Friday, April 10, 2009

Homophobia and TRAGEDY: the end of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover's life

[Source for photo is here]

Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, eleven years old, took his own life due to on-going homophobic harassment at his school. His mother begged the school to do something, and now it's too late for Carl Joseph. A sweet child taken out by anti-gay bigotry and the lethal violence that is the normalisation and naturalisation of heterosexuality.

Dear Carl: I hope you are at peace. I wish you had made it through grade school in Springfield, Massachusetts, to know a full life of tenderness, affection, and love, however it would have been expressed.

My heart goes out to Carl's mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, and the rest of his family and friends. Carl would have turned twelve one week from today.

For the full story, see here.

[The following paragraph has been changed due to it being pointed out to me that my language was very close to that used against us as queer people.]

I look forward to the day, the years, when the LGBT agenda is focused on the health, safety, and well-being of our youth--all of our youth, who are so at risk in so many ways, not just from anti-queer bigotry and institutions, but from transphobia, misogyny, poverty, racism, as well as pimps and procurers of those seen as "being like women or girls" (including ciswomen, transwomen, and many of us cisgendered folks who appear too feminine, as masculinists and heterosexual male supremacists define it).
END OF POST.