I can’t get Asher Brown’s face out of my head. The Texas teenager committed suicide last month after years of bullying at school.

You probably haven’t heard of him. His story was overshadowed by that of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him kissing a man in their room, then posted it to the internet. Clementi’s case raised larger questions in the media about technology and privacy⎯questions that will certainly be debated for years to come. The young man’s body took days to be found and identified. The Facebook posts announcing his intentions, the empty car by the side of the bridge⎯it all made for a series of great stories, and kept the issue in the news for days. If anything good can possibly come of the whole sad ordeal, it’s heightened awareness of the damage done by peer harassment of gay and lesbian youth.

Brown’s case, at least on the surface, is a lot simpler. He came home from another wretched day at school, removed his stepfather’s gun from its box in the back of a closet, and put a bullet in his head. He was 13.

Asher was in the process of coming out at home. This kid knew who he was. He had parents who loved and accepted him. And it still wasn’t enough.

Most queers of my generation spent our teen years closeted, or out to a very small number of close friends. We came out more publicly in college. Our parents did not take it well. Often they cut us off financially and emotionally. We banded together in our early twenties and tried to see one another through. Too often we got lost in depression and addiction. Most of us came out on the other side as stable, reasonably happy adults, now in our thirties and forties.

I like to think that if I had been able to be open and honest as a teenager, those years would not have been so hard. If my parents had been able to feel proud of me, or merely able to take the news in stride. If I had felt safe and connected, instead of terrified and exiled from my home and the rites of passage of my own youth.

As it turns out, though, even that is not enough. Kids are so vulnerable, often exposed to extreme cruelty from peers and indifference (at best) from adults. Can you imagine having it so hard at age 13 that you cannot even imagine things getting better, someday, somehow? That you simply could not face the prospect of one more day?

Dan Savage initiated the “It Gets Better” series of YouTube videos to get the message out to gay kids like Asher that the future does, indeed hold hope. Now a whole slew of folks along the GLBTQ continuum, from countless ordinary citizens, to TV style guru Tim Gunn, to FTM porn star Buck Angel, have told their stories with the refrain “It Gets Better.” I imagine myself at 13, furtively watching these videos for some evidence of a life beyond my small-town circumstances, or even just proof that I wasn’t a freak. I imagine myself taking a lot of comfort from them. It’s one way of reaching out, of trying to forge cross-generational lines of contact in the gay community that have been taboo for far too long. It’s simply not fair that every new generation of queers has to come out alone, without networks of wise elders and role models. For me, one of the great joys of discovering feminism was finding organizations with women of all ages who had wisdom and kindness to share. But the gay community, for a number of complicated reasons, has never provided that. “It Gets Better” is a tiny step in the right direction.

But it isn’t nearly enough. The knowledge that a successful adult named Asher Brown could exist somewhere out in the future⎯past high school, past junior high, even⎯wasn’t enough to keep the eighth-grader named Asher Brown alive. Think of yourself at that age. Could you really be satisfied with someone telling you that life wouldn’t suck in twenty years? Or would you rather have some proof, some gesture of kindness in the present?

I feel obligated to mention The Trevor Project here. They do good work. If it helps you get connected, reach out to the group and find a way to volunteer. Or be kind to a kid who’s struggling. Or just be a good role model, whether you’re a queer or an ally. The world needs to see you.

Maybe I’m crying so much over Asher because of my own guilt and frustration. Four years ago, my 16 year-old cousin Matthew hung himself. We had all known, maybe even before he did, that he was gay. Kid was fierce, in the best possible sense. And he had me, a queer family member, who talked to his mom about accepting him, but never had the same talk with him. I will regret it for the rest of my life.

As I write, it’s National Coming Out Day. Please come out⎯wherever you are. Queer or ally, the world needs to see you.