Students at a Florida middle school were caught on video last week viciously beating up and taunting at a 13-year-old trans girl.
According to Chad Sanford, an older student began following her on Friday afternoon at Deerfield Beach Middle School, before a crowd formed and a student threw her to the ground with a horrifying smack.
“He called me a gay f—t,” Ms Sanford told a local NBC affiliate. “He said he was going to knock the gayness out of me. Why does my sexual orientation have to do with you not liking me? Just leave me alone. I don’t want to be bothered?”
The girl’s family said the incident left Ms Sanford with aches and pains as well as suicidal thoughts.
"The school’s leadership is taking this incident seriously and is working with law enforcement in its investigation,” the Broward County School District said in a statement. “Any students involved will face appropriate school disciplinary consequences in accordance with the codebook for student conduct."
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Only one student reportedly offered to help Ms Sanford.
“I was scared for my life,” the sixth grader told NBC. “I just kept thinking, ‘Why should I be here? Why are you beating me up for being myself?’” she said. “He put me through hell.”
Because of the intense discrimination and mistreatment many LGBT+ youth face at home and in school, they have astronomically high levels of mental health challenges. According to a 2020 survey from The Trevor Project, more than 60 per cent of trans and nonbinary youth had engaged in self-harm over the last twelve months.
