y.Google
“We would like to be assured that we will continue to have this space, which has always been our space, where people from the queer community always end up,” said Victoria Cruz, 76, who has been coming to the beach since the 1960s.
“This is the people’s beach. And we are the people,” said Cruz, nicknamed the “Queen of Riis.”
But what makes that beach section more isolated and exclusive for the LGBTQ community, is deemed an ugly health hazard by area residents.
“The community is concerned about the remediation of vermin and asbestos and whatever else is in there,” said Jenna Tipaldo, a 25-year-old PhD student who lives nearby.
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which owns the site, has met with neighbors and LGBTQ community members to discuss their concerns.
“We will continue to engage these communities to learn how we can accommodate their concerns while ensuring public safety,” Stephanie Buhle, deputy press secretary for the agency, said in an email.
The public hospitals agency has not announced specific plans for the site, and Buhle has not responded to requests for more details.
But Joann Ariola, the city councilwoman whose district includes the building, said in an email this week that a park has been proposed, and surveys and other demolition preparations are underway.
The public hospitals agency has not said when major demolition will begin, but told Reuters by email this week it aims for completion before the 2023 beach season.
Casey Morrissey, a Brooklyn-based bookseller, said they do not mind the demolition as long as the beach is not lost to the LGBTQ community.
“It has been a sanctuary for us. We just come here without planning and always find friends,” Morrissey said during a visit with their partner. “We don’t have many spaces like these.”
California high school senior Landon Jones, 18, said he’s been bullied by his classmates since the fifth grade. But Jones, who is openly gay, said he’s no longer looking the other way.
“I have been called ‘faggot’ countless times at school, and it literally doesn’t bother me at all,” Jones said in a TikTok video he shared Oct. 1 that has gone viral. “The fact that they came to my house does.”
The video, which has 1.3 million views, appears to show two separate instances of Jones’ being subjected to anti-gay bullying. In the more recent incident, which occurred Sept. 29 and was caught on a home surveillance camera, a young man walks up to Jones’ home and starts to knock before Jones’ father opens the door.
“Does Landon live here?” the young man can be heard saying.
His dad responds, “Yes, why?”
“Someone said to come up here,” the young man mumbles before loudly yelling, “because he’s a faggot!” and running off the property.
Jones’ dad said the young man ran off and got in on the passenger side of a black Lincoln Navigator, which drove off.
“I remember being up in my room, hearing it, and I heard what he said. I immediately jumped out of bed and walked outside to see what was happening,” said Jones, who came out as gay in 2020. “I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying.”
Jones recorded the other incident in his viral TikTok video in August. It shows a group of young men surrounding Jones’ car as he and his sister sit in a Starbucks parking lot. One of the men looks inside Jones’ car and says, “This f—— faggot.”
Jones said he decided to share both incidents on TikTok, where he has nearly 700,000 followers, because “I’m sick of being silent about it,” adding, “So I finally spoke up.”
Jones said the young man who’s visible in the Starbucks video and the person who was driving the black Lincoln Navigator both attend his high school, El Toro High School in Lake Forest, which is part of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. He said he had heard from others that the young man who came up to his front door attends a nearby high school, although he doesn’t know which one and couldn’t confirm the accuracy of that information.
A spokesperson for the school district said the “unconscionable acts committed against Landon Jones do not reflect the feelings or values of Saddleback Valley Unified School District (SVUSD) and El Toro High School (ETHS).”
“ETHS and SVUSD administration, together with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts of the incidents,” Wendie Hauschild, the school district’s director of communications and administrative services, said in an email. “We can confirm that the person seen in the surveillance video of the incident that took place at a private home is not a student in SVUSD. Due to the confidentiality that we are required by law to uphold for our students, as well as other minors, SVUSD is unable to share further information regarding the results of the investigation. SVUSD remains steadfast in its commitment to create inclusive, supportive, and safe environments for all students on our campuses.”
Asked about the Sept. 29 incident, an Orange County sheriff’s spokesperson said a school resource officer at El Toro High School was able to speak to “individuals that may or may not have been involved in this incident” or “possibly have knowledge of the incident.” The officer said the person who walked up to the Jones home hasn’t been identified, adding that the “investigation remains ongoing.”
While Jones still attends El Toro High School, he transitioned to virtual schooling at the start of the school year because of “bullying and a rough experience with the school,” he said.
Landon Jones and his father, Nathan Jones. Desiree Keoshian
In a joint statement sent by email, Landon Jones’ parents, Lauren and Nathan Jones, said their son has been “called names and made fun of” since elementary school because of his appearance and because his interests never aligned with those of his peers.
“Kids and even adults can be so cruel to people that are different from them,” they said.
After the incident outside their home, Lauren and Nathan Jones said, they are determined to see the people bullying their son face consequences.
“Actions have consequences and we will keep pursuing this until those consequences are paid,” the couple said. “This behavior will not be tolerated and we will never turn a blind eye to injustices like these. We have a family to protect and that is our number one focus right now.”
The Jones family said they reached out to El Toro High School and told administrators that the driver of the Lincoln Navigator was a student at the school. They said no action has yet been taken that they are aware of.
Since Jones shared the video, over 11,000 people have shared comments, most of them supportive.
Former “American Idol” contestant David Archuleta, who came out publicly last year, was among the commenters: “Oh gosh… sorry you’re dealing with that there’s no justification for what they’re doing to you and so shallow of them.”
LGBTQ TikTok personality Josh Helfgott also commented, saying: “If there’s one thing I got from this video, it’s how STRONG you are & how weak they are. I’m so sorry this is happening. Keep shining, Landon.”
Landon Jones and his mother, Lauren Jones.Desiree Keoshian
Jones said, “One of the last things that I had expected was the amount of support from the community that I would have gotten.”
Lauren and Nathan Jones said they hope their son’s story will give more people voices and show “that no one should ever have to go through this alone.”
Jones isn’t alone when it comes to anti-gay bullying: A report published last year by The Trevor Project, a nonprofit LGBTQ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention group, found the majority of LGBTQ youths (52%) enrolled in middle or high school reported having been bullied either in person or electronically in the year before they participated in the survey. LGBTQ middle school students reported higher instances of bullying (65%) than those in high school (49%).
