Gay Boy Brutally Beaten by Classmates, Police Suppress Video

His family want you to see what happened. So what is this talk of “respecting the victim?”

I watched a video early this week that shocked me to my core. A 14-year-old boy in Ireland was set on by a pack of his teenage schoolmates — punched in the back of the head without warning, knocked to the ground, and then repeatedly kicked in the face, head and torso.

The attack took place in the green area of a housing estate at 2:30 in the afternoon on a bright sunny day, reportedly less than a hundred meters from the home of one of the boy’s family members. In the video, he can be seen struggling to his knees to try to crawl to safety. An attacker can be seen kicking him in the head again, knocking him back to the ground. Then, to a chorus of cheers from one of the attackers, the beating continued.

Eventually, the teens grew tired of kicking the boy and walked away.

He was hospitalized with severe concussion, facial bruising, bruising to his torso, and two cracked teeth. He has a sneaker mark ground into the middle of his forehead.

The boy’s family have told the LGBTQ newspaper Pink News that he has been the subject of sustained harassment and bullying at school because he is gay. They say the students who beat the boy in the video are the ringleaders of the anti-gay bullying at school. They say the attackers made clear they beat the boy because they disapprove of gay people.

They also told Pink News they released the video on social media.

They want to pressure the authorities to act. They want people to see what homophobia looks like up close and personal. They want people to see what it did to their child. They say they want justice, but they also want the public to appreciate the brutal consequences of increasing waves of homophobia.

The video had the effect the family were after, but I can’t show it to you

The video went briefly viral on social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Outrage resulted. Many people are, as you might expect, horrified that a young boy could be so savagely beaten just because he’s gay.

The outrage led to mainstream media coverage in Ireland and the U.K.

All sorts of important conversations broke out:

Why are are rates of violence against queer people rising steeply in Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S.? What responsibility do politicians and media leaders have? It’s no secret that people in the British Isles are bombarded with hateful anti-queer messaging from capital-C Conservatives Party leaders and lower-case C conservative media — traditional media and social media. Does this boy owe his savage beating to that trend?

Some nastier conversations broke out too, as those who hate transgender people (such as Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker) suggested that violence against gay people is caused by justified hatred of transgender people. To those LGB people who suggest that taking the T out of LGBT will protect you from hatred and violence, I say this:

You are delusional. They hate you too, and they’ll eventually come for you no matter what you think or say about trans equality.

We should be having those important conversations. But unless we confront the reality of anti-LGBTQ hate speech, we aren’t likely to engage.

I can’t show you the video, because media companies have responded to a request by the Irish Garda (police) to “respect the victim.” I haven’t done a deep search for the video, but as of this morning, it’s gone from the popular threads on Twitter and Reddit where it first provoked international conversations about homophobia.

Respecting the victim should mean having the stomach to witness his abuse and confront its reality

Obviously, watching a video of violence is not a good idea for everybody. Some people dealing with trauma of their own could be harmed by witnessing this attack. It’s perfectly appropriate for them to choose not to watch.

The rest of us, however, have a responsibility (in my view) to witness this violence — as a profound form of respect. Respect should dictate that we look with clear eyes at the clear consequences of hate speech. Respect should dictate that we act, that we take decisive steps to stop the hate and protect future victims. If we don’t, who will?

Respect should dictate that elected leaders take long, cold looks at the inevitable consequences of their rhetoric.

Respect should dictate that we bear witness to the pain of a 14-year-old boy beaten senseless because he’s different.

But we can’t. Because the same media managers who platform hate have decided that we can’t watch the inevitable results of it.

Shame on them. Shame on the Irish police for not honoring this boy’s family. Shame on anyone who wants to sanitize public discourse from the reality of hatred.

The same could and should be said about sanitizing discourse around mass shootings. In my opinion, we’re harming discourse by not having the courage to look at photos of the carnage. If we won’t face what’s happening, how can we be truly motivated to fight for effective change?

But that’s another story for another day.

Update: As of this morning, Irish police have arrested and released five teenage boys without charge, referring them to a judicial “diversion” program. It’s unclear if they will face criminal consequences for their brutal attack.

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