News: Nine-Year-Old Commits Suicide After Homophobic Bullying
Image credit: Fox31
Bullying continues to be a persistent threat to the lives of LGBTQ youth, as evidenced by this latest disturbing news from Denver, Colorado.
According to KDVR TV, nine-year-old Jamel Myles killed himself after being homophobic bullying in school. He was starting fourth grade at Joe Shoemaker Elementary School. Jamel’s mom, Leia Pierce, was the one who found his body.
Pierce recalls that over the summer, her son had come out to her as gay.
“And he looked so scared when he told me. He was like, ‘Mom I’m gay.’ And I thought he was playing, so I looked back because I was driving, and he was all curled up, so scared. And I said, I still love you,” Pierce said.
However, Jamel didn’t receive the same support when he decided to come out in school. Only four days into the school year, Jamel killed himself after intense bullying from classmates. Pierce shares that Jamel told his older sister that “the kids at school told him to kill himself.”
Studies show that gay and bisexual men are four times more likely to attempt suicide in their lifetime than heterosexual men. The Trevor Project also lists down several heartbreaking statistics about suicide among young LGBTQ people. For instance, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth, and they are also five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth.
Are you having suicidal thoughts? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. You may also click here or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for options and more resources.
The suicide action phone numbers for other countries are:
US – Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860 Available 24/7
For the LGBT youth under 24, call TrevorLifeline—a crisis intervention and suicide prevention phone service available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386
TrevorText—Text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200. Standard text messaging rates apply. Available Monday through Friday between 3pm–10pm EST / Noon–7pm PT.
Canada – Trans Lifeline: (877) 330-6366 Available 24/7
Helpline 1: 604-872-3311 (Greater Vancouver)
Helpline 2: 18666613311 (Toll free-Howe Sound/Sunshine Coast)
Helpline 3: 1-866-872-0113 (TTY)
Helpline 4: 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433) (BC-wide)
Website: WWW.CRISISCENTRE.BC.CA
Mental Health Crisis Line 1-866-996-0991 (Ottawa and Eastern Ontario)
Mental Help Health Line 1-866-531-2600 (Ontario)
Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)
Also, check out http://suicideprevention.ca/ for educational materials and resources. You can also find local crisis centers through this link: http://suicideprevention.ca/need-help/
Australia – For crisis or suicide prevention support for LGBTQI in Australia, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au/gethelp. Click here for other support services within Australia.
Singapore – Oogachaga Hotline – 6226 2002 (Tue to Thu 7pm to 10pm and Sat 2pm to 5pm)
Oogachaga WhatsApp – 8592 0609 (Tue to Thu 7pm to 10pm and Sat 2pm to 5pm)
Oogachaga face to face counselling – make an appointment
Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) 24-hour suicide prevention hotline – 1800 221 4444
Philippines – Natasha Goulbourn Foundation (632) 804-HOPE (4673) and 0917-558-HOPE (4673)
2919 (toll-free number for all GLOBE and TM subscribers)
India – For various suicide hotlines in general, call here. For the LGBT community, call Sahaay Helpline 1800-2000-113 for free for counseling on “HIV/AIDS, STI, general health issues, and any psycho social and legal issues related to MSM and transgender individuals.
For other Adam4Adam members and readers from other parts of the world not mentioned above, you may click this, this, and this.
I got to play as a bad guy in myself that these kids don’t even know the first meeting about being gay or being by or anything else we’re letting TV media and everything else oversexualize them and guess sexuality and sex does fall under this category he is too young to understand all that and most other kids are getting over-sexualized and over sexually stimulate stimulated we need to start teaching our kids on how to treat you to other respectfully but I’d only that we need to also teach them that they need to figure this out later in life not as early as six seven eight nine years old that is too damn young and this is coming from somebody that used to get molested on the daily basis
I noticed this on Yahoo! News a day or two back. Such a sad story. Thoughts and prayers to the young man’s family.
Horrifying news, makes one sad and anger.
cut me a break 9 years old and somehow this kid understood what being gay was. i was still trying to not get a boner in class. these are the times when i think this lbgtsfd whatever, gets out of hand. you wanna be treated equal. you want the same rights, respect, attention, well you got it, a 9 year old should not be trying to figure out his identity at 9 fuck he doesnt have one yet. but now thanks to all the homos feeling oppressed now we got 9 year olds killing themselves, such bullshit
Really sad. Enough is not being done to prevent this. Penalty should be a lot stiffer for kids who bully other kids. Sad to say but our President is a bully and people are scare to say anything negative about him fearing being bullied. SMDH.
Yes, he said he was gay. Mom still loved him. But are peers at that age ready to understand and accept his coming out. He wasn’t. We DO NOT teach acceptance of difference enough in school. We learn that we should like and respect others as children and most do. But, when change occurs like wearing glasses and braces, being taller or muscular or chubby or short. the rules get left behind and name calling begin. Because we know what we like and want to be around and if your different, your not allowed in our group. Sadly to say that this happens in all racial, religious and even sexual orientated groups. Just look at how many members on this site won’t associate with other guys even to chat if their profile included things they don’t like. You cannot even chat with another guy w/o a pic, because you want to know what he looks like…if your talking, who cares…we do. Very sad. So how are we to teach others to accept and respect others regarding their sexual orientation, when the LGBT communities have so many roadblocks in place. So how do we teach children to accept others for differences not only for sexual orientation, but even the little things about a person. Then we can move forward and teach that being sexually orientated towards the same, or opposite or race is not just something that happens in the bedroom, teach that love and respect go beyond the bedroom walls.
