Fifteen year old Ottawa student Jamie Hubley committed suicide last week, documenting his torment on the Internet.
“I hate being the only open gay guy in my school … It fucking sucks, I really want to end it,” he wrote.
According to a story in The Ottawa Citizen:
“Even though he was feeling down all the time, he always made everybody else feel better,” she said.
A gifted actor and singer — he loved Lady Gaga, Adele and Katy Perry, and posted numerous videos of himself singing on his personal YouTube channel — Jamie wrote a month ago that he was looking forward to taking dance lessons this winter.
“Something to look forward to,” he wrote.
But he also wrote of his sadness and despair, about being called a “fag.”
In a post three weeks ago, he said he was depressed, that medications he was taking weren’t working, and that being gay in high school was so hard — a thousand times harder in real life than on the popular television show, Glee, which he loved.
I am so fed up with writing the same story — over and over and over again. This madness has to stop, and the first way we decrease these tragedies is to stop minimizing the torment and harassment by reducing it to mere bullying.
These kids are not getting bullied — they are getting mugged. The schools where these kids go are not places of education, but cages where students are psychologically and physically tortured. What they endure is “bullying” in the same way dropping a mouse into a snake tank is mere “bullying.” What many of these helpless students put up with is more like The Wire or Oz than a legitimate learning environment.
If the same violent incidents occurred on the subway or at the grocery store they would considered mugging and the perpetrator would be arrested for assault. But if these criminal acts happen in the prison yard, um, I mean schoolyard, they are dismissed as bullying.
The dirty little secret is that the majority of teachers know exactly what is going on. They know who the thugs are. They know who the victims are. Yet they often do nothing and sometimes contribute to the terror — particularly if they are anti-gay. Many teachers also want to be seen as cool, so they cozy up to the popular jocks who often lead the daily assaults.
I frequently hear that we cannot stop bullying/mugging. What a load of nonsense. We can significantly reduce it by holding teachers and administrators responsible for their actions. If a teacher is aware of a campus mugging or abets the crime — he or she should be immediately suspended without pay for a month. If the infraction occurs a second time, the teacher should be suspended for an entire year. A third violation would lead to termination. The same criteria would apply to district administrators.
Efforts at stopping school muggings must specifically include LGBT students since they are the most prolific targets. The Southern Poverty Law Center analyzed 14 years of federal hate crime data and found that homosexuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States.
A survey by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight, Education Network showed that 72% of school bullying was based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The only job of schools is to educate young people, and anyone who is being mugged on a daily basis or has to think about being verbally and physically assaulted cannot get a proper education.
Think about how you would perform at work if you knew every time you entered the office a co-worker would demean, spit on or punch you. Do you really think you could excel — or would a disproportionate amount of your energy focus on fending off or eluding your would-be attackers?
We can stop much of the anti-LGBT violence today if we really wanted to. All we have to do is make it known to the muggers and their adult enablers in the classroom that there will be consequences for both violent action and inaction.
The media should also ask tough questions of so-called “pro-family” groups that do everything in their sinister power to block efforts to curtail these muggings — all in the name of religion. Why doesn’t the media ask: “How can you say you are pro-life when the policies you promote lead to LGBT teen suicide?”
Something has to be done. We can no longer allow beautiful young LGBT people to take their lives. We also can no longer take part in the charade where those who aided and abetted such crimes are allowed to throw up their hands and disingenuously ask, “How did this happen?”
We know damn well how it happened and we know how to stop it. What we need is the will to stand up to the muggers and their moralizing lobbyists.
Filed under: Views & Voices
So tired of seeing these stories they are so depressing :(
Absolutely horrible. Seriously, it’s time for the craziness to stop. Get proactive in schools. Start GSAs. Put up Safe Space posters. Do anything. Don’t let great young people take their lives over something that CAN be stopped.
You think our kids are trying to tell us something?
WHEN U BULLY PEOPLE..2 ME IT MEANS U WANT 2 BE LIKE THEM..IJS..SO COME OUT AND ENJOY!!!!
To All The Children of Earth, Suicide Prevention: We as adults don’t always get it right, We don’t claim to know it all, We as society try to guide you in the best way we can, Sometimes we succeed, Sometimes we fail to meet your expectations, but One thing we know for sure – You are important and suicide is not the answer. We are not here to judge, just think about the people you love and that love you. Just hang on, It Does Get Better. Many Blessings to All!
It’s being under-reported that this happened in a school run by the Ottawa Catholic School Board. The Catholic Church is an anti-gay hate group.
These need to be classified as hate crimes and the bullies treaten as criminals. put it on their record forever and make it mean something more
i sad
saw the CTV National News and Jamie’s father speak about his son not dying for nothing.
Gender Identity costs and yet its’ value to society is crucial. Jamie’s life and aspirations for others he wanted to help with a GSA and his sign GAY stand in our face now. Let’s face it, let’s get people involved like so they make the changes needed now. Each of us has to do more because we have lost one.
