Page 26 - BEQ Magazine Vol2 Iss4 V2

TYLER CLEMENTI FOUNDATION

A Very Personal Dream

to End Bullying

By Jason Cianciotto
MPA, Executive Director The Tyler Clementi Foundation

Faith In America
The dry, brown pine needles crunched
under my feet as I trudged up the hill above
my middle school. Head drooped, eyes On November 13, 2017, at The Tyler
always to the ground, I avoided eye contact Clementi Foundation’s Upstander Legacy
and the pine cones. But, I hardly ever avoided Celebration, Mitchell Gold, co-founder
the gang of bullies waiting for me at the top. and co-chair of Faith in America, and Jane
The verbal harassment — always “fag,” or Clementi, co-founder and Vice President
“homo” — began before my feet stepped off of the Tyler Clementi Foundation Board of
the sidewalk that marked the end of school Trustees, announced that their organizations
property. This was the proverbial “line in the will be joining forces to work together to end
sand” school officials cited to claim there religious-based bullying.
was little they could do to stop the anti-gay Since 2006, Faith In America has worked
bullying I experienced almost every day. to educate the public about the ongoing
I can still see their leader standing at harm caused to LGBTQ people, especially
the top of the hill. Tall and thin, with long, youth, by faith-based discrimination.
brown, feathered hair, he always dressed Jason Cianciotto Ultimately, the organization hopes to end
in the same clothes: jean jacket, tight blue decades and centuries of using religious
jeans, and brown, suede, leather boots with When it became clear that I wasn’t going teachings to justify marginalizing and
fringe. Looking back, it’s bizarre that he to become “ex-gay” (my fault, of course), discriminating against others.
― mirroring the ‘80s gender-bending, hair I came home one evening to find all of Through resources geared toward
metal bands so popular in my New Jersey my belongings in over-stuffed black plastic changing the hearts and minds of religious
rust-belt town ― bullied me for being garbage bars, piled on the front porch of our communities on the “sinful” nature of
gender-atypical long before I understood my home. Like up to 40 percent of youth and homosexuality, Faith In America is committed
sexual orientation. young adults who are homeless today, I was to helping reduce the tragically high suicide
Surrounding me in a half-circle, the pack a teenager kicked out because of my sexual rate among LGBT youth.
of boys would follow me until I ran the last orientation or gender identity. “I want to thank the Faith In America
few blocks home. Sometimes, they’d push Nearly 30 years later, these experiences and Tyler Clementi Foundation boards and
and punch me or pull at my backpack to still haunt me, and my heart breaks for LGBT staff for embracing this visionary plan to join
make my books fall out. The worst was when youth who continue to be disproportionately forces,” said Gold. “Now more than ever, as
they’d trip me, laughing at the “faggot” as I victimized by pervasive bullying at schools, as anti-LGBTQ religious fundamentalists have
fell to the ground, knees bloodied. well as at their homes and in their churches. taken over our highest political offices, we
This happened day after day, year after The common thread remains religious-based must protect LGBTQ youth from the lifetime
year. It was simply a part of life in a school bullying and rejection at the core not only of of harm caused by faith-based discrimination
district that failed to protect me, living with homophobia, but also the racism, misogyny and rejection from their families and faith
a fundamentalist Christian mother and and xenophobia that has only increased in communities.”
stepfather who, given their beliefs about the current sociopolitical climate.
the “sin of homosexuality,” dealt with it by
sending me to so-called “ex-gay therapy.” Continued on PAGE 51

26 | December 2017 BEQ PRIDE