new column:

When I was growing up, I was targeted. Constantly. By bullies. I was an effeminate nerdish boy growing up in a brutish Midwestern suburb surrounded by boys trying to prove how masculine they were and others trying to showcase how intelligence was stupid. So either I was picked on for being swishy or throttled for being smart. Either way I was never in the in-crowd and I was never in the out-crowd and I was not in any crowd; I was on my own. And so I kept very, very quiet. And I kept to myself.

And while this separation kept me safe at times, it wasn't always the case that I survived a day at school unscathed. I wrote recently about some of these difficult episodes remembered. But the larger point of my childhood and teenage years was a sense of shame, defeatism, and self-destruction. I kept to myself so much that I didn't know what a friend was until later on in years. I isolated myself so much that I never knew what a date was (homosexual or heterosexual) until in my 20s. I let the bullies win.

The problem with bullies is that they are so consumed with their own desire for power, over anything they can get power over, that they don’t realize that they're the ones who are most scared. Bullies fear being powerless, so they create power where none exists simply to make themselves feel better. And we who have been bullied end up the brunt of this all-consuming cycle.

As a child and teenager, I never knew how to deal with bullies. Like I said, I avoided them at all cost and separated myself from the world. So that I could be safe. So I could simply make it through the day without being hurt or trampled on or made fun of or beaten up.

It wasn't until I came into my own around 19 years old, upon 'coming out' and realizing I was ok for who I was, that I suddenly realized that I could stand up for myself. I wasn't going to separate myself from the world anymore for fear of these creatures. I was going to be myself and out and proud.

In 1992, I was registering voters in front of a Gay bar in Kansas City late at night when the club was beginning to get busy. (Yes, I know, I should have been enjoying my night out meeting cute boys and having fun, but I have always been one for electoral politics and social justice and I've never been able to shake the habit. Call me a nerdy liberal social activist til the day I die.)

At one point, as I stood outside in the darkened street, under the pale light of the street lamp and the moon, alone, a group of bullies came up to me, punched me in the face, knocked me down on the ground, broke my clipboard, and ran off before the club owners and security could stop them.

I stood up. I then asked the security guard, who had come running out to the scene, if he was registered to vote.

I then went inside, talked to more security personnel, and called my friends to come and stand outside with me.

And I went back outside.

I was shaken up and hurt and frankly, didn't get any more registrations that night, because I was a bit unfocused.

But I stood my ground.

I was not going to allow a bully to stop me from living my life again. And I had my friends and the security and the club owners and my fellow gay clubbing boys out with me on the cold dark night standing against the intolerance and hatred.

Later that night, deep into the night hours, when I got home and I was alone again, I cried. And I called my mom. And she cried. And the next day I had a big, bulging, brown and bluish bruise on my cheek. And my mother cried again when she saw it. And she and my father were so supportive. And my friends were so supportive. And while I was terribly shaken and hurt, there was a recognition of the support I had all around me, and a sense of pride within myself for having still stood my ground... after being pushed down onto it.

I registered two voters that night to vote in the presidential election of 1992. Only two, but two that come with a continued sense of pride for me to this day. I became closer to my parents and my friends. I suffered a painful ugly bruise on my cheek that no makeup could coverup.

And I had to, once again, deal with bullies who were afraid of my power.

For I had learned, through my much-bullied childhood, that the only real way to handle a bully is to stand up to them. By showing my own power, by being myself, by living my life, and by being proud, I am what they most fear.

Oh, and I also have no qualms about calling the principal.