This Moving Story of Friendship Shows ‘Why We Can’t Stop Saying Gay'
This Moving Story of Friendship Shows ‘Why We Can’t Stop Saying Gay'
The story has gone viral with over 126,000 likes on Twitter.
Critics of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill have done their best to explain over and over again why it’s so important children hear that LGBTQ+ people exist and are accepted from a young age. If they fall somewhere under that umbrella, talking or not talking about it won’t change that fact, but feeling seen can help kids grow up to be comfortable with themselves instead of hiding in shame about who they are.
Recently, Rhian Beutler shared her own experience with why she feels “we can’t stop saying gay,” based on a series of events from her high school years.
She explained that a new student transferred to her public school her senior year, with no explanation and seemingly no willingness to talk about why he had left his exclusive private school. Beutler befriended him, they quickly became very close, and she wound up asking him if he was gay.
\u201cI had lost most of my friends due to graduation and I decided he was going to be my new friend, and much to my excitement he seemed just as happy to be my new friend. \n\nWe decided to partner together on a project, his mom insisted that she come to my house as well \n\n2/x\u201d— Rhian Beutler (@Rhian Beutler) 1649270156
\u201cAt this point, he and I were spending EVERY part of the school day that wasn't in class together. \n\nOne day, with all the grace of a 17-year-old in the early 2000s who didn't know this is inappropriate I asked him "so... you're gay right?" \n\nHe looked at me horrified. \n\n4/x\u201d— Rhian Beutler (@Rhian Beutler) 1649270156
“I explained that my uncle was gay and that I had grown up around queer people and that I didn’t care and that we could obviously still be friends and that I wouldn’t tell ANYONE,” Beutler wrote.
Her new friend came clean about his sexuality while also admitting his parents found out, pulled him out of his school, and subsequently “called him horrible names [and] abused him” for being himself.
It’s an unfortunately familiar story, but in this scenario, when the friend turned 18, he came to live with Beutler’s family. And the acceptance and love he felt during his short time there, it sounds like, made all of the difference.
\u201cMy Mom also shared his writings (he loved to write) with her friend, a social worker (my mom was a school nurse and she worked with the said social worker). \n\nI lived in fear that he wouldn't live to see 18. \n\n8/x\u201d— Rhian Beutler (@Rhian Beutler) 1649270156
\u201cHe blossomed while living with us. \n\nMy parents and the aforementioned social worker took him shopping, made sure he had everything he needed for school and he became like my brother\n\n10/x\u201d— Rhian Beutler (@Rhian Beutler) 1649270156
\u201cHis joy and comfort living as his authentic self is a core memory of mine. \n\nThe store is longer but the tl;dr is he went to an Ivy, and is an immunologist literally working on curing cancer. \n\nHe is my brother and best friend. I would move mountains for him. \n\n12/x\u201d— Rhian Beutler (@Rhian Beutler) 1649270156
“There are kids like him across the US who are SCARED with the new legislation passing,” she pointed out. “If they thought they were safe they no longer think that.”
In a world where so much of society can still be close-minded and homophobic, including one’s own family, making sure that schools are also a hostile place towards LGBTQ+ children and teens is unthinkable. But that is where we seem to be moving.
As Beutler said, “Every kid and every person deserves to feel safe."