I blame the mom for his death. She could have explained to him that while she was ok with it others might not be so welcoming. Kids his age tease over the stupidest crap, how did she think they would respond to s 9 year old coming out as gay.
While it’s a tragedy. No 9 year old should feel the or she or it needs to come out…
On top of that. If people think that bullying is bad from the outside in. Jesus, the intolerance, bullying. And non acceptance within the gay community is twice as bad. The gay community is the most intollerant, non accepting community on the planet. Most gaybguys wont even talk to you unless you are in perfect shape. And that’s not just for sex. I fond that the gay community runs much like a high school click. But even worse.
Dont knock outsiders bullying if your not willing to admit or identify the problems within our own community.
And if a kid feels he has to kill himself at the tender age of 9 for being bullied about being gay. There is much deeper problems than just the bullying. Also, a kid thinking about his sexual future at 9 and making decisions like that is also the sign of a much deeper problem. I know when I was in school most of us guys, gay or not, were not interested in such things until we were in our teens.
I think you are right. There are a lot of unanswered questions about this child’s life.
It’s such a waste of life for sheer stupidity, you can’t really blame the kids for bullying, its what the world at large lives on, in reality. It’s still pretty barbaric, existing largely, in the dark as oppose to living-flourishing in the light of all the new knowledge of what we now, well, some of us; know about the origins of homosexuality.
Out school systems were out-dated since I was a kid in the earliest of the 60’s! Scientists know, its not a choice, the religions are still in the dark, considering, the Catholic scandals. So much for
modernization, higher knowledge-intelligence; more like a big ball of ignorance, which is, why, the innocent are dying needlessly, mostly, in the best nation on earth, ha!
I am, of course, saddened by this senseless loss, but outraged by the comments above. The insensitivity shown here is in the moral equivalence of Jamel’s bullies.
It doesn’t matter if he knew he was gay at nine. It doesn’t matter if he “should” know at that age. It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t yet to sexual capability. He was self-aware and now he is dead. I am appalled at the lack of respect that fact finds here.
Amen.
Always the ones who SHOULD know better saying the ridiculous stuff. NONE of which matters, the boy is DEAD, and idiots run in circles trying to prove HIS mistake, mom’s mistake, yet never the society that allowed for >>acceptable bullying<< until death. Keep blaming the victim, keep telling yourself he didn't know, or understand how he felt inside, and place the blame at the feet of political and societal groups. What is TRULY SAD is an adult that can look past all the unnecessary commentary, unacceptable bullying, and yet justify the result …
When did YOU reach the magic age that allowed you to explore your interest? At what age did YOU realize? What age is acceptable for YOU to be different? out?
When you're done, relax, and accept the fact there is a large group out there who DOES NOT KNOW YOU, and yet still HATES you SO MUCH TO THE CORE they would willingly HURT or KILL you based SOLELY on the word used to describe a sexuality, a point on a spectrum that differes from their own, and then tell me again how YOU wish to justify THEIR existence … pretty sure
"there is good on BOTH sides" … right?
Why are you SELF-LOATHING homophobic a-holes here?
This is terribly sad. And really brings about the need for a discussion about Coming Out. What understanding did this boy have about what Coming Out meant? What understanding did he have about what being gay entailed? Why did he feel the need to make a declaration? We know his peers did not know or understand anything.
Acceptance of sexual orientation isn’t something that can be taught to children, people who don’t yet, and can’t yet, understand what sex is. Yes, children need to be taught to “accept others” but that is too loose a bandage to apply to sexual orientation.
Adults tell stories of the negative reactions they received when they blazed their sexual orientation out to everyone else. Yes, there are positive ones as well. I contend that no one needs to know anyone’s sexual orientation (gay, bi … whatever part of the spectrum) except those people they have sex with and those people closest to them to whom they confide other private parts of their lives.
Teenagers often have it hard as well when they come out.
We now have a nasty lesson and a painful story about what can happen when children do.
I am sickened by some of the comments on this article. Blaming/shaming a victim is just more bullying. Blaming a child for not fulling understanding a decision they have made is wrong. Blaming the parents for this is wrong. What if that was you who found your 9-year-old child dead? Now add in being blamed by others for not stopping it or handling the situation correctly. Who is to say what the right or wrong way is to handle something? That mom was supportive. You don’t know what conversations were had in their home about how other people might handle it. It doesn’t matter. A child is dead. A 9-year-old thought the only way out of a situation was death. Our society and culture is ass backwards. What happened to “judge not lest ye be judged”? Negativity sells, so everybody jumps on that band wagon. Try spreading joy and happiness. Don’t spread the hate and intolerance. This is a tragedy…nothing more and nothing less. A child is dead. A family is grieving. Parents are forever changed and blaming themselves and left to wonder “what-if”. Siblings are without their brother and left to try to understand , grieve and move forward. Classmates are changed and some are left to wonder if it was because of them and some will now become the bullied for causing this to happen. Teachers and school administrators are changed and left to wonder if they could have altered the outcome. A community is in shock. Parents/families of the bullies are now left to be bullied. Nobody wins. The pain gets transferred. We do not heal. We transfer pain.
To those commenting that 9 years old is too young to know what gay is, you’re wrong. I knew I was bisexual as far back as I can recall. I wanted to have sex with other boys AND girls when I was in kindergarten. At 7 or 8, I was having fantasies about sex with multiple boys. I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut about it though! I did have sex with a classmate through grade school and jr high, but we kept it very quiet and made sure that we were well hidden. Don’t doubt that kids know they are gay.