Bullied to death

An 11 year old boy from Springfield, MA committed suicide last week after countless taunts that he was gay. In fact, Carl Walker-Hoover didn't identify as gay but his mother found him hanging by an extension cord after she'd repeatedly appealed to her son's school to do something about the abuse.

From the ABC NEWS article:

Carl's suicide comes about a year after California eighth-grader Lawrence King was shot and killed by a fellow student in his classroom for supposedly being gay.

In response, GLSEN has launched a multipronged education campaign to fight the use of anti-gay language and bullying.

Its annual Day of Silence, started at the University of Virginia in 1996 with 150 students, has now grown to more than 7,500 middle and high schools nationwide. Participants draw attention to LGBT issues by not speaking for a day.

Since October, GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) has aired thousands of public service messages, "Think Before You Speak," to reduce the use of the slur, "That's so gay."

"When you are in elementary school, one of the first things you learn is the feeling of hurt when you are called 'gay' or 'fag,'" said Presgraves. "It doesn't matter if you are gay or straight. The term 'gay' has become synonymous with "uncool."

"The expression 'That's so gay' is one of the most heard in school, and students recognize it as derogatory," he said.

Carl would have turned 12 on this year's Day of Silence, April 17.

While Carl didn't identify as gay, studies indicate suicide rates among LGBT teens are higher than their heterosexual peers. Suicide rates among kids Carl's age are lower, but are reportedly on the rise.

Locally, Springfield Representative Sara Lampe has been actively working towards anti-bullying legislation.

Amazon says glitch not discrimation

While many of us are still scratching our heads over Amazon.com's decision/snafu/glitch that removed sales rankings from LGBT titles, the mystery seems to almost deepen.

From Publisher's Weekly:

A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove "adult" titles from its sales rankings. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a "glitch" had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new policy regarding "adult" titles. As of Monday morning, a number of titles affected by the glitch were still without sales rankings. No one at Amazon was available this morning to discuss when the problem might be fixed or what caused the glitch.

For most of the weekend on Twitter, in conversations with the hash tag "#amazonfail," users were discussing the fact that the e-tailer was removing the sales rankings for books that it deemed featured "adult" content. Many readers, and writers, decried the fact that Amazon appears to be removing the sales ranking for titles that feature gay and lesbian characters and/or themes.

The director of the Erotic Authors Association, who goes by the pen name Erastes, told PW that many of her members "noticed their titles had been stripped of their sales rankings" on Amazon. One, Mark Probst, contacted a customer service representative at Amazon and wrote about the exchange on his blog. Probst wrote that the Amazon rep responded to his inquiry by saying that "'adult' material" is being excluded from appearing in "some searches and best seller lists" as a "consideration of our entire customer base."

Whatever the cause, titles like James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain are among the those that have lost their sales ranking. Bloggers aren't buying the glitch explanation and some are calling an Amazon boycott, but the fact that such a wide range of titles have lost their rankings suggest that whatever Amazon may have been trying to do went haywire

.

So first they told an LGBT author, the reason the titles were disappearing was they wanted to hide "adult" content from younger customers. When the furor broke out they changed their story to say a "glitch" caused the problem.

Searches conducted by yours truly are now turning up LGBT titles but the rankings situation has yet to be resolved. I've yet to decide how to feel about this, large companies often have problems where the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, but I'd be lying if I said I don't buy the sudden switch in story.

Amazon.com relegates gay titles to porn status

Nope, not a joke. Tell everyone you know and for heaven's sake don't use Amazon until they change their stupid policy:

See this gizmodo article.

Amazon in it's infinite wisdom has decided that LGBT books are now "adult" content. What this means is not only do LGBT books not show up in the best seller lists, but a search for homosexuality in their search function only turns up anti-gay titles.

Folks this is definitely NOT ok. Danielle Steele titles, which are often VERY steamy, are still in the regular searches but a book on lesbian parenting is now considered porn by the geniuses at Amazon.