He's only 15 and a sophomore in high school, yet Caleb Laieski has already received numerous death threats—because he's gay.
However, Laieski is not going after those bullying him. Instead, he's suing his Arizona school district and has founded a support group to deal with anti-gay discrimination.
Laieski lives in Surprise, Ariz., where he attends Willow Canyon High School. He wants to pursue a college degree in public safety and political science.
"Life isn't easy for anyone, especially when diversity comes in. The thing that gets me the most is the level of intolerance and hatred that still exists," Laieski said. "Once again we are repeating history; starting with the difficult fight for women's rights, following the violent fight for African-American rights, and now the long-awaited fight for LGBT rights.
"I feel I am discriminated against much more often now that I am more open about my sexual orientation. As I became more open [ about my sexuality ] , the hate speech and discrimination began to increase everywhere—in public, at school, via phone, via email, etc."
Laieski said he has "always" been attracted to the same sex, even as young as 6-years-old. He came out of the closet in sixth grade.
The teen said he founded GLUAD ( Gays and Lesbians United Against Discrimination ) to help support the LGBT community locally and nationally, "because of the amount of discrimination, hate speech, and experience of a friend committing suicide and many others attempting to work from a legislative perspective to deter or prevent these issues by passing legislation to patch these issues," he said. "After more interaction, experience, and involvement, I learned that we need to focus on the more basic issue that kept these statistics of suicide, homelessness, rejection, drug and alcohol use, etc. [ so high ] ."
Laieski was motivated to move forward following several national issues dramatically affecting the LGBT community and, of course, his personal woes.
He added, "When the issue of discrimination began to include myself and my friends, I then kicked my level of activism to step one, and it fired me up more when Proposition 102 [ in ] Arizona, Proposition 8 [ in ] California and the proposition in Florida had passed banning gay marriage, along with the ban on gays from adopting in Arkansas all in the 2008 elections."
He said one of his main focal points is Chicago, where there is a high amount of LGBT homelessness and not enough resources for the issue, he said. "In Chicago, we will then continue our legislative work, make an addition of our shelter goals, as well as add a department that will work with making businesses nationally become more LGBT-friendly and praise those that support and educate and boycott those who will not," he said.
GLUAD now has 10 active volunteers, he said.
"We are currently investigating the possible funding opportunities we can take part in to make our goals happen, federal and state grants, and the help of our members and allies will also make these goals become realistic," Laieski said. "Regretfully, with limited staff, resources, and budget, we have placed a primary focus on developing our ideas and making sure we do this promptly, which has taken an immense and critical amount of time out of our schedules. We will soon have a very informative and resourceful website containing some fantastic content, but at this time we make the professional sacrifice."
The young organizer said he often works on GLUAD issues during school hours and while at school.
"If a student or teacher asks what I am working on, I advise them of my involvement with GLUAD," he said.
"GLUAD has a primary focus on legislative work, in which we are contacting all 50 state legislatures by email with literature containing insight on LGBT issues, statistics, demographics, suggested legislation to solve certain problems, and share others stories.
"Although legislative work is very critical, we have concluded that we will be continuing legislative work but shifting our primary focus as well as mission towards the alarming, saddening, and shocking statistics on LGBT homelessness."
Laieski said GLUAD's focus will include overturning the Arkansas adoption ban, opening the Chicago shelter and more.
"GLUAD has very strong intentions of opening an LGBT shelter in Chicago, primarily in result to the alarming statistic of around 4,000 LGBT homeless youth on the streets of [ Chicago, ] according to the National Task Force," Laieski said. "GLUAD will have emergency beds for short-term use, and [ eventually will have ] permanent beds for long-time use. Our shelter/center will take in LGBT youth, adults, and elderly who are homeless, provide essentials and emergency packages to those on the street, counseling and activities for those who are housed or un-housed in our shelter.
"Additionally we are currently investigating the security precautions our shelter will have to adopt, and the possibility of providing emergency beds to homeless folks who are not of the LGBT community in a separate sector as well to help those wanting assistance."
