By: Cat

Being a young lesbian myself, I must say that I’m extremely thankful that I never faced much adversity in my day to day life. I was lucky to be surrounded by friends and schoolmates that were as supportive as they had been, especially since I came out in my last year of middle school and was therefore the only one who identified as part of the community. It wasn’t really until this year (my final year of high school) that I began facing harassment from a fellow classmate and teammate. The ironic part of it all was that this was also the year I attended a program which allowed me to finish my last year in college instead of high school. She began posting slander about me on the internet, and by the time I found out about it there was nothing I could do. The high school I went to, while very supportive, was notorious for not dealing with problems the way they should be dealt with. Had I gone to someone within the administration about it in the attempt to get some sort of justice, I would have been blown off and told that there was nothing they could do because it did not happen on school grounds.

While I am ecstatic that this issue is getting more of the attention that it needs to get, it also reminds me that it’s only the beginning and a lot more work needs to be done.