Bullying.
It happens. Not always physical, not always visible, but it happens. Sometimes we don't call it bullying, sometimes we pretend it doesn't hurt.....
Personally I'm sick of it. Everyday I walk through those school doors, every time I step into that mall... Technically, its not memories for me, but it will be for a few people.

Heres my question: Were you pushed around in school? Or were you one of the luckier ones to fly under the radar? Feel free to rant, this is a page for confessions.

There's a certain group of kids, Im not sure there age or name, all I know is that they have there drivers license. I know this because they use there car to humiliate me, and hurt me. They have driven by, shouting names at me, f*ggot, ->-bleeped-<-, gaybar, cock sucker, I could go on and on.
I've had cigarettes and water bottles thrown at me through there windows as they drive by. On one occasion, they thought It'd be funny to hit me with a branch while leaning out there car. It hurt a bit, but the way I felt inside was worse. This is a part of my life I'm not proud of, that makes me feel small and insecure, paranoid.

Your turn.

Everyone knew there was something "wrong" with me but they couldn't place what it was so the bullying I got was mostly "normal" stuff with uncomfortable overtones like they didn't even know what to do about me. Most of it centered around my supposed "improper use of female sexuality" because I grew up in one of those towns where women's morality is still reduced to who they have sex with, when, and why (if you're bad it's because you have sex, if you're good you never had sex, if you have sex and a kid you're a mom and good and literally nothing else you do in your life can make that level of impact on what others think of you) but that was laced with fear I'd retaliate (because I did) until they stopped (because I stalked and harassed them in return for their stalking and harassing me) and moved on to trying to avoid me, not even going so far as trying to alienate or shun at that point because I wanted nothing to do with them and you can't shun someone who doesn't want to be around you.

So my bullying for most of high-school was just mutual avoidance.

through grade 7 and 8 I was called he she by a group of students. They were relentless. In highscool in mandatory dance class, everyone would refuse to dance with me (all the guys) Then I'd get talked to by the teacher because i wasn't participating.. however no one would with me even though there was a surplus of guys. etc. etc. etc.

I was lucky because I was homeschooled for most of my life. I don't doubt there would have been some bullying if I had gone to public school. In summer classes, camps, anything like that, I wasn't around the other students long enough for bullying to develop. I just got some stares/glares, occasional taunts, once a confrontation that I started after I'd had enough of it. Mostly around middle school. Not all of it was directed towards my gender presentation, instead the majority of the insults referred to my "geekiness" or the fact that I didn't fit in anywhere. Loser, know-it-all, misfit, and when I fought back I was a jerk. When I was tired with that I could just leave and never have to see those people again.

Then by the time I was 13, I'd learned to be utterly invisible. I'd get odd looks and occasionally light mockery of how quiet I was, but I didn't talk to anyone, make eye contact, interact in any way. That way I wouldn't get in the situations I used to. I plead with my mom to not send me to another outside class or activity, but when I did I was a good imitation of a ghost. No bullies, no friends. I preferred being insulted regularly, at least I felt alive then. I was just too messed up around that time to manage it.

I was bullied in middle and high school because I was read as a butch lesbian.  My school was really good with GLB support, to the point that the bullies were GLB themselves, but it just goes to show that there's not much of a reason for there to be a T tacked onto the acronym.  I got into a fistfight with one of my bullies pretty early on in school, which got administrators involved to suspend us both, and I was mostly ignored after that, although people still called me a dyke behind my back. 

aydan_boy, try to take down their license plate number next time.  That's harassment and assault that can get them landed in jail.  When a cop's reading them their rights, they might not think it's so funny anymore.

The last time I was bullied for gender issues in childhood was when I was pushing twelve. I was in a martial arts group that, fortunately, had a few girls. So that wasn't a problem. But I also did a lot of rodeo at that age. I was the only "girl" in my community to participate in calf-riding, and I was better than the boys were. I got no end of taunts for that. I only regret that I wasn't around to pick up my belt buckle at the end of the year...we had moved by then, so they had to send the buckle in the mail. It would have felt SO good to rub their asinine noses in the fact that I, a mere girl, had bested ALL of the boys in a male-dominated activity. Still, long-distance jubilation is pretty sweet, too.

