11 Year Old Kills Himself After Gay Taunts Left Unaddressed

An eleven-year-old boy hung himself in Springfield, MA yesterday. He had been repeatedly taunted as "gay" even though he did not identify as such. His mother went to the school over and over again, trying to get something done.

Nothing happened.

So for all those right wing nuts who insist we are teaching all sorts of positive gay messages in our school, fuck you. You caused this kids death. You and your bullshit rhetoric.

I wish we were teaching more positive images of LGBT people because then "faggot" and "queer" wouldn't hurt so much. I wish that boy had an advocate in the school who listened to his mother. Who did something.

I'm angry. How can this happen today? Why did that mother have to lose her son? Why was that boy not taken care of by the school officials?

It reminds me of when my son Zachary wanted to do the day of silence in his class. He wanted me to go in and explain. I was told no, it's too scary to talk about Lawrence King. It's too... much. A permission slip would have to go out to the parents. We can't talk that way without permission.

Which of course meant it was sexual in nature, even though it was not. This crime is not gay only. This crime -- and it was a crime the way the issue was handled -- was about bullying. Teasing. Mean, hateful words.

I'm beyond angry. This is something that could have been prevented. I have an eleven year old son. He wanted to recognize the day of silence. He understood how words can hurt.

He's not gay.

And when we all wonder if marriage equality is the end all and be all of the movement? Think again. In the first state in the nation to accept equal marriage rights, kids are still taunted. Humiliated.

"Two of the top three reasons students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression," according to "From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America," a 2005 report by GLSEN and Harris Interactive. The top reason was physical appearance."

Carl would have turned 12 on April 17th, the national day of silence in schools. The irony turns in my gut. I must do more. How can I as an advocate, as an activist look his mother in the eye and say I'm sorry? We're trying to push for welcoming, safe schools but haven't made it there yet?

We still need permission slips to talk about how it's not okay to call someone a dyke, a lezzy. How the words cut like knives, and the targets aren't just LGBT kids, but all kids.

An eleven-year-old boy is dead today because no one in the school did a thing to help him. They should be ashamed -- and they should go to jail for it.

And on Monday, I am going to the funeral. I will promise the mother that until the day I die, I am going to fight for comprehensive anti-bullying policies in schools. Because I'm a lesbian, because I've been on the other side of the taunts but mostly because I am a mother.

We must end the violence.

"GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, recommends four approaches that schools can begin implementing now to address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment.

# Adopt a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that enumerates categories such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression/identity. Enumeration is crucial to ensure that anti-bullying policies are effective for LGBT students. Policies without enumeration are no more effective than having no policy at all when it comes to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment, according to GLSEN's 2005 National School Climate Survey.

# Require staff trainings to enable school staff to identify and address anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment effectively and in a timely manner.

# Support student efforts to address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment on campus, such as the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance or participation in the National Day of Silence on April 25.

# Institute age-appropriate, inclusive curricula to help students understand and respect difference within the school community and society as a whole."

It's not that hard. It's not about sex. It's about dignity. And, clearly, saving kids lives.

Comments

[goodog]

Gay-hating bullies suck... ironically.

[Ashley Nicolas]

OK, so i posted a comment here that i don't see anymore so i'll sum it up. It bascically said how Mrs Whitman is and opportunist . She saw this boy's death as an opportiunty to talk about gay rights. I also said that i did not believe that Mrs. Whitman really cared at all about the boy or his family. The article she wrote was just meanspirted and it did not make the situtiation any better.

[goodog]

In what weird world does a lesbian mother NOT have strident and even ANGRY agenda about bullying a gay classmate to death?

Of course she sees it as an opportunity to talk about gay rights, She' an activist, and she even says she's a lesbian who's been on the receiving side of bullying.

An anti-bullying lesbian activist and mother doesn't really care about her cause?

She's devoted her life to something she doesn't really care about?

Kids getting beaten up and harassed in school because they're perceived to be gay is just an agenda that means nothing to her?

She's means-spirited, as if there's something WRONG about being mad about this?

What a preposterous proposition.

Yes, she's mad, and YES she has an agenda, and she's using this boy's death as an IMPERFECT opportunity to say so, because no one did anything BEFORE he DIED!

