Queersetti
Bastardo Suave
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Posts
- 37,288
Thursday, August 07, 2003, 09:48 A.M.
Mother channels her grief into action after gay son's death
By Eils Lotozo
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA — She's a mother of seven from Lebanon, Pa., a physician's wife. She's cheery, self-effacing, unfailingly nice.
She is not, Susan Wheeler will tell you, a confrontational person.
Yet there she was recently, trailed by television and radio reporters, knocking on the door of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's office in Washington, on a mission to change his view of homosexuals.
Wheeler's aim was to get the Pennsylvania Republican — who in April had associated homosexuality with incest, polygamy and adultery — to watch the documentary she'd brought.
"Jim in Bold" weaves together stories of gay youths across America with the saga of Wheeler's son Jim. Cruelly taunted for being gay, he killed himself in 1997, five months after his high-school graduation.
Wheeler's hope for the senator: that he'd come away from the documentary knowing what she does, that "homosexuality isn't a choice, and it isn't a sin. It's how someone is born."
In the end, she never saw Santorum, only his chief of staff, who promised to see if the senator could schedule a screening.
He couldn't. The chief of staff later offered to watch it with her in the Philadelphia office.
Still, for Wheeler, 53, the visit was a success — the boldest move yet in her growing new role as a gay-rights activist.
Channeling her private grief into a public role is something she's been getting used to since "Jim in Bold" premiered here in May at the Equality Forum, formerly called PrideFest.
Directed by Philadelphia filmmaker Glenn Holsten, and produced by Equality Forum, "Jim in Bold" takes its title from a poem Jim Wheeler wrote. It's been shown at nine film festivals, including one in Poland, and may air on PBS.
"Just agreeing to be in the film was activism," said Holsten, who is working on a version of "Jim in Bold" to be shown in high-school classrooms. "She's seen where she can move with her grief to prevent similar scenarios, and she's doing it."
"This is definitely her crusade now," said Wheeler's oldest child, Jennifer, 31, a mother of two.
Wheeler's husband, Glen, a family doctor, prefers to stay in the background.
Married at 19, Susan Wheeler went back to college to get a teaching degree at 40, when her youngest child was 2.
Jennifer says her mother, who works as a substitute teacher, has changed since Jim's death.
"She was Susie Sunshine, with not a mean word to say about anyone. Now she'll say what's on her mind. I think she doesn't care anymore about stepping on people's toes. She wants to make something positive out of this."
The knowledge that she could not create a safe haven for her much-loved middle child is what haunts Wheeler and drives her.
"We all knew that Jim was different from the time he was little," Wheeler said.
Jim's story
Jim played with Barbies and took dance lessons. He was a talented artist, his mother said. "He didn't like typical boy things," said Wheeler. "He was into girl things, and that was OK when he was younger. But when he got older, people started making fun of him."
As a teen, he had multiple piercings and dyed his hair vivid hues. Said Wheeler, "He just shouted out, 'I'm different.' "
When he was 16, Jim confided to her that he was gay. "I said, 'We all know that, and it's OK with us. We're just worried because we know how cruel the world is. We're not sure you're going to be strong enough to fight off all the insults and the teasing you're going to get.' "
Her words proved prophetic, though the family never knew just how viciously Jim was tormented at school. He never said a word — not even about the incident after gym class, when some teenage boys threw him in the shower and urinated on him.
The family learned about that in a notebook full of his tortured poetry that they discovered after his suicide. The poetry and some of his art can be found on jimwheeler.org, the Web site his family created to honor him and to broadcast the message that, as Susan Wheeler writes, "not only does homophobia hurt but it is deadly."
Wheeler also learned from the interviews done for "Jim in Bold" that several of Jim's female friends knew how bad things were. He'd even asked one to help him commit suicide. They never told the family.
"He wanted to be normal," Jennifer Wheeler said. "And in his eyes, I guess being normal was not being gay. He could not see any future for himself. He was miserable being gay. He hated himself for that. It wasn't our family that instilled that in him."
"I think he felt very alone," said Susan Wheeler. "He had no gay friends."
She added, "It's a different world now."
Changing times
That change is graphically illustrated in another narrative strand of "Jim in Bold," which follows Benjie Nycum and Mike Glatz, creators of the Young Gay America Web site, on a road trip interviewing gay and lesbian teens all over the country. Among the stories featured are those of an ebullient 16-year-old in Pueblo, Colo., who launched the town's first Gay Pride event, and a group of Marlton, N.J., teens who belong to a gay-straight alliance at school.
That's just the kind of thing Elizabeth Wheeler, 18, the next-to-youngest sibling, is trying to get permission to start at her high school, the place where Jim found so little acceptance. For now the 20 members, five of them straight, call it a support group.
"I think it's just amazing," said Susan Wheeler, who has gotten involved in the life of one of the boys in the group. The boy — who asked not to be named — had endured punishments from his father since coming out. Wheeler intervened, and the boy's mother, who is divorced from the father, brought the boy to live with her.
That's a level of pushiness Wheeler couldn't have imagined exhibiting in her old life — before Jim's death, before "Jim in Bold."
"What I hope is that the film will encourage the parents of gay children to come out with their sons and daughters and be strong advocates for them," Wheeler said.
