Member-only story
Imagine this: A group of young conservatives, outraged by the public funding of a library story time featuring drag queens reading to children decide to disrupt the event. They surround the readers chanting ‘drag queens are not for kids.’
Children are traumatised, the drag queens are forced to defend themselves and parents who gave permission for their kids to be there are outraged. The whole thing is caught on film and picked up by the media, quickly becoming viral.
The next morning, the protest leader takes his own life by jumping in front of a train at a suburban station. The reason given in the media is the backlash on social media.
This isn’t a fictional event. It happened in Australia two weeks ago.
Gavin Wilson, the young man who took his life also happened to be gay. He chose to align himself with a party that campaigned against gay marriage and whipped up hysteria over the Safe Schools program, which was specifically designed to foster acceptance, and reduce the high suicide rate among the LGBTIQ community.
What a terrible irony that this 21 year-old man took his life over a fight against a program meant to help gay and transgender people.
Is Social Media to Blame?
