Gay Anti-Suicide Activist Kills Himself

Just one month after making an 'It Gets Better' video
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2012 1:42 PM CST

A 19-year-old gay filmmaker committed suicide this week, just a month after making an "It Gets Better" video, the Huffington Post reports. In that video, Eric James Borges, who went by EricJames, told a tale of brutal homophobia. He said he'd dropped out of high school after peers assaulted him in a full classroom, in front of his teacher, and that when he came out to his "extremist Christian" family, they condemned him and kicked him out.

Borges said, however, that for him it had gotten better. Indeed, he was an intern with the Trevor Project, a group dedicated to preventing suicide among LGBT youth, and a supplemental instructor in sexuality at the College of the Sequoias. You can view his video, and his short film "Invisible Creatures," at left. Click for more. (More EricJames Borges stories.)

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