Jonathan van Ness suffered verbal and physical bullying when he was growing up because he was different to the other boys.
The ‘Queer Eye’ star – who identifies as non-binary – knew from the age of five that he didn’t have the same interests as most of his male peers as he wanted to experiment with make-up and play dress-up in gowns and his differences were picked up by the other pupils at school, with some choosing to torment him because of it.
In a new video for The Trevor Project, Jonathan – who was raised in rural Illinois – shared: "I wanted to wear tights … or like a velvet evening gown with big gold puffy sleeves that my cousins had that they would play dress-up with. I didn’t understand people’s intense visceral reaction to my wanting to express myself in this way.
"I was not doing what all the other little boys were doing. I think that’s like when I realised what’s this is going to mean. So I think it was like all between five and then seven."
Jonathan admits that his experience of bullying has had a long-term impact on him as a person and he is always wary for his safety even as a 32 year old.
He said: "[The bullying] was pervasive and it had like a verbal element to it and there was definitely like a violence element to it and really just in general, a feeling of having your safety stolen. Constantly feeling like you have to look over your shoulder for your safety, for your space and that is something that is second nature to me."
Jonathan – who recently told the world that he is living with HIV – wanted to open up about his personal experience of bullying because he believes that talking about these issues can help children who are being bullied now.
He said: "A lot of times, when we’re able to share with someone who we do feel safe with, we can realise that these things that are happening to us don’t make us unlovable and aren’t something to have as a huge secret and aren’t anything that’s going to make our future dark and dreary. And actually, we have a really gorgeous bright future and we deserve love and safety."
The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organisation for LGBTQ young people and it works to save young lives by providing free and confidential suicide prevention and crisis intervention programmes on social media platforms and a helpline.
Jonathan van Ness recalls bullying pain
