I am a gay teen. There are many people in the exact same situation as me all around the world. My whole life I have struggled with my sexuality and how comfortable I am with my attraction. I know that many other queer people in middle / high school can relate to this. I knew it would be hard to date people and find someone for me. I didn’t think it would be this insanely impossible. Starting in middle school I was fairly confident I was bisexual. I dated a couple of girls but it just didn’t feel right to me like it did everyone else. Then I started thinking I was gay and decided yeah, i’m gay. I was lonely for a really long time and had a lot of crushes on people. And I was like, really attracted to them. I thought I had a chance because they acted gay and said gay stuff A LOT. They would also cross their legs and stuff. If you have been in this position before you will understand that it really hurts. They get your hopes up and make you fall in love with them. Then you get restless or think “what’s the worst that can happen?” Then you most likely come out to them about your feelings for them and they crush you like a bug. Saying things like, “Nah i’m not gay” or “Wtf i’m straight dude”. When they say this it definitely crushes you. This is usually why some gay people always seem sad or depressed. If we were to stop queerbaiting so many things would change. First of all if you just flat out said you were straight we wouldn’t really fall in love with you. We also wouldn’t get our hopes up… There is no point in looking for a partner if you can’t tell who is queer or straight. If we don’t stop this now depression rates and suicide rates will continue to rise. Overall just a huge detrimental mental health effect. Another thing I would like to talk about is the blatant bullying of queer people. Like people make such backhanded comments at your for just being who you are. I’ve heard the f- slur a lot and people just using gay in a derogatory way. Signing this petition would bring attention to the fact that queerbaiting and absolute bullying of queers is just allowed with no restrictions in schools, and everywhere else in the world. Thank you for taking time to bring attention to a really big problem<3