I got more bullying for being a nerd than I ever did for gender. And that's the kind of bullying I usually got in junior high and high school. Except...well, I got a lot of crap for not having a boyfriend, wearing some horrible things my mother bought/made for me, wearing semi-fashionable stuff but not filling it out, being a lousy athlete at school, and being a slow developer--that is, not having a "figure" (who wants one?), not having my period (again, not something I was looking forward to), not wearing a bra when I didn't need one, wearing a bra when I didn't need one (yeah, Catch-22), and all manner of other idiotic adolescent-girl crap. Mostly I just stared at them or ignored them. If I'd responded, it would have been much, much worse.

I was extremely shy in school and very depressed but hiding it I wasn't aggressive and had no sexual libido and was prone to crying when attacked thus was an ideal target.

There were these two chavy girls and they would find unusual ways of tormenting me. the first wrote all sorts of bizarre things in my homework journal like flirting I knew it was a joke of some sort besides I had no interest in them.
They made it a point they would follow me between my lessons and always sit behind me they would call me names freak queer skank ect, this happened all the time I was kinda numb to it but what got me was the fact that they would spit on me throughout the lesson and throw chewing gum at me just constantly nobody ever did anything. It was always just ignored. I was always covered with this gross stuff which when people were calling you dirty and such did hurt.

In another incident in PE, I recall that a group of the guys decided to take there frustration out on me, I only had one friend and he usually never attended school. First they started with the names then one of them grabbed a piece of rubbish from the bin and jammed it down my shirt. Anyway this escalated eventually ended with one of them (they were alot larger and stronger than me) picking me up and throwing me headfirst into the bin. It was disgusting beyond words. The ultimate kicker. *I* got detention for "playing around with the bin" because I refused to pick up the rubbish that was stuck to me. I was forced into litter picking duty my tormentors took the effort of visiting me after school and rubbing it in and ripping a hole in the binbag I was using I just stormed off in tears after that I got in trouble for leaving detention prematurely but I don't think I was punished beyond that. I suspect the teacher saw.

Another incident was a group of christian students were sitting behind me and they were saying stuff about how the bible had the right idea about killing gays and such-a-like I turned around and pulled an incredulous glance at such a comment. They found me after school and asked if I was gay I refused to answer that question and continued walking home, They followed me and begun throwing stones I ran when I turned around to see how far away they were I was struck on the head with a rock and they threw me to the ground I said I wasn't gay but they didn't listen at that point, I was badly beaten pelted with stones and kicked. After that experience I became extremely homophobic nobody abused you if you agreed with there message.

There are countless incidents like this that basically compose the theme of my teenage years. This combined with the horror of my body changing it's no surprise I cut myself every day then tried to kill myself.

My family moved a lot, so I ended up going to about 14 different schools until 10th grade. Obviously I was always the new kid, so I was really quiet and the serious face you see in most of my pictures (I don't think you guys ever seen me smile in one) was the face I always carried. I never put forth the effort to make friends and I didn't care if I was invisible to everyone, there was always people who wanted to be friends though. So I never really had a problem wth bullying because most people didn't know me. The only time I could remember was when this one girl in middle school randomly started to mess with me, pushing me in line, chasing me in gym, hitting the back of my head in class as she walked past my desk...to this day I can't think of why she had a problem with me.

Even though I wasn't really bullied, I was always alone, though it was because of my own insecurities, and I wish more than anything I could've just had a normal school experience.

In elementary school I never dealt with anything. All the kids thought I was male though, until they heard a teacher use my name. But I didn't really get picked on for that. In middle school, it was an entirely different situation. The "popular" kids had singled me out. The first time I remember them taunting me it was a couple girls who were making fun of my shoes for being "boys shoes" (checkered vans). Then there were two particular boys that liked to pick on me. They were pretty relentless but it never went to a violence level with them because the previous year they'd seen me beat the ->-bleeped-<- out of another kid who had dumped a half bucket of dirt on my head. By the way, my parents totally backed me in the "conference" after that incident stating, "well that kid shouldn't have dumped dirt on our kid's head". HA! So it was all verbal abuse or things like throwing paper at me on the bus. That went on from grades 6-8. I wasn't the only kid they picked on. They picked on whoever did not fit in. This one poor chubby kid always got it (worse than me because they did take it to a physical level with him) ... a few nerdy girls. It was pathetic (on their parts) and I realized then that people who do that sort of thing are the ones with the problems. Anyway, those two kids got killed in a car crash a week into summer vacation after 8th grade, so needless to say no one got picked on by them freshman year.

