Shannon was used to her socially awkward son being bullied by other boys at the private school he attends in Atlanta.

But when she picked him up from school in mid-January and her eighth grader told her he was being called a "simp," Shannon, who's only using her first name to protect her son's identity, didn't know what to think.

"He's telling me this and I'm driving and I'm trying to make sense of it," she said. "I'd never heard the word."
"He told me, 'It basically means that I'm just being nice to girls because I like them,'" she said. "I was like, wait, my kid is being picked on for being nice to girls?"

Her son had told her he'd recently been put in the "friend zone" by one of the girls, who made it clear she wasn't interested in dating him. They had continued to be friendly.

EBT, also known as food stamps or SNAP, is a government-run program that gives individuals with low incomes a small budget every month to buy groceries. And the idea that the government should control what EBT recipients are allowed to buy is a talking point often made by conservatives who would like to see the program either reduced or cut entirely. (Trump, for example, has proposed getting rid of EBT and replacing it with preset boxes of food, in which the recipient has no choice in what they get.)

Suffice to say, Keke was ratioed pretty hard on Twitter for her suggestion — generating a lot more comments than likes.

Even in a community outwardly campaigning for inclusion and acceptance, exclusion and judgement still exist on a personal level. Now, Bright Light Bright Light is shedding a light on his experience with that phenomenon within the LGBTQ community.

“Feeling like I belonged within the gay community I think has been a bit of a struggle," he said. "The LGBTQ+ community is such a vast umbrella; everyone is so different and trying to work out where you belong within that is hard. It kind of presumes that everybody queer gets on with each other, which they don’t, and that everyone is alike, which they’re not.”

Thomas also said that he wasn't considered "body-appropriate" to some in the community, which made him constantly feel like he was an outsider within a space built for him. “It doesn’t matter because those people don’t matter," he explained. "But I found that a huge struggle -- feeling invisible or not welcome in queer spaces -- even more heart-breaking than not being welcome in heterosexual spaces, because these spaces are there for everybody that needs them.”

LGBTQ youth who die by suicide are more likely to have been bullied, according to a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

LGBTQ youth are both more likely to be bullied and more likely to report suicidal thoughts and behaviors than cisgender, heterosexual youth. A team of researchers set out to determine if the two high rates are related.

The researchers examined death records for teens from 2003 to 2017, examining both the coroner’s or medical examiner’s report and police reports about the suicides. Since the records don’t always say how a decedent identified, the researchers looked for keywords describing how their families saw them, if they had a same-sex boyfriend or girlfriend, or if they were taking steps toward a transition.

Overall, they counted around 3% of the nearly 10,000 suicide records they had access to as LGBTQ. The researchers note that this is probably an undercount – there may have been LGBTQ youth whose death certificates and police reports didn’t mention their gender identity or sexual orientation in any way.

The woman said she was recently introduced to Stephen’s new boyfriend Adam on a Zoom call, and was shocked when she learned that he is living with HIV.

“My son announced this on the Zoom call (I didn’t have time to process it), and then became irate when I asked some questions to better understand what that means,” she wrote.

“I remember the ’80s, and actually had a close friend die from AIDS,” she continued.

“My son claims I’m being ignorant, but I was alive during that time – he wasn’t!”

I’m not homophobic. I just need some processing time.

Bizarrely, the woman then went on to claim that she is “scared of what will happen if they stay together and have children.”

A Filipino politician reportedly tried to force LGBT+ people to kiss each other and perform a “sexy dance” in front of minors as a punishment for breaking a coronavirus lockdown curfew.

Christopher Bombing Punzalan, captain (elected chairman) of the Pandacaqui barangay (district), posted a series of now-deleted Facebook live videos of him confronting a group breaking the 8pm lockdown curfew.

A former gay porn star has told of how he was forced to try to have sex with his father's girlfriend at the age of 12, and was taunted by his father with homophobic insults when he failed.

Israeli Jonathan Agassi, whose real name is Yonatan Langer, burst on to the adult film scene in the late 2000s at the age of 23, after starring in 2009 landmark gay pornographic film 'Men of Israel'.

Filmmaker Tomer Heymann documented the life of the adult star for seven-years, detailing Agassi’s journey from prolific adult superstar to male escort, battling many demons, including drug addiction.

Much has been written about incels, mainly in the context of toxic masculinity, far-right radicalisation, and mental health. But very little has been written about the tiny proportion of gay men among them, and it’s worth asking: who are they?

This pattern was identified by Reddit user zanmato1109, who also happens to be a PhD candidate, and summarised in a mini-essay: The New Internalised Homophobia, or, Revenge of the Gay Incels.

