If you would have asked me in 2015, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, I would have said that the young LGBTQ generation was going to have a much easier time growing up.

Now, I think that they have it worse.

I don’t mean to dismiss the extreme struggles that gay kids have gone through over the generations. I’ve talked about my own struggles before and have always hoped things would get easier.

But kids now are getting mixed signals that have become dangerous for them.

False sense of security

You may have seen the story of Jamel Myles, a 9-year-old boy who committed suicide just days after coming out to his classmates.

Over the summer, Jamel came out to his mom.

She told him she loved him.

He was excited about her reaction and couldn’t wait to come out to his friends. Instead, they bullied him and told him to kill himself.

“Four days at school was all it took,” said his mom.

I tweeted about Jamel and the responses poured in. You can see some of them here.

“Four days is all it took at school." Jamel came out to his mom this summer. She told him she loved him. He came out to his classmates the other day. They bullied him. He committed suicide because of it. He was 9 years old. I don't know what to say.https://t.co/fucK6bNi5j — Allen (#JamelMyles) (@AllensOpEd) August 28, 2018

Philip DeFranco, one of my favorite YouTubers, talks about Jamel in a video.

Kids like Jamel are living in a time that sees LGBTQ culture saturated in the media, a wonderful step forward to normalize sexualities that ARE normal.

More and more kids are comfortable coming out to their families and friends and many of the reactions are great.

Except the ones that aren’t.

Our current culture has provided kids with a false sense of security. The election of Trump to the highest office has seen a rise in hate crimes in this country.

That’s not a coincidence.

The President is a force of division. His election brought out the racists and homophobes that had, at one point, decided their views were better left quiet.

Now, they are empowered.

Hateful parents are raising hateful kids

The ones who are empowered are also hateful parents raising hateful kids. Nobody is born with hate in their heart. They are taught hateful behavior.

Those kids who bullied Jamel learned from their parents that “gay” is bad.

You know that they went home and told their parents that a kid in their class had come out as gay.

Did those parents tell their kids not to bully Jamel?

No. Almost certainly they did not.

Anthony Avalos was 10-years-old. He came out as gay.

According to the Los Angeles County DA, Anthony’s mother and her boyfriend poured hot sauce on his face and mouth, whipped him with a looped cord and belt, held him upside down and dropped him on his head repeatedly.

Anthony was tortured for days while other kids in the house watched and were made to participate.

He later died from his injuries.

The mother and her boyfriend have been charged with Anthony’s murder. Prosecutors suspect homophobia played a part in his torture and death.

Just in case that wasn’t obvious already.

Conservative push-back in schools

In Pennsylvania, a school district recently decided to show all students anti-bullying videos specifically aiming to cut down on bullying of LGBTQ kids. They understood that there is a problem.

Very quickly, the Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit group dedicated to “Restoring the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family,” sent a letter saying that, by not showing parents the video ahead of time, the district committed a “gross violation of parental rights.”

They wouldn’t have cared if the video was about not bullying overweight kids or harassing girls.

But they don’t want kids to learn about not bullying LGBTQ classmates.

Because, you know, religion.

Opposing forces

We are at a cultural crossroads when it comes to LGBTQ issues.

There is more acceptance than ever, but we also see a push-back that is killing people.

Generations of kids are growing up knowing that being gay is normal.

Generations of kids are also growing up with the same hate and homophobia as their parents.

Kids like Jamel thought it would be okay to come out. His mom accepted him, his classmates didn’t.

What do we tell our kids?

How do we move forward?

What can the LGBTQ community and allies do to make things easier?

I think our answer will come in the form of fixing the mistake of Donald Trump. It won’t be easy because the wounds his presidency has caused will take a while to heal. It takes time to shove hateful people back under the rocks they crawled out of and it will take even longer to teach their kids not to hate.

We know what’s right. Trump may have normalized hate for many, but it can be beaten back.

I refuse to believe that love won’t win.

Jamel, Anthony, and all of the other LGBTQ youth who are struggling deserve better.