Phillip Parker, a 14-year-old boy from Tennessee, killed himself on Friday, Jan 20. This is getting so unbelievably trite. I guess we can’t expect much when so many of these teens are growing up in a world where their parents are rejecting them and their sexuality, they’re being bullied in school, their government treats them like second-class citizens, and they can’t visit a blog or open a magazine without some star being outed as gay as if it’s something to be ashamed of . . . It’s just so sickening.
I discuss my own battles against homophobia, depression and even my teenaged attempted suicide in my latest Blitz & Shitz column in Xtra, out Wednesday, Jan 25. I hope you guys pick it up to hear what I have to say.
“I should have knew something was wrong, but he seemed so happy,” Phillip’s mother, Gena Parker, said in an interview after discovering her teenaged son’s body. “After he did what he did, we found out a lot that we didn’t know, and there is a lot of bullying that goes on in that school.”
His grandfather Paul Harris added, “Because he was gay, he got mistreated physically, mentally, by several people out there at the school, and I am very resentful as a result of it.”
I feel so tired writing this. I usually cry for the teens who have died at the hands of homophobia. I just can’t anymore. My grief has turned into rage, and all I want to do is scream.
But I won’t. I’m just going to be that much more fabulous. In memory of Phillip and everyone else we’ve lost. Everyone else who can’t. I’m going to shine so bright that way up in heaven, these poor kids are going to covet my incandescence.
RIP, Phillip. You don’t know what you’re missing.
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