[barkway]

Kid at my kid's school was sexually harassing same sex classmates by txt message. School did nothing when kids complained and even showed them the txt messages. When kids took it into own hands to pummel the kid doing the harassing, THEY were punished but not the child doing the harassing.

[antaeus]

You make it sound like you believe the school should have done the "pummeling."

[oustfan]

That's because "pummeling" is worse than text messages.

[sammcity]

Parents who bully teach children to bully. I for one do not stand for it. If I hear a child say anything mean or crass to another student I walk right up to them and say, "What are the school rules for calling names -bullying?" That shuts them down immediately. Simply not acceptable EVER! I also go the extra step and say to that child that if I hear that language again I will ensure the teacher is notified immediately. School Districts have alot to lose if they are not compliant with Bullying Laws.

[barkway]

I'm surprised your comments have that impact. Around here, the kids would laugh at you OR worse, tell you where to put your comment. Kids today aren't afraid of adults and will get right up in your face when you try to instill discipline.

[tploomis]

This boy apparently cared too much what other students were saying to him and about him. He needed support to learn to be strong enough to minimize the importance of other people's bigoted statements. The only thing he really ever had control over was his reaction to what others were doing to him. He never could control others and neither can the author of this article. Of course, in a general sense we need to encourage everybody to treat others respectfully and humanely, but that is never going to be fully accomplished. Victims of abuse need to innoculate themselves, so the words and attitudes of abusers don't have excessive impact. He needed to develop inner strength. Unfortunately, nobody was successfully doing this with him. That was the fault of the school and the parents.

[Sara Whitman - Huffpost Blogger]

the mother of this boy went to the school over and over again, to get them to do something.

they did not.

shame on you for blaming her.

[tploomis]

I'm talking about working with the boy to have him understand that some people have problems that make them try to make others feel bad about themselves, but that doesn't mean he has to cooperate with them and feel badly about himself. He needed messages from parents and teachers that he had nothing to feel ashamed about and the people tormenting him are the people needing help. Of course the parent should be advocating at the school to have them do something about the bullies. Shame on you for thinking that's all that's needed.

[goodog]

Tploomis was ambiguous about responsibility an activist would emphasize, but it's a GREAT idea, a core concern.

A BIG problem we start with, though, is that many parents don't have the philosophical mindset or tools to prepare their kid to hold up against anti-gay bullying.

A parent may be anti-gay, ambivalent, closeted, or afraid of the subject, which could literally be forbidden in the home in this day and age.

Tploomis brings up a good point.

Does anti-bullying policy alert kids to the fact that they WILL encounter bullies throughout their lives, that they need to be fortified against people who will never get that their bullying is wrong?

Schools actually face pushback from parents who are, believe it or not, mind-bogglingly pro-bullying. Kids should be told that they need to persevere in the face of authority figures who don't give a damn and those that are under pressure to look the other way.

What the pro-bullying parents hate the most is the message to students that the target of bullying, usually a kid perceived to be gay or odd-looking, is actually a valuable member of society who deserves the peaceful place to learn.

Tploomis' idea to talk to kids about their self-worth and the notion of the bully as a ubiquitous problem in life that they need to steel themselves against is EXACTLY what these parents fear the most.

It's even something some parents of bullied kids fear most.

[antaeus]

Hey, let's encourage everyone to be a strong advocate for himself! Sounds like a plan, a worthy one, too.

But that changes the subject, doesn't it? Sara Whitman's point that a toxic culture of homophobia played a role here is spot on.

[TIME]

I'll guess that the parents of the kids who bullied Carl, are anti-gay. Parents are teaching their kids.
This is so sad. I wish Carl had spoken to an open minded adult before he acted.
Emotions make us react quicker than thinking, especially in children.

[SonofLiberty1]

Time,

No, not really.

Kids pick up things at school.

They can be very cruel.

Absent parents, so no real parenting.

