I understand both sides, but really I tend to agree more with whichever is less pandering. Of course I don't condone any kind of verbal bullying but you have to know that it is inevitable and biological.
As a human being, early on you should know that you define your own happiness. If you are so easily affected by other opinions that is a very large weakness that we tend to "baby" and support way too much in modern society. This is to a mild degree a mental handicap; some are more gullible, susceptible to mob mentality or bullying. In the US especially this behavior is nurtured, so the problem compounds itself and the person becomes less and less resistant to verbal attacks or opinions.
If you want to slit your wrists, commit suicide, or go anorexic just from strangers comments that's on you. Doesn't matter what you are that makes you a target (cross dressing, obese, transgender, ugly, etc) if you don't understand from a young age how to deal.....your whole life will be full of lying to yourself and self-loathing. Society has always caught up and got used to what becomes more commonplace, but there will always be something on the fringe that will get singled out by those that seek out easy targets.
Instead of all this anti-bullying crap (which will never really affects change since the bullies don't care), we need to be promoting people to be more independent/confident in thought and opinion. Teaching kids that they should be more selective with who to take seriously and who to ignore, they need to realize not all opinions carry the same weight (especially online).
Physical bullying is a whole other topic; to a degree it can be countered as well by the victim, but not always. This kind of bullying is also normal human behavior unfortunately, from our biological roots (and many other animals). Find the weak/fat/lazy/abnormal/different, get rid of them to make the species or community stronger. It's an instinctual relic of the past that we no longer need, but probably won't ever get rid of.
