CW: Violence. My mother was a school canteen convenor (unlike British schools, where kids are given a hot lunch, or American schools, where kids can get say, a sandwich and a piece of fruit, in my native Australia, you either bring your lunch from home or you buy it from the canteen) and there was a kid at that school who she claimed was gay. When he went to high school, he said that he was a girl and the boys assaulted him. I told her that if I had been the principal, I would have called a meeting with all the parents and guardians of the first-year (freshman, in USA) students and said that homophobic and transphobic bullying had no place in any school where I was principal. I would have also placed the students responsible on after-school detention for at least a fortnight.

Adolescence is not an easy time of life. It is frequently portrayed as a time of joy, of youth skateboarding and hanging out with their friends. Many youths lack the intellectual capacity to understand the harm that their actions cause. Adolescence can be a time where a boy's shirt sleeve brushes past another boy's as they pass each other in the walkway and a homophobic remark is elicited.

Older adults know themselves better and have more confidence in being who they really are. What the right-wing lunatics willfully twist is the fact that a youth who is from a conservative family who is LGBTIQA who feels that can't come out to their parents, or a parent, is at risk, and hence older LGBTIQA folk need to be role models. They are NOT going out to schools and actively recruiting people, what they are saying, and this is NOT gender-whispering, is that it's okay to be like that and you can change your identity. Parents who are up in arms about it need not to attend town hall meetings, but need to self-reflect and think, "Why can't my kids come out to me?"