A school district in Michigan has been sued by a mother who said her bisexual son was so badly bullied by fellow students that he attempted suicide.
Traci Matuschek is suing Warren Consolidated Schools in a federal lawsuit, after alleged bullying at Sterling Heights High School in Sterling Heights, Mich.
Matuschek said her 15-year-old son came out as bisexual in August last year, but was subsequently “gay-bashed” by students to such an extreme that he dropped out of the school’s junior varsity football team in October and attempted suicide in November, the Macomb Daily reports.
“He was getting gay-bashed in school,” Matuschek told the Macomb Daily. “He quit something he loved. He played football since he was in the seventh grade.”
Matuschek said her son came out because “he thought they were his friends, like family,” but instead he was called a number of anti-gay slurs including “fag” and “faggot.”
Prior to leaving the team in October, a player stomped on the boy’s head so severely that, despite his helmet, he suffered a concussion, Matuschek’s lawsuit alleges.
According to the suit, the school didn’t provide Matuschek’s son with any medical attention or discipline the student who stomped on him. A complaint filed with police also failed to bring any charges against the student.
Matuschek’s son didn’t receive any medical attention until that evening, when he told his parents what had happened, the lawsuit alleges. A hospital later diagnosed him with concussion.
The school was “continually informed” about the bullying by Matuschek “and the effect that it was having,” according to the lawsuit.
Matuschek claims that the school was aware of the harassment, but that officials failed to respond.
“As a direct result of the severe harassment, (the boy) became socially withdrawn, became frightened of the school environment, suffered academically and fell into deep depression,” the lawsuit states.
In November he attempted suicide, but was stopped when his parents found him, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses the school of violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, as well as violating Matuschek’s son’s civil rights based on sexual orientation and sex. The family is seeking more than $75,000 in damages, citing “loss of educational opportunities” and emotional distress.
The school district has yet to file a response. An attorney for the district said it won’t comment on pending litigation.
Matuschek told the Macomb Daily that the COVID-19 pandemic has offered something of a reprieve for her son, but he remains frightened to go outside because some of the students who bullied him live in their neighborhood.
“He’s afraid to go to the park or anywhere because he’s constantly looking over his shoulder,” she said.
Two teenage boys in love on the back of a motorbike speed past verdant hills, the rider pressing his head gently against the shoulder of the one who's bound to break his heart.
Variations on the scene abound in those queer coming-of-age films featuring frisky Euro lads fumbling through romance. Whether it's André Téchiné's seminal 1994 gay teen drama Wild Reeds, or the tragic Sicilian love story Fireworks, released earlier this year, filmmakers return again and again to that image of breathless, youthful freedom.
Fireworks also finds time for its amorous pair to sneak away for a dip at a secret swimming hole, which looks a lot like the quarry pond where French teens Stéphane (Jérémy Gillet) and Thomas (Julien De Saint Jean) go skinny dipping in Lie with Me, writer-director Olivier Peyon's moving addition to the genre.
The United States is now seeing over 200,000 syphilis cases annually, the highest figure since the 1950s.
Imagine the voice of Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo saying, “Picture it, United States 1951, I Love Lucy was kicking off its first season, super glue had just been invented, and there were 140,000 syphilis cases reported across the country.”
By 2000, however, decades of public health advocacy and medical advancements, such as the use of antibiotics in early treatment, had cut down cases to just 32,000 per year.
So, what happened? Why are the numbers worse now than they were 24 years ago?
Russian police raided a party believed to be promoting "propaganda" in favor of the international LGBTQ movement, which has been declared an "extremist organization" by the Russian Supreme Court.
As reported by The Telegraph, security officers entered the party, held at Typography, a club in Tula, 100 miles south of Moscow. They then dragged "feminine-looking" men out into the snow before beating them, based on information from the Russian human rights organization OVD-Info.
The gathering was not advertised as a "gay" or "LGBTQ" party, but the description by promoters of a night of "love, openness, and sexuality" attracted the attention of authorities.
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