Gay California teen Eric James Borges commits suicide, weeks after posting an It Gets Better video
This is Eric James Borges. He posted this It Gets Better video last month. Yesterday, he committed suicide. Eric, 19, was an intern with the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBT youth.
Jim Reeves, Vice President of Queer Landia, had met Eric personally. He reports about his suicide:
Word began spreading late Wednesday among shocked and saddened friends and acquaintances. Not accepted by his birth family, EricJames was striking out on his own, trying to deal with his personal situation, but also wanting to help others. Sadly, even involvement with the Trevor Project was not enough to help him navigate the turbulent waters of young adulthood.
Update: Stephnie Davison, a classmate and good friend of Eric’s responded to this blog post by sharing a bit about Eric:
He was an amazing person who was bullied throughout his entire life. He was beaten at home for being gay and kicked out multiple times. His mother never approved of him being himself. When he tried to be Eric, he couldn’t. He was an artist, a friend, a boyfriend, and a truly amazing individual. EricJames Borges will always be remembered and he was my friend.
[…]
His mother disowned him, and refuses to talk to him. I’m not sure that she knows he even committed suicide tbh.
Iraq’s Unwanted People: A documentary about being LGBT in Iraq
Bradley Secker, a U.K based photojournalist, spent two months living in Damascus, Syria in autumn 2010. He spent his time locating LGBT individuals that had fled Iraq in fear of being persecuted because of their sexuality. Gaining the trust of these individuals meant Bradley could see inside the closed diaspora of Iraqi LGBT refugees first hand. His primary aim was to create a photo essay with written, first hand testimonies.
On return to the U.K, Bradley started work on ‘Iraq’s unwanted people’, a short documentary highlighting the problems faced by Iraqi LGBT individuals. The film shows two personal accounts of men living in fear as refugees in Syria. Through photos, interviews and moving image, the film hopes to pose the question as to how, and why, such acts of violence and brutality can be overlooked in a new ‘free’ Iraq.
Contact GRN for more information.
(via Peter Galazka on Google+)
8 year old tells Michele Bachmann: “My mommy’s gay but she doesn’t need any fixing.”
“Video of Michele Bachmann trying to get her photo op in with my 8 year old son. It’s hard to hear but he leans in and tells her that his mom is gay and she doesn’t need fixing. GO ELIJAH! Love that look of shock she gets.”
What tips would you give to someone planning on coming out to their grandparents or other older relatives?
It Gets Better by Allie Osterloh
An illustration created by Allie Osterloh for Spirit Day 2011.
MyAcceptance.org tells stories of LGBT people, two photos at a time
MyAcceptance.org, a new photo essay project, is documenting members of the LGBT community — two photos at a time. The one on the left representing how they’ve felt in the past and the one on the right representing how they feel now.
Much like the It Gets Better campaign, the goal of the project is “to give hope to those out there that are struggling in their lives, those who feel like they’re alone and that there’s no one to turn to.”
The project also invites people to participate by submitting their own photos.
Learn more about the project and view the photos at MyAcceptance.org.
(Photo: Parker Austin)
Gay / Straight Identical Twins = Identical Rights
(via gwsvws)
![thedailywhat:
Here Comes The Bigotry of the Day: A Highland Park woman was denied the purchase of her “dream bridal gown” from a New Jersey wedding dress store because she is marrying another woman.
Alix Genter, who is set to marry her longtime partner next July, had her dress all picked out when Here Comes the Bride store manager Donna phoned her up and told her she couldn’t buy it because she was a lesbian.
According to Genter, Donna decried the marriage as “illegal” and said the store “do[es] not participate in any illegal actions.” (Genter and her partner are planning to get married in New York, which legalized same-sex marriages in June.)
“I was devastated,” Genter told Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky. “I was crying. I called her a bigot; I told her, ‘I am a happy person and you are a miserable person.’ Then she hung up on me.”
When Polaneczky followed up with Donna, she was told that Genter’s replacement of the word “groom” with “partner” on the customer-information sheet was a deliberate provocation in an effort “to show that she’s different.” The manager then went on to define lesbians as women who are experimenting with other women because “men can be difficult.”
Apparently Donna has been “persuaded” by a bad Yelp review from Genter to meet with her parents “to try to smooth things over.”
[philly / image: advocate.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq59olmEfP1qzpwi0o1_400.jpg)
Here Comes The Bigotry of the Day: A Highland Park woman was denied the purchase of her “dream bridal gown” from a New Jersey wedding dress store because she is marrying another woman.
Alix Genter, who is set to marry her longtime partner next July, had her dress all picked out when Here Comes the Bride store manager Donna phoned her up and told her she couldn’t buy it because she was a lesbian.
According to Genter, Donna decried the marriage as “illegal” and said the store “do[es] not participate in any illegal actions.” (Genter and her partner are planning to get married in New York, which legalized same-sex marriages in June.)
“I was devastated,” Genter told Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky. “I was crying. I called her a bigot; I told her, ‘I am a happy person and you are a miserable person.’ Then she hung up on me.”
When Polaneczky followed up with Donna, she was told that Genter’s replacement of the word “groom” with “partner” on the customer-information sheet was a deliberate provocation in an effort “to show that she’s different.” The manager then went on to define lesbians as women who are experimenting with other women because “men can be difficult.”
Apparently Donna has been “persuaded” by a bad Yelp review from Genter to meet with her parents “to try to smooth things over.”
US 2012 Election: Stances on LGBTQ Rights
Here’s visual confirmation of each 2012 presidential candidate’s plans on 12 issues that affect America’s estimated 31 million LGBT voters.
(via tyleroakley, marriageequality.org)
Michele Bachmann: ‘I don’t judge gays’
Michele Bachmann, fresh from a victory in the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning, and was again dogged with questions about her anti-gay platform, this time declaring, “I don’t judge gays.”
Read the full story at LGBTQ Nation.