"If they have problems in school, go to school. If your child doesn't see you fighting for them, they can't fight for themselves."
Mother channels her grief into action after gay son's death
By Eils Lotozo
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA — She's a mother of seven from Lebanon, Pa., a physician's wife. She's cheery, self-effacing, unfailingly nice.
She is not, Susan Wheeler will tell you, a confrontational person.
Yet there she was recently, trailed by television and radio reporters, knocking on the door of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's office in Washington, on a mission to change his view of homosexuals.
Wheeler's aim was to get the Pennsylvania Republican — who in April had associated homosexuality with incest, polygamy and adultery — to watch the documentary she'd brought.
"Jim in Bold" weaves together stories of gay youths across America with the saga of Wheeler's son Jim. Cruelly taunted for being gay, he killed himself in 1997, five months after his high-school graduation.
Wheeler's hope for the senator: that he'd come away from the documentary knowing what she does, that "homosexuality isn't a choice, and it isn't a sin. It's how someone is born."
In the end, she never saw Santorum, only his chief of staff, who promised to see if the senator could schedule a screening.
He couldn't. The chief of staff later offered to watch it with her in the Philadelphia office.
Still, for Wheeler, 53, the visit was a success — the boldest move yet in her growing new role as a gay-rights activist.
Channeling her private grief into a public role is something she's been getting used to since "Jim in Bold" premiered here in May at the Equality Forum, formerly called PrideFest.
Directed by Philadelphia filmmaker Glenn Holsten, and produced by Equality Forum, "Jim in Bold" takes its title from a poem Jim Wheeler wrote. It's been shown at nine film festivals, including one in Poland, and may air on PBS.
"Just agreeing to be in the film was activism," said Holsten, who is working on a version of "Jim in Bold" to be shown in high-school classrooms. "She's seen where she can move with her grief to prevent similar scenarios, and she's doing it."
"This is definitely her crusade now," said Wheeler's oldest child, Jennifer, 31, a mother of two.
Wheeler's husband, Glen, a family doctor, prefers to stay in the background.
Married at 19, Susan Wheeler went back to college to get a teaching degree at 40, when her youngest child was 2.
Jennifer says her mother, who works as a substitute teacher, has changed since Jim's death.
"She was Susie Sunshine, with not a mean word to say about anyone. Now she'll say what's on her mind. I think she doesn't care anymore about stepping on people's toes. She wants to make something positive out of this."
The knowledge that she could not create a safe haven for her much-loved middle child is what haunts Wheeler and drives her.
"We all knew that Jim was different from the time he was little," Wheeler said.
Jim's story
Jim played with Barbies and took dance lessons. He was a talented artist, his mother said. "He didn't like typical boy things," said Wheeler. "He was into girl things, and that was OK when he was younger. But when he got older, people started making fun of him."
As a teen, he had multiple piercings and dyed his hair vivid hues. Said Wheeler, "He just shouted out, 'I'm different.' "
When he was 16, Jim confided to her that he was gay. "I said, 'We all know that, and it's OK with us. We're just worried because we know how cruel the world is. We're not sure you're going to be strong enough to fight off all the insults and the teasing you're going to get.' "
Her words proved prophetic, though the family never knew just how viciously Jim was tormented at school. He never said a word — not even about the incident after gym class, when some teenage boys threw him in the shower and urinated on him.
The family learned about that in a notebook full of his tortured poetry that they discovered after his suicide. The poetry and some of his art can be found on jimwheeler.org, the Web site his family created to honor him and to broadcast the message that, as Susan Wheeler writes, "not only does homophobia hurt but it is deadly."
Wheeler also learned from the interviews done for "Jim in Bold" that several of Jim's female friends knew how bad things were. He'd even asked one to help him commit suicide. They never told the family.
"He wanted to be normal," Jennifer Wheeler said. "And in his eyes, I guess being normal was not being gay. He could not see any future for himself. He was miserable being gay. He hated himself for that. It wasn't our family that instilled that in him."
"I think he felt very alone," said Susan Wheeler. "He had no gay friends."
She added, "It's a different world now."
Changing times
That change is graphically illustrated in another narrative strand of "Jim in Bold," which follows Benjie Nycum and Mike Glatz, creators of the Young Gay America Web site, on a road trip interviewing gay and lesbian teens all over the country. Among the stories featured are those of an ebullient 16-year-old in Pueblo, Colo., who launched the town's first Gay Pride event, and a group of Marlton, N.J., teens who belong to a gay-straight alliance at school.
That's just the kind of thing Elizabeth Wheeler, 18, the next-to-youngest sibling, is trying to get permission to start at her high school, the place where Jim found so little acceptance. For now the 20 members, five of them straight, call it a support group.
"I think it's just amazing," said Susan Wheeler, who has gotten involved in the life of one of the boys in the group. The boy — who asked not to be named — had endured punishments from his father since coming out. Wheeler intervened, and the boy's mother, who is divorced from the father, brought the boy to live with her.
That's a level of pushiness Wheeler couldn't have imagined exhibiting in her old life — before Jim's death, before "Jim in Bold."
"What I hope is that the film will encourage the parents of gay children to come out with their sons and daughters and be strong advocates for them," Wheeler said.
"If they have problems in school, go to school. If your child doesn't see you fighting for them, they can't fight for themselves."
