accomplices

The Hong Kong Schools That Are Aiding And Abetting The Bullying Of Gay Students

No, this is not the Tehachapi Unified School District in California. It’s Hong Kong, where Wing, now a college student, says he was tormented by classmates in high school when confiding a same-sex attraction to a friend led to his entire school finding out. So why didn’t he go to administrators? Because he doesn’t think the school could’ve done anything to help him. And there was the fear of them telling his parents. But they found out anyway, and it didn’t have a happy ending. Then there’s the story of Jack, a student at an all-boys Catholic school, whose “friend” starting charging him $20 a day to keep his secret. “It’s actually extortion,” he says of the nine-month blackmail, which ultimately cost him $1,200. Suicide seemed like an obvious way out. And I can see why: When you live a society that doesn’t even protect you from such discrimination by law, watching a few It Gets Better videos sometimes just doesn’t cut it. And then there’s the 16-year-old girl whose school issued her a booklet, Homosexuality And Hope, about how to prevent “same-sex attraction”; being “gay” is never mentioned. Not surprisingly, it’s produced by the Catholic Medical Association. [The entire segment is subtitled, in case you can’t hear over the loud background music.]

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