Shock over the suicide of a young trans man: he was bullied at school
The Movement for Homosexual Integration (Movilh) denounced the suicide of a 16-year-old trans youth in Copiapó, a city in northern Chile. On Thursday, May 23, Matías, as he was known, jumped from the building where he lived.
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Photo: Josean Rivera
The Movement for Homosexual Integration (Movilh) denounced the suicide of a 16-year-old transgender youth in Copiapó, a city in northern Chile. On Thursday, May 23, Matías, as he was known, jumped from the building where he lived. He left a letter explaining his reasons for his decision: he stated that he was constantly bullied at his school, the Sacred Heart High School. To date, the school has not issued any statement.
The Movilh demanded the intervention of the Ministry of Education (Mineduc) in the case. They also denounced that the Education representative, Silvia Álvarez, referred to the deceased with feminine pronouns, despite his identifying as male..
The school did nothing.
Matías suffered “constant bullying because of his gender identity from other students, as well as from some staff members at the Sacred Heart High School who rejected his gender expression. We are also told that the school administration did nothing upon learning of the bullying incidents,” stated Daniela Andrade, spokesperson for Movilh.
In a letter sent to the Minister of Education, Marcela Cubillos, the Movilh stated that “discrimination based on gender identity is prohibited by the Zamudio Law and the Gender Identity Law, while circular 0768 requires the educational community to respect the name and social sex, regardless of legal identity, a situation that did not occur in the case of Matías, while he was alive, nor after his death, as evidenced by the public statements of the Seremi.”
[READ ALSO: New attack on a trans woman in Chile: she lost an eye]
The minister was urged "to promptly order an investigation into what happened in strict compliance with current legislation, circular 0768 and the respect for the human dignity that Matías deserves, adopting the corresponding sanctions against all those who did not respect his gender identity and/or mocked his gender expression."
The study conducted by various human rights organizations, "How to Talk About Suicide and LGBT Populations," maintains that LGBT adolescents experience higher rates of bullying than their heterosexual counterparts. However, not everyone who is the target of anti-LGBT bullying identifies as LGBT. Many of these individuals suffer this harassment because others speculate about their sexual orientation or because they do not conform to others' gender expectations.
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