'The tragic death of Tyrone Unsworth is why we need Safe Schools'

This article was originally published on Sydney Morning Herald for Daily Life, on November 25th 2016. Available here.

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This morning, the airwaves were full of news of the tragic loss of Tyrone Unsworth. The 13-year-old Year 7 student of Aspley State High School in Brisbane took his own life, after being bullied over his sexuality.

Tyrone had suffered from homophobic bullying for years, being hospitalised not a month prior with severe injuries, violently assaulted by a fence paling so harshly that he needed surgery.

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Tyrone Unsworth, 13, who took his own life after being bullied.  Photo: Facebook

When he recovered, Tyrone was too frightened to return to school, fearing the harassment of his tormentors. His grieving mother Amanda spoke to Courier Mail, saying that "Tyrone ended up being gay and a lot of people started picking on him", that "He was a really feminine male, he loved fashion, he loved make-up and the boys always picked on him, calling him gay-boy, faggot, fairy; it was a constant thing from Year 5", and saying "I feel like these people who were bullying Tyrone are the cause of why he is not here anymore. They pushed him to the edge."

The loss of Tyrone Unsworth is one of many tragedies met by homosexual youths across the world. It is a heart-rending end to the story of a fun-loving young boy, one dealing with bullying in the schoolyard. 

Yet it is important to remember that these were not demons that pursued him and savaged his daily life with insults and injury.

These were children; young people, immature and impressionable. As gay youths experience the growing pains of coming to terms with their sexuality, so too do juvenile schoolkids reckon with the hardships of adolescent growth – which can often cause them to lash out, antagonise others, and go for who they perceive to be the weakest link.

Which means that this could have been avoided, if we'd only been teaching our kids the virtues of kindness and acceptance for those with different sexualities and gender expressions.

This is a country that introduced the Safe Schools Program; a school curriculum designed by LGBT youth groups like Minus18, and by teachers and educators, developed to tackle the plague of homophobic bullying that has swept high schools nationwide, unabated.

It's been instituted and funded at the highest level throughout schools in Victoria. And yet, despite this program being created by the highest calibre of educator, youth worker and policy-maker, it has been relentlessly attacked nationwide by conservative media outlets and right-wing groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby, for its alleged 'promotion' of 'gender theory' and other forms of sexuality and gender expression.

The fears of violence and bullying felt by Tyrone in his life were not without basis, and have been felt by gays all around the world. Indeed, we feel his loss more passionately, simply because these experiences of harassment and endless degradation on the basis of sexuality and gender expression are far too intimately known by LGBT people.

When a fist flies in the face of a gay teen and is reported on by the media – if it's reported to authorities at all – we feel it like a lightning bolt through our chins, as though it came from the very hands that maimed us in our own formative years.

In studies of bullying in schools, nine out of 10 LGBT students have reported being harassed on the basis of their sexuality and gender identity. They are up to 14 times more likely than their straight and cisgender counterparts to attempt suicide and inflict self-harm.

Many of these violent acts against gay and trans youth will go unreported becuase educators don't see them. And even those who see them don't know how to handle it.

But the Safe Schools Program could change all that, and could give schools the resources they need to identify and tackle this bullying as it arises, preventing further harm.

Australia is in a position to abate the tides of homophobic intolerance, to cut it off at the root, if it weren't for those right-wing pundits and organisations stunting its growth, and insisting it has the potential to do unspeakable damage to our kids.

As though the loss of life – Tyrone's life, and all of those years that could have been lived – is justifiable cost in their ideological war against whatever they blindly view as 'deviance'.

The suffering felt by Tyrone is all the more universal, and the reaction to our loss of him all the more profound, because it reflects the stories of so many gay people out there in the world – my own included.

We must stop stifling the voices of acceptance, by allowing conservative groups to attack programs like Safe Schools. We can't allow them to carry on with their billowing winds of hatred that have swept through our communities for generations, costing the lives of so many young people. Tyrone Unsworth was 13 years old. He was a bright spark glimmering with warmth and potential, and his family will mourn him. We were too late to save him. But it's not too late for the rest of our gay teens.

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800

Lifeline 13 11 14.