The Consequences of Anti-LGBT Bullying-An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy hung himself

[ccharles000]

This is just so incredibly sad. Via the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN):

An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother's weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.
Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) bullying and harassment at school. The other three known cases of suicide among middle-school students took place in Chatham, Evanston and Chicago, Ill., in the month of February.


It shouldn't have to take this person's death for folks to realize that bullying - specifically, anti-gay and transphobic bullying - is a very real and very serious problem that absolutely must be addressed in schools. GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard says:

"As we mourn yet another tragedy involving bullying at school, we must heed Ms. Walker's urgent call for real, systemic, effective responses to the endemic problem of bullying and harassment. Especially in this time of societal crisis, adults in schools must be alert to the heightened pressure children face, and take action to create safe learning environments for the students in their care. In order to do that effectively, as this case so tragically illustrates, schools must deal head-on with anti-gay language and behavior."
In 2007, almost 9 out of 10 LGBTQ youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and gender expression. This should be reason enough for schools to take action, and now.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Carl's family and friends. If you work in a school, check out GLSEN's four steps they suggest that schools can take to combat anti-LGBT bullying and harassment.


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[ccharles000]

1. kick

[murielm99]

2. A kick for you.

I have mentioned a couple of times that my husband was involved in a coroner's jury case where a 15 year old boy killed himself over just this kind of bullying. The case should have gotten more attention. I don't know why it didn't. Maybe the family wanted to keep their grief to themselves.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Thank you for posting this.

"In 2007, almost 9 out of 10 LGBTQ youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and gender expression."

Schools are not the only place that kind of bullying is ignored; religions encourage it in the world at large. Religions need to be held to account for the consequences of their hate.

[ccharles000]

4. I agree

[Djinn]

5. even in utterly unreligious Oz

and even the leftie school I went to there really wasn't anyway for a gay kid to experience highschool the way straight kids did, hate to think what it must be like in the US.

:kick:

[dsc]

6. If you haven't already

go to equalitync.org and write you NC legislator. There is also a blog of bullying stories. Mine was added on April 9th.

http://preventschoolviolencenc.blogspot.com/

[ccharles000]

7. I believe my state rep Pricey Harrison supports the anti-bullying bill.

[dsc]

8. make sure your senator does too

the senate was our problem last year.

[ccharles000]

10. I will write Don Vaughan.

He is a dem so he should vote for it.

[sunnystarr]

9. He wasn't even 12 yet ...

Had he even started puberty?? It's hard to believe that he already identified himself as being gay. I have 2 middle schoolers, one a year and a day younger, who has no clue about sex other than what he sees on tv and in the movies. Yet the boys commonly call each other gay as do most middle schoolers.

[ccharles000]

11. I knew I liked guys when I was 13.

It is not really about sex it is more about attraction.

[nichomachus]

16. I knew long before that

I wasn't quite sure why or what I was supposed to do about it, but I knew I was attracted to men -- by the time I was 13 I did know what to do.

[dsc]

15. according to the article

he didn't identify as gay but that apparently didn't matter to his tormentors. Who knows who he would have grown into had he been left alone.

[ccharles000]

12. one more kick

[NC_Nurse]

13. That is so sad. My heart goes out to his family.

:cry:

[ccharles000]

14. it is very sad

[DevonRex]

17. Someone needs to email this story to Saddleback right away.

As a matter of fact, couldn't we email every such story we find to that church? Anyone who isn't touched by this has no heart at all, no conscience, and certainly no real spiritual beliefs, no sense of right and wrong.

I am so very sorry for what this boy went through and for the grief his family is going through. We have to do everything we can to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

[BadgerKid]

18. I am sad this happened,

having been similarly bullied in elementary school, but I was fortunate to have had a friend and the principal intervene, eventually.