protons'n'positrons

So I was hoping to have the family shit stay as private as possible, but my mom requested that I do this so.

My cousin, melbruja​/Josh, has been taken to a “reform” school called Midwest Academy thanks to his violently homophobic mom. Josh is 15, gay, and one of the best cousins I’ve could ever have.

Midwest Academy, located in Iowa, is a school that’s been previously affiliated with the WWASP, a horrible organization that tries to continue conversion “therapy” for young LGBTA kids and teens sent in by their parents. Midwest and the WWASP is so horrible, that there is a website dedicated to those who have been sent there and escaped. 

As some of my followers may know, I have been trying to raise awareness for California State Bill-1172, that makes treating gay children with “gay reparative therapy” illegal for therapists in Ca. It is not clear about parents who choose this type of therapy out of state.

The most frustrating part of this whole thing is that we can’t contact him. Every letter, email, and package that someone could try and send to him has to be screened by his mom, where she could edit or take away parts of a letter/email/package, and the same can happen if Josh tries to send anything out to his friends or family. 

Most of my family have tried to help him out so that he wouldn’t get sent away to the “reform” school. But after a not-successful attempt at a temporary emergency guardianship change, the scheduled hearing did not proceed due to technical details (filed in county other than the county currently holding custody order for my cousin due to his parent’s divorce) his mom took him and his brother and left the state, trying to circumvent the law even though his mom is on probation (presumably she had permission from her probation officer). Since then I’ve been contacting my cousin’s friends through tumblr, and the only word we got from him was learning that he called his friends through his mom’s phone. That’s all we’ve heard from him since his mom took him away a little over a month ago (as of September 4th).   

All we can do for now is to publicize his plight with this hashtag:

#SaveJoshuaBruno

We need to save Josh. He’s a good kid with no problems. The only “problem” that he has is that he’s gay.

Not much has been put into the tag itself, since it’s just myself and my cousin’s friends on Twitter filling it. That’s why I need you to make it explode. I need you to talk about why sending children to reform schools is wrong, or talk about a personal experience that you or someone else might have had relating to these horrible institutions. 

Help us bring attention to this so that we can expose the school that Josh has been sent to. It’s the best current option that my family has in getting him back.