Our society is reticent about discussing suicide in general. However, there are two specific forms of suicide which have gotten very little discussion in corporate media outlets, being blocked out even more than suicide in general. One of them is the high suicide rates of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This censorship is due to corporate media outlets trying to keep as many people supporting these pointless wars as possible and to keep potential military recruits from finding out what they might be getting themselves into.

The other form of suicide that is especially censored is queer teen suicide. This has been motivated by prejudice. That may be changing.

A Rutgers student was outed sensationally by having video of him having sex with a man posted on the Internet. He killed himself. This story was so bizarre and extreme that it broke a media taboo. Other news stories of teenagers killing themselves after being bullied in school have surfaced.

This is long overdue. Ellen DeGeneres has eloquently responded to this. What she said is more than worth listening too.



The Trevor Project has been working on the issue of queer teen suicide for over a decade. Hopefully, the recent publicity on this concern will cause more people to take note and take action.

Hopefully, the coverage and interest of suicides and bullying of queer youth in the corporate media will not be a "flavor of the month" story to be dropped when the next trend comes along. I also hope that suicide among veterans gets the attention that issue deserves too.