Shades of Gay: LGBT Youth Advocacy Site and Store

The Trevor Project was born in 1998, when filmmakers Randy Stone, James Lecense, and Peggy Rajski were preparing to air a short film about a suicidal gay teen. They wanted to include a suicide hotline number for LGBT viewers who were experiencing similar problems, but found that no such hotline existed.

The project thus began purely as a suicide/crisis intervention hotline, funded by The Collin Higgins Foundation. 11 years later, the Trevor Project has expanded to include online features such as "Dear Trevor", where non-suicidal youth can post anonymous questions. The Trevor Project website also provides information to parents and educators to help them support LGBT youth.

According to the Trevor Project, each lifesaving call made to their hotline costs approximately $15.

Every time you buy a t-shirt, 10% of the profits support the Trevor Project Hotline.

You can also donate directly to the Trevor Project. Every dollar they get helps save the lives of LGBT teens. Just click the button below to send your tax-deductible donation directly to them.

Remember: s/he who saves a life saves the world entire. May G-d bless you for your compassion.

I am the guy Stephanie speaks about in her testimony/note. I'm the guy that wanted to die. Many times I wanted to die. I would psych myself out by jumping off porches and out of trees to make myself feel I had done it. I had ended, it was over. I thought of sinking to the depths of pools or oceans to my death. I thought those were "the romantic ways to die" and it wouldn't be as messy in the water. I jumped off/fell off porches just to bruise myself enough or syke myself out enough to think I had ended my life. In the summer of 2008 I started physically beating myself up hitting myself in the face, punching myself in the head because I thought I wasn't good enough and I thought that I was just a piece of shit to be walked all over... all because I thought I was impure or bad or not right... for being bisexual. I thought maybe I could beat it out of my head, I was so confused by my true feelings and what people said. To me being bisexual didn't mean that I just wanted to have sex with men and women, it meant that I could "fall in love" with a man and/or woman. You know, the whole "heart strings" thing or "want to spend the rest of your life with someone" thing, and/or you happen to be best friends. I felt and still feel that way about both men and women. But then, I thought I must be sick.

Well last summer, the Summer of 2008... because I had Stephanie and Shoshannah (my Fiancée now) I'm still alive... G-d placed them in my life at the right time.... They encouraged me to be who I am and not hate myself. I needed to love who I am and know that G-d is Love and it didn't matter whether I was bisexual or not. What matters was to be me and true to myself and being bisexual was being true to myself. So for me to give in to something that was unnatural to me, such as heterosexuality, for me was not right. It felt evil. They taught me not to give up on myself not give in to people. And Stephanie gave an actual method that helped to strengthen my self-esteem and encourage me to love myself. And Shoshannah became my backbone. In fact there is a really good book that has helped me out called "Six Pillars of Self Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden. I want to thank several of my family members for never judging me and for supporting me even when some left. You know who you are. Thanks.

"I needed to love who I am and know that G-d is Love and it didn't matter whether I was bisexual or not."

So If I believed that G-d is Love and Love is Life...then...

To me trying to be heterosexual = depression = SUICIDE (death)!!!!

But being myself, bisexual = happiness = LIFE !!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

So I realized G-d wants me to be happy, G-d wants me to live....

And beyond all things I WANT to be Happy, I WANT to LIVE!!!!!

So I chose LIfe over death...

[My 16-year-old nephew wrote this. I am very proud of him for sharing in such a powerful way.]

There's a deadly epidemic polluting our schools: bullying.
Carl Hoover-Walker. 11 years old. Hanged himself with an extension cord after enduring daily harass and anti-gay slurs at school.
Jaheem Herrara. 11 years old. Came home from school, went to his room and hanged himself with a belt in his closet after being called "gay".
Neither of them openly identified as being gay.
Those are only two of the four middle-school aged child suicides that have happened this year. It makes me sick knowing that kids as young as Jaheem and Carl think that nothing can be done to stop bullying that they have to kill themselves.

GLSEN surveyed 6,209 middle and high school students. Here are the results:
"A Hostile School Climate and the Effects on Academic Achievement:

• 86.2% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 44.1% reported being physically harassed and 22.1% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.


• 73.6% heard derogatory remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often at school.


• More than half (60.8%) of students reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than a third (38.4%) felt unsafe because of their gender expression.


• 31.7% of LGBT students missed a class and 32.7% missed a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe, compared to only 5.5% and 4.5%, 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 (2.8 versus 2.4)."

The Statistics are insanely high. But what's being done to stop it from increasing?
My dad knows about having a son who has wanted to end his life due to bullying and harassment both physical and verbal because of his gender identity and sexual orientation. Luckily I didn't go through with it and I was able to talk through it with a dad who supported me 110%.

Whether you hear someone being called an anti-LGBT slur or see someone getting bashed then act.
Because no parent should ever have to bury their own kid.