[Pearlswan]

I agree wholeheartedly with the need to educate all teachers, students, parents, and administrators about bullying. We wouldn't let one child hit another child without consequence. But, we allow our children to use their words to hurt their peers without consequence routinely. Biologically speaking, gossip is a weapon for survival and name-calling and labeling is nothing more than a particular form of gossip. Gossip is a skill that functions to control behavior of individuals so that they are in harmony with cultural values and norms. It has positive value when it functions as intended--to control unacceptable behaviors that may have a survival impact on the group, family, community or nation. That means gossip is a behavioral tool that should be wielded with skill. But we don't teach those skills in a direct way. Instead, we learn by doing and by trial and error what words have power and what words have no effect. When kids discover their words have power to increase one's popularity at the expense of another person's popularity they may become addicted to using that power. Therefore, we ought to require students to acquire verbal skills that do not bully others. Schools aren't just for teaching math and language schools. We can learn those from our parents. What schools ought to teach better than anyone or anywhere else is how to acquire the skills needed for harmonious social interaction. Verbal abuse is no more useful in that endeavor than fist fighting or gang banging.

[Pearlswan]

"Schools aren't just for teaching math and language schools."

I meant language "SKILLS," not schools. My bad.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Religion. Pay your due$. Get your list of people to feel superior to.

[SonofLiberty1]

And as to the right wing nuts doing this...

NOPE...

It's just about bullying and how cruel kids can be period.

[antaeus]

Your empty and unsubstantiated implication is that this boy would have been bullied regardless of the stated or perceived reason. Somehow, he was just a born target. If not sexuality, then his teeth, or his shirt.

But here in the world of concrete facts and televised dissemination of culture, it's apparent to most observers that the hostility maintained by many religious towards gays (including the 'love the sinner, hat the sin" nonsense) has a poisonous effect on the young. If religious nuts weren't insisting on an anti-gay stance, then our schools would be a degree safer, a degree happier, and a degree more civilized.

[SonofLiberty1]

And of course, my thoughts and prayers go for him and his family for I know exactly how this youngster felt because I was terribly bullied too. Back in the '60's no one knew what gay was anyway.

Just using it as a gay issue won't help anyone.

[Sara Whitman - Huffpost Blogger]

it is a gay issue when taunting a kid, calling him gay over and over leads him to suicide. doesn't matter is he was or wasn't. those words killed him.

[PlaceboStudman]

This story is heartbreaking, but I have to agree with SonsofLiberty here. Bullying is NOT just about being gay. In the case you mentioned, it was, but believe me, as a disabled man who spent years in an all able bodied population school from the age of 10, I know full well that bullying comes in many forms. We need to address bullying in all its forms, based on sexual identity, race, religion, and disability, and probably other categories of "minority" that don't come to mind off the top of my head.

All bullying must be thwarted before it starts...and this is coming from a gay man, who faced more bullying and discrimination because of my disability than the fact that I am gay, and I got quite a bit of that too

[SonofLiberty1]

Ms. Whitman,

All children should have the right to go to school without having to worry about being bullied.

Does it matter what they are called?

Nope.

The result is still the same.

Kids can be very cruel and so can stupid teachers.

Please, for the love of the child, don't put a "Gay" label on this.

[gayinmt]

This is BS. Good for you for fighting the fight. It hopefully will comfort the mother at least somewhat knowing somebody's trying to help. I grew up gay in Montana, if you couldn't tell from my screen name, and I was a lucky one. I'm not very effeminate, people didn't think I was gay, and if they did, they never picked on me. The only ones that did were my friends, mostly straight guys, and it was just fun teasing. When I came out to them, they didn't give a s**t. I was lucky. I had gay friends who were very effeminate, and got picked on. I was too chicken to stand up for them, knowing I would then be picked on and called names. I'm not proud of that. I hope that someday I will run into them again and be able to apologize. Stay strong.

[SonofLiberty1]

And as to "training"....

Don't need no training..­.HOWEVER..­.

Learning how one acts in social situations comes from good parenting.

And many of us apparently don't care enough about our kids to make sure
they know how to act.

[Michelle Lamar - Huffpost Blogger]

Whoever said "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me..." was never bullied or never had a child who was bullied. My oldest daughter was the victim of long-term, mean girl bullying---and she has never been the same.
Thanks for writing this post and keeping the pressure on parents and schools that bullying can harm children for life...and even drive kids to suicide.

[SonofLiberty1]

And anyone in this school, including the parents of the bullies need to have their ears "boxed" and serve some time in JAIL.....

[Dale07]

This is Darwin at work. The strong attack the weak. Survival of the fittest. It may seem cruel, but it is mother nature doing what she does. Watch a documentary on animals of Africa. It's our evolution on full display. Blame mother nature.