Billy Lucas (1995 - September 9, 2010), August 2008. On September 9, 2010, six years ago today, afte

Billy Lucas (1995 - September 9, 2010), August 2008. On September 9, 2010, six years ago today, after years of verbal and physical abuse from fellow students at the Greensburg, Indiana schools, fifteen-year-old Billy Lucas killed himself at his grandmother’s home. In the days and weeks following Lucas’s suicide, the extent of the bullying he faced–most of which focused on his perceived homosexuality (though Lucas never publicly identified as queer)–became clear; in fact, even after Lucas’s death, his tormentors persisted, leaving homophobic hate messages on a Facebook memorial page. By the end of September 2010, at least eight other American teenagers took their lives after enduring persistent bullying because of their perceived or acknowledged queerness. “I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes,” Dan Savage (@dansavage) wrote later that month. “I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better…however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.” Within weeks, Savage and Terry Miller (@terrysphots) posted to YouTube the first “It Gets Better” video (@itgetsbetter). In 2012, Billy Lucas’s family filed a wrongful death suit against the Greenburg Community School Corporation; the case settled in 2013 with undisclosed terms. Billy Lucas would be twenty-one now. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #BillyLucas #ItGetsBetter (at Greensburg, Indiana) -- source link

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