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GAY-BIASED CRIME
Lawrence King was a troubled 15-year-old boy. He came from a dysfunctional family. His mother was a drug user and his father was never around. Lawrence was moved from family to family due to his boisterous behavior that was mistaken for bad behavior, as he was diagnosed with ADHD. Sue to this behavior Larry was moved from school to school as the schools did not know how to deal with these problems.
At five foot one inch, he was very hard to miss. He would do his hair in in bouffant, paint his fingernails, and occasionally dab on glitter or foundation on his cheeks. Some girls thought he wore makeup better then any girl. In Jan, he wore a pair of high heels to school and chased the boys around in them.
In a society where homosexuality has become more accepted, being openly gay in middle school raises issues. Children may want to express their sexuality, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that entails. At the same time, parents and teachers are often uncomfortable dealing with issues of sexuality at such a young age.
For Larry, he confessed to being gay at age 10. One Halloween, someone threw smoke bombs in his house, almost killing his family’s Jack Russell Terrier. In sixth grade, a girl started a “Burn Book”-a copycat of the in the movie “Mean Girls”. Where bullies wrote things about Larry being gay and falsely asserted, the he dressed in Goth and drag. The book ended in a threat stating, “I hate Larry King. I wish he was dead.” The principle called Larry’s foster parents to figure out how Larry could be protected. The outcome was that he would be transferred to a different school.
Larry felt comfortable in his new school arriving as a seventh grader. He hung out with a group of girls who, unlike his elementary school, did not judge him. However, that did not mean that everyone accepted him. In gym class, some boys would shove him around the locker room. Random people would come up...