High school I was the dark, quiet, brooding artist kid. No one really messed with me. My freshman year I had some kids yell at me but I ignored them. Occasionally I would get a joke cracked about me within obvious earshot. However, when I didn't respond they pretty much gave up. I only had a couple good friends that whole 4 years. And I hung out with the goth kids and no one messed with them because they were all afraid of them! lol

The whole bullying thing is a difficult situation. It's hard to say if there's a "right" way to deal with it. Ignoring them is one thing - but they can be relentless ... betting that after awhile you'll crack and have a breakdown so they can all laugh and enjoy that. Sometimes of course that backfires on a bully. Like in the case of that kid who dumped the dirt on my head. He really didn't see that coming. So there are two schools of thought - one is to ignore and the other is to stand up against them. Often times if an authority figure is told about it, it gets much worse. This is the thing I think most adults don't really get. And it makes the kid who's getting bullied out to be even more weak in the bully's eyes and pisses them off that they got any sort of punishment for their behavior. Personally, I still think that anyone who bullies another person needs the living ->-bleeped-<- kicked out of them once. They'd probably think twice before bullying anyone else. And that's my opinion folks, so no need to go all "non-violence" on me or anything. I'm not advocating it, just saying sometimes a hard lesson learned is a lasting one.

I have been bullied. When I was little,  some of my "friends" made me walk across the entire schoolyard whilst they whipped me with sticks and called me names (slut, whore, c*nt, etc). Then, they tied me to a tree and kept calling me names and whipping me. Some boy I didn't even know joined in as well.
Some random kid walks up to me and says, right into my face: "God dammit, you're ugly."

Then, I was in middle school. They never really liked me, I was too much of a weirdo. They used to call me ->-bleeped-<- and say that I wasn't a real girl (this was when I was still in the trans-closet). They also made fun of me for being into girls, and used to ask me very detailed questions of what I like to do in bed. The girls in class had apparantly talked ->-bleeped-<- about me behind my back from the first time they met me. I was too nerdy and too bizarre for them.
Near the end of middle school, they said to me: "You're the cancer of society, a cancer that needs to be purged for the wellbeing of human kind. You need to die, your existance is worthless anyway."

Now I'm in highschool, and it's awesome. I'm in a class filled with only aspies, so I get along great with everyone and we're all understanding of each other's oddities.

Wow, these stories are heartbreaking  I still go to school, and fortunately I havent "been found out" yet. But I still kinda fear the day it may take a turn. I currently go to school under a male name and am referred to by male pronouns 100% of the time. Ive been at this particular school for 6 months now...I was quite surprised no one had thought something was up, or yet noticed the ugly "F" after my name on the class roll All my teachers know my legal birth name, as it had to be printed on my official report card...but they all still used my preferred name and wrote "he" and "him" multiple times when making comments about my behaviour I was impressed! My mum said it was a strange report card tho

Somehow, a girl in my grade did manage to find out what my real name was...and rumours started quickly. She questioned it in the middle of class. She asked me if I had a sex change or something Before I could say anything, the other girl sitting next to me heard, and burst out laughing for about 5 minutes straight. When she finally stopped laughing she said, "do you honestly think someone OUR age would get a SEX CHANGE?" The chick that first asked me started to get really embarrassed and kept quiet. The other girl that was previously laughing went on to tell my friend (who used to know me as a girl) that I had apparently had a sex change in a very sarcastic tone. My friend was very cool about it, and without thinking said..."yeah, and Im santa clause! oh you know pigs really can fly!" It felt really awesome to have my friend back me up so well And no one believes the rumours any more, which is also great But it was close...and had me worried!

