Gay man calls out his high school bully for coming out as bisexual and it’s divided opinion
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Sadly, queer people all over the world are bullied at school because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. But what is the right thing to do if your teenage bully later comes out as bisexual?
That was exactly the situation that one Reddit user found himself in recently. The 27-year-old gay man asked Reddit users if he was “the a**hole” in the situation when his old school bully came out as bisexual and he used it as an opportunity to call him out for his homophobic bullying.
In the Reddit post, the man explains that the bully – who he only refers to as B – bullied him at school because he was “effeminate.”
“B and his friends tormented me verbally so much I developed extreme anxiety whenever I was in their proximity,” he wrote.
The guy experienced severe anxiety at school as a result of homophobic bullying from the bisexual teenager.
“They called me every name in the book: fag, sissy, male, Ugly Betty (because I was overweight and pimply back in high school).”
He continued: “Long story short, B and his friend were one of the main reasons I absolutely, positively detested high school.”
A decade on, he was shocked when he logged onto Facebook to see that his old school bully had shared a lengthy post where he came out as bisexual.
I wrote something along the lines of, ‘That’s such a cute and manipulative post B, shame you didn’t consider any of this stuff when you bullied me in high school for the exact same things you’re now embracing.’
“Not saying people can’t change, but since B explicitly said in his post that he knew he was into boys since kindergarten, IMO that makes the fact that he tormented me in high school just for appearing gay even worse.”
B was getting plenty of comments from people praising him for coming out which aggravated the Reddit user.
He called his old bully out for his ‘manipulative’ post – but the internet is divided on his actions.
“I’m not sure whether this line of thought makes me bitter or not, but I felt the need to voice my own opinion. So I wrote something along the lines of, ‘That’s such a cute and manipulative post B, shame you didn’t consider any of this stuff when you bullied me in high school for the exact same things you’re now embracing.’”
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While the guy wanted to have his say, it didn’t go down very well on Facebook. Various classmates hit out at him for the comment and said that people can change. One person even sent him a private message to say that he doesn’t know “what B went through since high school” and said he doesn’t need “negativity.”
Needless to say, Reddit users were conflicted in their judgement. Some felt that B deserved to be called out, while others thought that the guy needed to learn to let go.
One user declared that he was “not the a**hole” in this situation.
People were warned against defending a person’s bad behaviour just because they came out as LGBT+.
“I’m so tired of everyone defending a bad person just because they come out as part of the LGBTQ+ community,” they wrote.
“He was projecting his own insecurities into bullying you and now people are defending him because he came out.”
However, another user pointed out that nobody knows what the bully has been through since school.
“While [the original poster] is entitled to be upset with his bully, and doesn’t have to forgive him or anything like that, it was shitty to attack him in a public setting while he was coming out.”
Overall, Reddit users determined that the poster was “not the asshole” in the situation – but it’s safe to say that the question has made many people ask hard questions about their own actions.
