I am a professor at Rutgers University where Tyler Clementi was a student. I did not know Tyler, nor do I know the two young people accused of filming his sexual activity and posting it-but what I do know is this act was a gay bashing and the weapons were as powerful and wounding as a baseball bat-perhaps more so.
Imagine being a very young boy, recognizing you have romantic feelings toward other boys. However, you come to realize to your horror that there is something wrong with these feelings--horribly wrong. Perhaps you have been bullied and harassed by the other kids in school who knew something was up because you looked or behaved differently than the way boys were expected to. Or perhaps you became proficient at hiding your feelings deep down in a place where no one could find them, not even you.
As you mature, and with much concentrated effort you become somewhat more comfortable with your feelings-comfortable enough to explore and act on your sexuality while away at college. You then find that this most intimate of acts, stigmatized by large segments of society, was secretly videotaped and broadcast to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.
Details of this story are still emerging, but if the reports are true, this was the reality of Tyler Clementi. If his roommate and his accomplice really did what they are accused of, they are guilty of a heinous act of unspeakable cruelty. But there is plenty of guilt to go around-we all have blood on our hands-especially those who perpetuate the stigma of homosexuality. Whether we utter the term gay in a derogatory fashion, or use religious justifications to demean gay people and deny them their rights, these heterosexist, homophobic messages sink like a lead weight from the political and religious leaders at the top of our society down to someone who thinks it is acceptable to film a gay man in one of his most private, vulnerable moments and make it public. Make no mistake, this is a form of gay bashing. Despite slow gains over the years, being gay is still stigmatized as is gay sex.-if this wasn't the case, the video of Tyler Clementi would not have been such a tragically effective and destructive tool.
Even young people who aren't bashed or bullied are vulnerable to suicidal thoughts and feelings. There is consistent evidence that gay and lesbian youth are more likely to think about or attempt suicide,and among the 65 youth I interviewed for my book Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child, 15 reported feeling suicidal at some point in their young lives. So it is not difficult to understand how having his sexual activity posted on YouTube could put a young gay man, (or lesbian for that matter), over the edge. Combine this vulnerability with the disturbing lack of civility in our public political discourses and college campuses and the new weapons for bullying and gay bashing afforded by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and you can see how this perfect storm could create a situation that was too much for someone like Tyler Clementi to weather.
I mourn Tyler's death like I mourned that of Matthew Shephard, Sakia Gunn, and all who have died at the cruel, ignorant hands of people who have learned from our society that violence against those who are gay or lesbian is acceptable. Rutgers has been my professional home for the past 12 years, and has supported my work examining and illuminating gay and lesbian issues, and throughout the aftermath of this incident I will, in turn, support Rutgers-however we all need to do better. Tyler's death compels us all to look inward to recognize the damaging effects of intolerance on our own thinking and behavior and to look outward to recognize what is wrong with our world that made this tragic incident possible.