Quote from: harlee on December 17, 2010, 06:15:14 AM
Wow, these stories are heartbreaking  I still go to school, and fortunately I havent "been found out" yet. But I still kinda fear the day it may take a turn. I currently go to school under a male name and am referred to by male pronouns 100% of the time. Ive been at this particular school for 6 months now...I was quite surprised no one had thought something was up, or yet noticed the ugly "F" after my name on the class roll All my teachers know my legal birth name, as it had to be printed on my official report card...but they all still used my preferred name and wrote "he" and "him" multiple times when making comments about my behaviour I was impressed! My mum said it was a strange report card tho

Somehow, a girl in my grade did manage to find out what my real name was...and rumours started quickly. She questioned it in the middle of class. She asked me if I had a sex change or something Before I could say anything, the other girl sitting next to me heard, and burst out laughing for about 5 minutes straight. When she finally stopped laughing she said, "do you honestly think someone OUR age would get a SEX CHANGE?" The chick that first asked me started to get really embarrassed and kept quiet. The other girl that was previously laughing went on to tell my friend (who used to know me as a girl) that I had apparently had a sex change in a very sarcastic tone. My friend was very cool about it, and without thinking said..."yeah, and Im santa clause! oh you know pigs really can fly!" It felt really awesome to have my friend back me up so well And no one believes the rumours any more, which is also great But it was close...and had me worried!

holy ->-bleeped-<- that's awesome

actually I would like to erase everything, from my earliest childhood memories up to ,right now where transition is slowly coming into view. Where I can live as the man I want to be, never to be bothered by the weird competition women do among themselves. Stop living in this hell.

But yes, of course. I have been continuously nitpicked by women, its like I am a treath to their own feminin self, sadly enough I get compliment on 'being a good looking girl' so I guess that might hold a clue, not something I can see. Its like they hate me and I don't even have to open my mouth for it.
It even got that far that 2 girls decided they would let me sleep in their room during a schooltrip to Barcelona, their plans where to mindrape me, bully and belittle and eventually leave me to die of fear in the middle of no-where in a strange city.

They succeeded.

Ever since then I refuse to hang with women and I'v lived in isolation for many years. As guys find me 'too interesting' for my comfort, it always goes to a point of 'what are you doing tonight ?' ... ugh.

I'm glad to see a few non bully stories throughout this. I could have had it a lot worse but school life sucked.

Elementary and middle school was just basic teasing. You try being a transman or even just a butch lesbian with the name A-man-da. Yeah... kids suck sometimes

I was out as trans after the end of freshman year. So in high school, I was beat up, jumped in the bathrooms (once at knife point), and thrown into lockers. My ex was constantly bandaging ribs. When my friend and I were rough housing I ended up messing up my ankle and was stuck on crutches. Seriously a bunch of kids made a game out of kicking me off my crutches. Eventually I got slammed into again and ended up back on crutches and the game began again. The teachers supposedly kept an eye out after I reported it once but things got worse after I did so. So I never reported it again. I lived, that's all that matters to me.

• Playing football in gym class. Guy on my team calls me a name and tries to tackle me. I resist the impact and just kind of shrug it off. It doesn't necessarily bother me, but the memory lingers.
• Walking to the bus loop. A big dude sucker-punches the back of my head. I turn around to see a whole pack of guys laughing. I say, "What the hell was that for?", genuinely confused.
• A guy goes out of his way to walk near me in the hallways, then says, "Excuse me, sir."
• Again with hallway taunting: guys I don't know stopping me to say, "Hey, my friend here wants to go out with you," not bothering to conceal their smug grins. My reply each time is a quiet "->-bleeped-<- you," bringing them to the verge of tears from all the hilarity.
• More hallway hijinks--someone grabbing my hair during passing time and saying to their friend, "What the ->-bleeped-<- is that thing? Is it a guy or a girl?" No matter how many times I hear this, it still hurts.
• I'm having a bad day before school even starts. Decide to lay down. Hear a giant group of people nearby loudly asking and joking about which gender I am. Then one starts pacing around me and making obnoxious noises. I get up and walk away, because what am I supposed to do? I make it into another hallway and break down, the only time I've ever lost it in school. Luckily I am alone.
• I haven't told anyone about this until now, because it's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me. At the bus stop one morning, one of the biggest of the bullies walks over, turns his back to me, squats and cut a fart. Everyone laughs...of course. I look them all in the eye and say nothing, but it isn't enough. It's never enough.

