In Épinal, northwest of France, Lucas’ funeral was held this weekend in intimacy. Support from the LGTB community has been present at funerals, as the family has declared that their child has been the victim of bullying and homophobia. At the beginning of the course, in September, the mother told the teachers that the child suffered homophobic insults: “I could no longer bear the cotilleos, the injustice, the evil and the eyes of the adults elsewhere.” From the school they say that they took the issue very seriously and intervened, that Lucas later told them that things had been fixed, “but we adults have not been able to see that lately it wasn’t ok, a news is terribly,” the school’s address said.

To realize the responsibilities, the Prosecutor of Épinal expands the investigation. Meanwhile, the authorities of both mourn Luke's death. "Lucas clearly suffered homophobic discrimination, something that children don't learn alone, that's what adults have heard. That is why education is so important," emphasizes Charlotte Caubel, Secretary of State for Childhood.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. In 2020, a 17-year-old girl committed suicide in Galicia as a result of the persecution she suffered since she declared bisexual. In late 2021, a 20-year-old Andalusian woman committed suicide after being brutally harassed by her lesbian. He had filed four complaints.

The school, a comfortable space for the LGTB community?

Homophobic harassment remains one of the main persecutions in schools. When we talk about the topic with two teachers, we are told that school is not a space that protects all sexual identities: “We talk about calling someone pity, but violence towards the non-heterosexual comes from everywhere in school, from the curriculum to the comments we teachers make.”

As in all other areas of society, at school it is also important to work and raise the issue, enhancing affective sexual education and educating in diversity. At ARGIA we collected keys to turn the school into a respiratory center for LGTB students and teachers. For example, in the face of LGTBfobos insults, Professor Kepa Blázquez encouraged us to change the focus: “Always around the victim, instead of focusing on his suffering and right to love and desire freely, let us shift the focus towards the aggressor: we should direct the discourse towards work and the deactivation of homophobia itself”.

Both suicide and bullying on the table

More and more is being said about suicide, driven by heartbreaking figures in the number of people who commit suicide and by young generations who come up with the subject of tobacco rupture. However, much remains to be done in the prevention and elaboration of the cocide.

Bullying or bullying, on the other hand, in recent years, more work has been done in schools, through numerous protocols, reflections and strategies, ceasing to think that they are issues or destroys children and giving them their true dimension.

In the French state, data indicate that one in ten children suffers bullying. Last year, the CAPV Educational Inspectorate identified as bullying a total of 157 cases, 129 in the previous year, most of them in Secondary School and one in every three cases was cyberbullying.