I am appalled by the phony “pro-lifers”. Why aren’t they outraged, marching, making praying spectacles of themselves over these dear kids?
How many teens have to die before people understand bullying is not joke!
Too many already…oh so devastating.
it´s a sham for everyone who is involved n didnt take action…
makes me sick that this was allowed to go on.
So sad… =(
These kind of tragedies have to STOP! That is really upset. :(God bless you, Jamie !
Some of the negative consequences of coming out younger:
1. coming out at time when there is the greatest pressure to conform
2. more likely to be isolated
3. not had time to develop resilience
4. happening when at school and if not personally facing, then witnessing other LGBTQs facing daily homophobic abuse.
Great article – schools are creating homophobes and killing LGBT young people. But stopping bullying is only part of the answer: young LGBTQ people also need adult support, acceptance and love from their families and, just as important, access to meet other LGBTQ young people to experience a ‘normal’ adolescence.
Would anyone where in NYC where i can get a LGBT button. if so please contact me, would really like one to represent. thank you.
I find it terribly depressing to read these stories over and over. There are more opportunities for safety and acceptance now than when I was being tortured daily in the nightmare called highschool, yet more and more violent acts are leading to utter dispair by today’s youth.
When you’re in that dark place, you can’t see an end, except The End.
I survived in spite of, rather than because of my peers, teachers, and family. I can’t even tell these kids that it gets better, because as an adult, I can still lose my job, my kid, and have limited ability to have a home because of where I live, and the policies there.
Something has got to give, when will we stop sacrificing our children on the altar of political correctness?
I am literally sick to my stomach right now!
I am an innovator and would like to suggest that the solution to dealing with hate can be found in the alphabet
Attitude
Alliances build allainces to
Ask other for help
Band together
Boast
Challenge
Compassion For those who have been fooled
Poster
Who fooled you to hate others.
Did they hate you when they
fooled you to hate.
Where will hate help you in life
Who convinced you to hate and
how can you love you self by being hateful
Do you use you energy and life to hate
What a waste of your life
Energy Use our energy to promote health and healing Walrus John Lawrence History of success
Family of support
God made you this way He could no be wrong
Grow in all the directions that feed your soul you passion
Hate ruins the lives of those who life with hate
Heal Learn how to heal the pain
Help other in you community who are hurting
I
J
Kind Be kind to your self Bullies hateful people are not being kind to themselve be acting in such a dysfunctional manner
Mental defense Bullies are really small on the inside Figure out how to deal with their little ego.
Nurture a social circle that is not dysfunctional Join Clubs that share your passions They exist.
Opportunity There are always opportunities to deal with problems
P
Question the options you have considered are there others
Read it show a greater perspective of our world
Sex It is just one aspect of who we are celebrate it embrace it
T
Understand
vision
W
x
Y
Z
may god rest his soul.
This is absolutely TRUE. I agreed passionately with this young man’s sentiment. I lecture on this extensively. By simply calling it “Bullying” we reduce the situation to something close to what we saw on “Leave It To Beaver” back in the 50′s and 60′s where Eddie Haskell was just acting poorly and making bad social choices. NOT ONE character on that show or any like it, ever KILLED themselves over the “kid” things shown. As I have said until I am “purple”…today BULLYING is Social and Psychological assault…and should be treated as such.
This is a great article! It’s thinking like this that is going to help end this scourge on our youth!
In a post three weeks ago, he said he was depressed, that medications he was taking weren’t working, and that being gay in high school was so hard — a thousand times harder in real life than on the popular television show, Glee, which he loved.” Ie,series and talk shows give a false impression of acceptance ,making them emotionally overburdened when they come out and the environment turns out to be quite homophobic,even though it had not seemed so, before they went openly gay.
How can we (as adults) effectively reach out to the LGBT youth?
Society has already put a wall between gay adults and gay youth.
@Joshua David Benson: I’m very tired of reading these stories, too. They are depressing. Now, the question is, what are YOU doing to bring about change. This is an epidemic. Be sick and tired if you must, but also be part of the solution.
Good ideas, all…but I was born and raised in small town Alaska, and survived Hell School there. Tried start a GSA. Got the number of required signatures. Presented the petition to the principle, and had it torn up and thrown in the trash, with witnesses standing there.
I endured bullying, too. Was threatened, was pushed around. Thankfully, I had a group of friends that cared enough to step up and help when I was too tired. Yes, the bullying HAS TO STOP. But some school officials WILL NOT GIVE these kids the tools to support themselves, educate themselves, defend themselves.
Education and awareness is part of the solution. Now, we need action, counseling, and maybe, just maybe, the ACLU?
look at the people who are famous today.the majority is shallow and superficial.we have people like janet jackson,jennifer lopez and beyoncé who are all wearing fur from tortured murdered animals and many people think these stars are wonderful.we are living in very barbaric times.when are people going to start taking a good look at their own lives and seeing how much suffering they are personally responsible for? we as a species are self destructing and we are taking the reast of the species and the planet along with us.wake up people!!