This is the Guardian.

Today, why some teachers in Florida are taking rainbow badges off their bags

and wondering if they can tell their students that they're in same-sex relationships.

The Republican parties don't say gay bill.

Before we start, a heads up. This episode contains references to bullying and suicidal thoughts.

The US, in the mid-1980s, was a really difficult place to be a gay kid.

I grew up in a very religious family and so my entire junior high and high school experience

was pretty much every day one of fear, wondering if someone was going to find out the secret about me.

I was completely closeted until I went to college.

Clinton McCracken remembers those days. He barely survived them.

There was the abuse from the kids, but also the silence from the teachers.

I was beaten for being gay pretty much every day during every class change.

Someone was calling me the F word in the hall. Oftentimes teachers hearing it and saying

nothing about it because quote, boys will be boys.

This was the only way that being anything other than straight was acknowledged.

In swear words, punches. Clinton never met a single out gay person. Never discussed it with anyone.

His entire time at school.

We read now about these statistics of suicide ideation among LGBTQ youth.

And that was me and I barely made it through. So it's a very real thing to say that our LGBTQ

youth need to be protected because you don't know what they're dealing with with their family.

So if nothing else we need to be providing a safe place in our schools where they can feel

comfortable to be themselves.

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