Gay Teen Suicides Continue

On New Year's Day, Jeffrey Fehr, 18, [left] hanged himself in the front entrance of his family's house in Sacramento. His father said, "For years and years, people knocked him down for being different. It damaged him. It wore on him. He could never fully believe how wonderful he was, and how many people loved him." Nearly 1,000 attended his funeral.

In October, Eric James Borges' "extremist Christian" family disowned him for being gay. Nineteen, he was a volunteer in suicide prevention with the Trevor Project and in December he made this It Gets Better video. He killed himself in Visalia, California on January 13.

Bullying target Phillip Parker, 14, [right] repeatedly told his grandmother he felt like he had a rock on his chest and he just wanted to take the rock off so he could breathe. He was out to his supportive parents who "reported their concerns over their son's bullying to Gordonsville [Tennessee] High School on multiple occasions, but the bullying by a group of students just got worse." Last week he killed himself.

Last month another Tennessean, Jacob Rogers, 18, [left] committed suicide after enduring years of antigay bullying. A friend from school said, "It was like every day, every class." School officials defended their [in]actions, discussed "rumors of previous bullying," and refused to return a reporter's calls. Emotions running high, a school counselor was kicked out of Jacob's funeral. When he was six, Jacob begged for and received an Easy Bake Oven, and the newspaper speculates that no one was surprised when he came out at 14. Obsessed with Gaga, he shared his clothes with girlfriends. His home life was complicated at best. His mother recently moved out of the state and Jacob struggled with an eating disorder, frequent school absences, alcohol, drugs, poor grades, and trouble with health insurance after he turned 18. He shot himself on December 7.