Councilman Joel Burns
Joel Burns
US Councilman
When I first picked my LGBT Hero for this series of articles, I took the rather maverick option of Joss Whedon. I still stand by my choice, but I have to admit there’s a whole plethora of others who’ve made an impact on my life as a young gay man. There’s one, however, who has impacted me most recently, and in the simplest of ways: through his words.
Last year, following a worrying number of suicides in America by LGBT teens, Joel Burns, a councilman from Fort Worth, Texas, took to the floor of his local meeting to deliver a 13-minute speech that revealed his own personal story of coming to terms with his sexuality.
Videoed and posted online that same day, Burns’ speech has since had over 2 million hits. When I first watched, sitting at my desk at work, I cried for the full duration. I shared it on Twitter and Facebook, and it received hundreds more comments, shares and retweets than any of the usual bumf I update my status with.
Burns’ story is a familiar one: He grew up thinking he was different, with parents he thought would never understand the feelings he was experiencing; he was from a small town, believing that small town sensibilities defined the kind of man he was expected to grow up to be. Then, at 13, a run-in with town bullies who ‘roughed him up’ and told him he was ‘a faggot and should die’, led to his contemplating suicide.
Fortunately, he didn’t go through with it. Today, Burns is a successful politician, he is married to the man he loves, and he has the acceptance from the ‘tough cowboy dad’ that the teenage Burns was so convinced he would never receive.
The speech is profoundly moving. But it is the truth behind the speech and the hope he gives to gay teens that makes this such an important contribution to the ongoing It Gets Better Project. ‘Yes, high school was difficult, coming out was painful but life got so much better for me,’ he explains. ‘Things will get easier. Please stick around to see it.’
Sometimes we need heroes to be extraordinary. We need them to be actors or musicians or award winning superstars. But sometimes, the greatest heroes of all are those who show us that just being yourself can be the most wonderful thing.
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