STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every day, when she walks out the door of her Mariners

Harbor home, Sarina Bello lifts her head, straightens her back, and readies herself to walk with strength past the insults she knows she will hear -- words like "sissy," "hooker" "freak" and worse -- muttered under breath by people she doesn't even know.

"There's not a day that goes by when nobody says nothing," said the 22-year-old, dressed in a baby pink striped shirt with lace at the collar, her guard let down in a cozy room in the St. George LGBT Center. "I've gotten used to their ignorance. It's more in Staten Island; in the city I don't get bothered as much."

The taunts began as a child at PS 30, Westerleigh, before even she understood what made her different. The insults grew more vicious at Totten Intermediate School, "I was always afraid I was going to get beat up. At lunch, recess, in the park," she said.

Those fears came true the summer she was 15; a pack of teens jumped her while she waited for the bus near her home. "I didn't even make eye contact with them; and they just started muffing me in the head," she recalled. The attack landed her in the hospital for two weeks with a broken jaw and ribs.

The physical and verbal assaults might have broken her spirit, Sarina said, if she hadn't found others who honored and understood her, and older role models who gave her courage to look to the future, telling her it would get easier.

"I started going here and I met people who were more like myself; There was an actual place I could go," said Sarina who discovered, at the age of 14, the drop in space, run out of Community Health Action's Hyatt Street location, before the new LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Center opened at 25 Victory Blvd. in 2008.

"It is so sad when you hear about people who felt like they had nobody who understood them. I had to tell anybody what they need to do to deal with their sexuality is to be true to yourself, and seek support."

Stories of gay teen suicides -- kids as young as 13 who took guns to their heads or hung themselves because they could no longer endure the hurt and isolation -- have blazed news headlines nationwide in recent months.

Last week, seven suspected gang members were arrested and charged with hate crimes in the Bronx, accused of brutalizing, whipping and burning three 17-year-olds and a 30-year-old they believed were gay.

Lawmakers have called for stricter anti-bullying and Internet privacy laws after Tyler Clementi, a shy Rutgers University violin player, last month threw himself off the George Washington Bridge. A video of him being intimate with a man allegedly had been posted online by his roommate.

Although acceptance of gays and lesbians has grown in the mainstream media and cosmopolitan centers, the relentless teasing and physical bullying in schools is also still the norm, gnawing at youngsters' self-esteem as they come to terms with their sexual identity. For people like Sarina, who identify as transgender -- the abuse is often even more extreme.

A study to be published in the November issue of the periodical "Developmental Psychology" determined gay young adults aged 21 to 25 had far higher incidence of depression than their straight contemporaries.

More than half of transgender people who were bullied, harassed or assaulted in school because of their gender identity have attempted suicide, according to findings released Thursday as part of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.

"We have a drop in space, which is very important in terms of giving LGBT youth a safe place to hang out where they don't have to feel judged or worry about what other people are saying about them," said Elysa Fein, the Center's Youth Services Coordinator. "The kids want to be able to have something to call their own; the drop in space is a foot in the door to engage them in other programming."

That room, dubbed the Awesome room, is decorated with youngsters' artwork and posters, and outfitted with comfortable couches where youngsters can chat, use the computer or do homework. It is open after school and into the evenings Monday through Friday.

More formal groups are also run out of the Center. "Safe Space" is a support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning 13- to 17-year-olds. "Legally Queer" operates on the same model for people age 18 to 24.

"There was no Center where I grew up and when I grew up. I wish I had known there was some place to go and that gay people weren't perverts or mentally ill or the comic foil on TV, that there were positive role models and activists and professionals," said Dr. Michael DeMarco, who grew up in a small town in Missouri, and now oversees Staten Island's LGBT Center's mental health services.

Free-of-charge counseling is available for individuals and families on site, and over the past year, nearly 600 counseling sessions with licensed therapists were conducted with Staten Islanders, their families or partners, he said.

"If you feel there is something going on with your sexual identity and you don't feel like everybody else and you want somebody to talk to that's why were here," said DeMarco, in respect of the confidential sessions. "My style of counseling is to get people to accept themselves regardless, Other people don't have to like you, it helps you grow a thicker skin."

For Sarina, the message of acceptance she got over and over at the Center is something to share now with other youngsters.

"I came here looking for role models," she said recalling the awkward, insecure 14-year-old she was when she first walked through the doors eight years ago. "And now I am a role model; it feels good."