I had tons of bullies. I never let them see how much that stuff hurt, but I think by doing absolutely nothing I didn't help myself either. I wish I could have retaliated even just once. Seriously, screw school.

Also you will notice all of the negative attention was from guys. I was completely ignored by girls, except for the other misfits. But the one thing, the one little thing that made high school worth it to me...

There was a girl who sometimes passed me by in the hallway--seriously, the most beautiful girl ever. To the point where I would think there was no way our drab school walls were in any way worthy of her presence. Now, I looked awful and had the look of a kicked dog; there was nothing attractive about me and it was extremely obvious to anyone just from a glance. Nobody talked to me because nobody wanted to be seen with me.

Every time I saw this girl, I would automatically just smile because she was always smiling and just looked so nice. And the first time she noticed me, she turned up the smile and said "Hi." That's it. And it just totally blew me away.

After that, any time we happened to pass each other, she would say hi, sometimes even changing her path just so she could do so. It would make my entire day and I would be shaking like an idiot for ten minutes afterward. I just couldn't believe it. The prettiest girl in the school was also nice enough to say hi to someone who no one else would even notice.

Sorry this turned into such a long post. I never did get any of that stuff off my chest.

Bullying.  Oh joy.  Yes, I was bullied, less than some, more than others, but it wasn't because of anything GLBT related.  I was a shy, socially awkward nerd, and that's why I got shoved around and teased.  The people who didn't tease me usually ignored me completely unless they needed me to help them with do their homework.

I got teased in gym class, teased for being sheltered (I didn't understand the other kids' innuendo jokes), teased for reading in the hallway instead of watching a movie with the class, or helping the teacher instead of going to recess, and in high school I was teased by upperclassmen for looking like a 12 year old and for wearing the clothes I did.  I was also called names and spit on and had my things taken or pounded on by kids on the bus.  I mostly got verbal harassment, but this one girl decided to make me her own personal bullying target from elementary through high school. 

Some of the highlights from those experiences were when she kicked me in the legs, slammed me into lockers, slammed my locker door shut on my arms, took pieces of my musical instrument and threw them as far as she could, and when she came up to me in the hallway and knocked all my books on the floor and kicked me if I tried to pick them up, so I had to wait for her to leave and be late to class. 

So yeah, my school experiences left me with bruises on my body and my self-esteem, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to what it would have been if I'd been openly trans in school.  Not in the little conservative town I grew up in. 

Quote from: phoenixflorida on December 17, 2010, 05:25:36 PM
Every time I saw this girl, I would automatically just smile because she was always smiling and just looked so nice. And the first time she noticed me, she turned up the smile and said "Hi." That's it. And it just totally blew me away.

After that, any time we happened to pass each other, she would say hi, sometimes even changing her path just so she could do so. It would make my entire day and I would be shaking like an idiot for ten minutes afterward. I just couldn't believe it. The prettiest girl in the school was also nice enough to say hi to someone who no one else would even notice.

This makes me really happy.  I always tried to be this person, because I knew that being a bullied nobody sucked.  So I would always try to smile at the people who generally went unnoticed, and didn't say anything to anyone.  (If I'd been braver I might have spoken and made new friends...)  It's funny how a moment of kindness can make your whole day look better. 

I had a very unpleasant time for a little while after I told some friends about my molestation. I had repressed it for six years, then it popped back into my memory (apparently triggered by some similar surroundings I was in?), and then I immediately repressed it again for several more years.

But I did not repress the way they started beating up on me after that, chasing me home and hitting me and stuff. Until recently, I never understood their actions. Now I know that they started attacking me right after I told them. That's the only reason I can come up with for their sudden change.

Seriously, it's not bad enough that I was molested, now you want to beat the crap out of me because I told you about it? Needless to say, they did not stay my friends after that.

Arch: I'm so sorry man That is awful. That is hard enough without people beating up on you after you finally get the courage to talk about it. I'm sorry you had to deal with that

Quote from: Michael Alexander on December 17, 2010, 07:40:02 PM
Arch: I'm so sorry man That is awful. That is hard enough without people beating up on you after you finally get the courage to talk about it. I'm sorry you had to deal with that

Thanks, man. It happened a long time ago...well, I keep telling myself that.

