12/30/2007 08:26:08 PM

Here's Jo's story of how she was outed at her school and how she dealt with the situation:

"At the time I was 15 and I had been trying to get with a boy for about six months but he had me on hold. The only people I was out to was my best friend Vanessa and my friend Dee Dee. One day Dee Dee told me that a friend of hers, whom I had a major crush on, liked me and introduced us. Two days later Anisha became my very first girlfriend. One day before third period the boy I wanted to get with saw us kissing goodbye. That day at lunch I was sitting eating and all of a sudden everyone at one table turned and looked at me once. A boy named Sam came up to me and said, "Is it true?" I nodded. He said, "Stand up, you see all these n****s in here and you wit a female?"

That was Friday, by Monday the whole school knew.

I was a lucky one in that I haven't been teased much. I still get the looks and the whispers, but mostly all of my friends stayed by me and continue to do so.

So school life was fine, but then my mother found out. Total melt down could be the word. Think of a mother taking her 15 year old daughter coming out in the worst possible way and times that by about 20 and you have how my deeply religious mother took it.

I am now 17 and out to everyone I know and outed to those I meet by my 15 year friend Jon who introduces me as his "Cool lesbian Jo." I have been kicked out of my house and live with my best friend Vanessa. My mother keeps in contact with me. My step dad and I haven't talked in four months and my real father loves my girlfriend. My younger brother and sister couldn't care less who I'm with as long as I'm happy."

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