peter
“I used to get elbows in the back or people would shout ‘faggot’ at me randomly. I felt mortified getting up and going to secondary school every day. I hated every minute of it. There was this guy in particular who bullied me the most. He was creative, inventing a new way every day to make me miserable. He would put little notes in my locker with nasty messages, graffiti the toilet cubicles and teacher’s desks with ‘James is a fag’ or when the class would be quiet he would shout: ‘James, are you gay? Come out!!!’ All these things made me turn even more inside and as I thought there were no other gay people around, I felt really alone. The word gay, to me, was used as an insult, so why would I want to be someone that everyone hated. After school, I would go home and be a horrible child to my parents as my way of letting some of the anger go. One day, my bully made a survey to ask how gay everyone thought I was. It was a piece of paper with options like James is: super gay, very gay, gay or kinda gay. He knew this would really hurt me. He attempted to pass it around the class for everyone to fill out but one of my classmates refused to let it pass him. That moment totally stood out to me and gave me a glimmer of hope. Here is this guy, trying to defend me. That was the first time someone stood up for me and as tiny as it sounds, honestly, that moment turned my whole world around. I remember going home so happy that someone actually stood up for me! That memory will live with me forever. Take it from me, if you witness someone being bullied or treated badly, a little gesture could really turn someone’s life around.”