A tide of hate is rising, fed by lies, willing ignorance, and often by religious animous. The worse it gets, the less some people wish to talk about it, calling the subject divisive instead of calling out the lies and facing the hate.

The consequences are all too tragic, as illustrated in GLSEN’s recent biannual National School Climate Report that shows LGBTQ students facing sharply rising verbal harassment and physical assault at school.

For many years, GLSEN reported a slow but steady improvement in LGBTQ school climate. That leveled off in 2016 then began to slowly fall. In 2018, the numbers headed south more quickly, and now the drop is fast and getting faster.

I wrote about the numbers after interviewing GLSEN’s research director, and I published with the hope people might start to take notice and speak out.

But hardly anybody read my story. It was greeted with a giant yawn on Medium and didn’t do too well in the Los Angeles Blade either.

This despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of LGBTQ students in school now face abuse, harassment, and even physical attack by other students and staff. (Rates of teachers using anti-LGBTQ slurs against students rose sharply last school year.)