“Repeated rejection leads some young men to concoct an unflattering, two-dimensional caricature of the group that spurned them, whether it’s women or gays” – @zanmato1109

Although he says he wouldn’t use the term ‘incel’ had he written it again today, the insightful post drew key parallels between the gay and straight men reframing their personal issues through the lens of a broader worldview. He tells me he noticed this happened often in the ‘gaybros’ community, which “started off with an internalised homophobia vibe” – “these posts complaining about the state of the gay community were written by guys who didn’t do well in the bar scene, and whose dates never turned into anything”. He found that their anger turned into a “moralising stance,” which frustrated him. “It was disheartening to read what were essentially homophobic, right-wing talking points repurposed as handful of disaffected gays’ wrongheaded coping mechanisms.”

In the same way that incel forums have become hotbeds of far-right ideology and misogyny, these gay incels often share similarly right-wing views and a hatred towards the potential partners rejecting them. “I don’t think we’re wrong to see some kind of parallel,” he continues. “In both cases, repeated rejection leads some young men to concoct an unflattering, two-dimensional caricature of the group that spurned them, whether it’s women or gays. In both cases, part of their attack is some kind of moralising about sexual promiscuity – particularly in online spaces.”

Jeff Ingold, from LGBT charity Stonewall says it is "crucial" that we see more diverse representations of gay and bisexual men with different body types in the media.

"Not only would this help gay and bi men see themselves reflected in what they watch, it would also help break down harmful stereotypes that affect gay and bi men's body image and self-esteem."

But as it is, Jakeb says he still gets people online telling him they "wouldn't leave the house if they looked like me".

"I didn't go on pride marches and have bricks thrown at me to have the community we've got now," he says.

"We have equality, but we're horrible to each other."

When parents, educators and mental health professionals talk about bullying, there is understandably a lot of emphasis on the victims. But in focusing solely on victims in anti-bullying efforts, an important part of the equation gets forgotten: the kids who do the bullying.

“Bullying is not a one-time event or a random act of mean behavior but rather a pervasive, ongoing pattern of aggression targeted toward another child who in some way has less power in the relationship,” explained school psychologist Rebecca Branstetter, noting that it’s important to distinguish it from other forms of aggressive behavior or typical childhood conflicts.

Obviously every child who bullies comes from different circumstances and has different reasons for this behavior. There is no one profile of a bully, as each child who engages in this conduct has a unique set of challenges. But there are many common traits and experiences among bullies, and examining them can be beneficial.

Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson, who ordered the mass firing of any teachers at the diocese’s schools, also had no problem allowing school administrators to threaten a gay student with expulsion if he didn’t stop speaking out for social justice.

The archdiocese has admitted it instructed all schools under its umbrella to immediately enforce all employment contracts – effectively a blanket order to fire any LGBTQ staff members. Over 70 schools in central Indiana are under the archdiocese’s administration.

“To effectively bear witness to Christ, whether they teach religion or not, all ministers in their professional and private lives must convey and be supportive of Catholic Church teaching,” the archdiocese said in a statement sent last week.

Three upstate New York siblings abused their elderly father ?— both mentally and physically ?— for years because they claimed God told them he was unfaithful to their mother.

A gay teen from Nanuet, New York, has written a heart-breaking letter to his parents who wouldn’t accept him for being who he is.

Kent Mendez, 19, tweeted a photo of the letter, in both English and Spanish, on 8 July in an act that has the entire social media website collectively crying.

In the devastating letter, Mendez explained that, with LGBTI youth rejected by their parents being more likely to consider taking their own live, he refused to ‘become another statistic.’

What happened?
Mendez left it all behind on Sunday morning. The bedroom he had lived in for years. His dog, Valentino.

But in the letter he left behind for his mother and father, he explained that while the decision was difficult, the life he had led was even more so.

‘There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t cried or struggled to find the energy to get out of bed,’ he wrote.

‘I feel trapped and manipulated every time I walk out of my room.’

A Colorado high school freshman who committed suicide in February was bullied by his schoolmates, including one who urged him to kill himself, his grief-stricken mother said this week.

Jeanine Padilla told the Denver Post that her 15-year-old son, Jack, was regularly tormented by at least five students at Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, where cops are now investigating the teen’s death.

“It’s just devastating to know he was probably so scared,” Padilla told the newspaper. “But still trying to stand up for himself.”

Jack Padilla died on Feb. 14, but relatives didn’t find out about the alleged bullying until after his death, according to his mother. She’s now calling on district officials to “expel the bullies” who contributed to her son’s suffering.

Often overlooked in both straight and gay circles, bisexual-identified people nevertheless make up a significant part of the population. The 2015-2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 7% of youth identify as bisexual, compared to 4% being unsure or questioning, and just 2% identifying as gay or lesbian.

For Bisexual Health Awareness Month, the Trevor Project has released a new look at the YRBS data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), highlighting the suicide risks prevalent amongst bisexual youth.

Their findings are alarming: almost half of bisexual youth considered suicide as an option within the past 12 months, with 40% making an actual plan to take their life. 27% attempted suicide.