Sometimes a rock isn’t just a rock; it’s a wake-up call.
That was certainly the case for Jacob Gardner, a Madison [Connecticut] teen on the Daniel Hand High School track team. Two years ago, when he was a freshman, he was walking the track with his teammates before a meet when he was hit in the head with a rock the size of a baseball.
It had been thrown at him by one of his teammates, who defended himself by saying it wasn’t a big deal because, after all, Gardner is gay. (The guy used a series of gay slurs to get this point across.)
“It was an awakening,” says Gardner, 17, now a junior. “I had been bullied and teased in middle school, but once I got to the high school, everything had settled down. I even dared to join an athletic team.
“When I joined the cross-country team, I realized I couldn’t have chosen a better team to participate with. I was treated like one of the guys. People weren’t saying nasty things to me in the hallways anymore. I was in a passive state of feeling that things were getting better. And then that happened.”
This story — unlike many of the stories we hear about what can happen to gay teens — has something of a happy ending.
Keep reading HERE.
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