My new column, The Bully Pulpit, is a long time in the making; since childhood, to be exact. I wrote it up after I had lunch with Carson Kressley, and he suggested the idea. My initial reaction was, YOU should be writing this, as he has such a wonderful way of expressing his individuality.
Anyway, he got me to thinking, and after all the stuff with the girl in Springfield, Massachusetts, it seemed like a good idea. How do you survive something like this and not write about it? Or do something about it? Then, I think the next day, there was another article in the New York Times, Phoebe Prince, documenting the tragedy.
I don't remember when I started writing the column, but it seemed to take forever. What doesn't surprise me are all the readers' comments I received saying they'd had a very similar childhood. Tragic, huh. What a lot of people don't realize about writing is that, when you do write about something personal, it becomes less personal after publication, because 99.9 percent of the time a million other people have experienced something similar.
On an ironic note, now I've written a gay and lesbian wedding book and live in place where the only bullies are internal ones.
I'll be speaking at the Illegal Wedding Fair on June 6. It should be fun.
Take care of yourself, and each other. And keep your eyes open.
All my best,
David Toussaint
