Essay On Gay Violence

Every day, thousands of young people across the country, if not more than that, live in constant fear of being hated for who they are. Students walk into schools afraid of being attacked, verbally and physically, by fellow students and possibly even bullied by their teachers. Some of these youth are even told by their families that to be who they are, they would be unwelcome in their own homes. Still more are unable to speak up for themselves in fear of these things, and must disguise themselves constantly as people they are not. This is the experience of one of the most at-risk populations of teens: youth who identify as LGBT+. This acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, but it can be extended to include all different sexualities and gender identities. While they seem much more accepted today than …show more content…
LGBT+ youth are twice as likely to have been physically assaulted or otherwise hurt at school, according to a survey taken by the Human Rights Campaign. In addition, according to Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, 12-28% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students (the study did not include transgender or other students) had been threatened or harmed with a weapon at school within the past year. There is also a significant risk of these students to suffer sexual violence, as according to these surveys 14-31% of gay and lesbian students and 17-31% of bisexual students had been raped at some point in their lives. Some perpetrators of these crimes tend to say they did it to try to ‘cure’ them or make them ‘normal,’ sometimes saying that they are only identifying as LGBT+ because they either did not experience sex with the opposite sex correctly, or at all. However, these acts are done purely out of hatred, prejudice, and malice. All of this abuse that LGBT+ youth experience is very harmful, as it can lead to devastating emotional