Eleven year-old Tyler Wilson joined his school’s cheer team. So bullies with little to no breeding broke his arm.
But he’s pushing through it, and he’s going to cheer, by god.
Tyler, and all others out there: It will get better. I promise.
A longer report and full interview with Tyler and his mom from Good Morning America are here, but for some reason, it refuses to be embedded.
What the Religious Right doesn’t seem to understand is that bullies will go after kids for any perceived weakness or difference in their peers. This is why their bitching and moaning about how “if kids are taught not to bully gay kids, that means they’re saying gay is okay” rings so hollow, and belies how little they actually care about children. They can hate gay people all they want, but nothing they ever do will change the fact that, in every school in this country, there are gay kids, and they’re at risk of being bullied, hurt or driven to suicide over that. Period. No amount of preaching, no amount of condemnation is going to change that, because here in reality, gay kids simply exist. Kids who are more artistic than athletic exist. Kids who don’t fit the norm exist. All of them are at risk of being targeted by bullies.
This boy happens to be going against the grain because he really thinks it’d be fun to be a cheerleader, so he’s being targeted, for no reason other than that.
It’s all part of the same story.
Anyway, stay strong, kiddos.
