A community college student from Visalia viewed as a rising star in the gay and lesbian community took his own life last week.

Eric James Borges, 19, hung himself in the garage of a home he was staying in.

Most suicides don't get reported, but Borges' was bannered on Huffington Post.

Only a month ago, Borges posted his own "It Gets Better" video on YouTube, urging young gays and lesbians not to give up hope for acceptance. Borges was also a volunteer for the Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention campaign aimed at young gays and lesbians, making his death by suicide even more painful.

Friends said they had no clue that Borges was thinking about ending his life. COS theater arts professor Chris Mangels said a Christmas card from Borges said "things are good and I'm looking forward to next semester."

It's not known why Borges gave up, but if the life story from his "It Gets Better" video is true, then crushing rejection from society and his own family played a role.

Borges knew he was different since kindergarten: "My name was not Eric, but 'Faggot' ... I was stalked, spit on, ostracized and physically assaulted," he said. In high school, Borges said, he was attacked in a classroom in front of a teacher.

Borges said he was raised by "extremist Christians" and that his mother performed an exorcism on him when he was a freshman in college.

A distraught woman in Tulare who identified herself as his mother but did not give her name said Borges "is always very loved, very much." Before hanging up, she said she hadn't seen the video.

Borges' father did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

The news of Borges' suicide tore through the central San Joaquin Valley's gay and lesbian community via Facebook. Jim Reeves of Visalia, an active blogger on gay issues in the Valley, posted an item that got picked up by national gay and lesbian outlets, and then the Huffington Post, he said. The Daily Mail in England posted something.

Borges was a student at College of the Sequoias.

"He was a very accepting person," said fellow student and Pride Club president Raymundo Buenrostro. "I just felt like he was going to do great things with his life."

Borges sat in the front row of psychology professor Debra Hansen's human sexuality class.

"He never talked. He barely made eye contact with anyone," Hansen said. But when the Pride Club came to the class to talk about being gay, "I saw this young kid come out of this introverted shell," she said. "He was incredibly smart and articulate."

Hansen hired him as a teaching assistant. When she found out he wanted to be a filmmaker, she arranged for him to borrow a video camera from the college, which he used to make the "It Gets Better" video.

After Borges said his parents kicked him out of their home in October, Hansen helped him move. Borges had told her that when he was growing up, his parents told him he was "disgusting, unnatural and going to hell. He wasn't safe at school or safe at home."

Borges' suicide highlights an unsettling reality. A California State University, San Francisco, study found that "when your family rejects you, you are eight times more likely to attempt suicide," said Trevor Project spokeswoman Laura McGinnis.