I wasn't very courageous, actually. I had just turned fourteen and was in a weird situation that physically duplicated the conditions of my molestation--and we were all talking about sex. Suddenly I remembered, and I blurted it out and couldn't shut up. There was a long, awkward silence, and I found myself wondering why I'd mentioned it. I guess it was such a shocking memory and it was so strange to remember it so suddenly that I just couldn't filter myself. I didn't particularly trust those kids; they just happened to be there when I remembered. And then the next school day, they turned on me. But I'd forgotten the whole thing by then--both the molestation and telling them. So I had no idea why they were being so mean. I thought it was the whole nerd thing again, but this time in spades.

I was better off without them, though.

I was bullied really bad my entire childhood. Even before I was in preschool, my mom's friends' kids would beat me up when no one was looking. One of her friends' kids threw that baseball field sand in my eyes, and that stuff's poisonous you know. My eyes are ultra sensitive because of it. In preschool I'd get pushed around and the other kids wouldn't let me do anything at all but sit in the corner, they'd say that I didn't deserve to play with anything and I remember the teachers not even giving a ->-bleeped-<- that the other kids made me sit off alone and that I wasn't participating in anything.
In elementary (K-6), I was instantly hated and bullied for
-having the face of a boy when I'm supposed to be a girl,
-being ugly,
-wearing the hideous clothes my mom made me wear,
-for me & my mom being poor,
-and for being fat (even though I was not fat until jr high)
I got beat up all the time, and trying to ignore everyone didn't help, that just made them attack me more and beat me up all the more. They threw rocks at me all the time too. Recess was pretty much nothing but beating the crap out of me. That was the daily recreation for around 300 students. The school didn't help either. The principal blamed me and said it was all my fault for being different (and no one ever told me what the hell I should do to fit in & win everyone's approval), and he would always call home and tell my mom that I was a real bad problem child and I'm the one causing problems in school. And my mom took his side and hated me for being a problem child, when honestly I didn't do anything. I was shy and I wanted to be seen as good. I tried to obey and follow. I wasn't being a problem. So my life was getting the ->-bleeped-<- beat out of me in school and then being screamed and yelled at for what a failure I am at home. There was even a 3rd grade teacher who would encourage the kids to make fun of me and call me stupid. She never really gave me bad grades in the book, but she'd announce me as being stupid and not getting anything right even though I got straight A's, but she would say that I was stupid out loud because she wanted to rally everyone else against me.
Then came jr high, which was a war zone. There were fights everywhere, all the time. No one gave a ->-bleeped-<-. But I had to walk to school in jr high & high school because I got banned from riding the bus within like my first month or so because practically everyone on my bus jumped me and beat me up to start the day off, and the driver complained and said I was starting ->-bleeped-<-, so I got banned from the county school buses. I'd also get jumped, 10-15 kids at a time in the halls, for being fat, ugly, boy-looking, and poor. Again, the school blamed me for it and I was always in trouble. And they were always calling my mom and telling her that I'm a problem child and everything. A couple of times, some high school kids would come over to the jr high to find a smaller kid to pick on, and naturally I became their target because they read me as a boy wearing girls' clothes, and in that time in this town, gays were killed (I always heard a rumor that 2 girls were seen kissing in jr high & were found murdered under the bridge downtown). Those big high school boys didn't catch me though. But I stopped going to jr high because I knew they'd come back to look for me. And I had to walk home so it wasn't safe.
In high school it died down a little, at least the physical part. I opted out of gym and took weight lifting with the football team. I got a little teasing about being fat, but then I started lifting more than they could, and people started to leave me alone and only shout their insults from a distance. But I quit school as soon as I turned 16 anyway, because I just didn't care anymore.

And beyond that, I wasn't allowed to learn to drive growing up, so when I went to college I had to take a bus. And here, there's only a bus once every 2 hours M-F. So I'd have to wait a good while for the bus every day and I'd get a lot of things thrown at me by passing cars. And even in the mornings, at 7 freakin' AM when I'd only be waiting like 10-15 minutes for the bus to downtown, at least 10 cars would throw their trash at me and yell insults about me being fat & ugly. So, I've had that too, even though I was in college. And these were ->-bleeped-<-s on their way to work in the mornings. Yeah, real mature.