My Yr 8 son has been the victim of two boys who are constantly calling him gay and have been harassing him daily. DS is an awesome boy who has no idea what his sexuality is as he is 12 years old and more interested in playing Fortnite than anything else. He is also a star student and much loved by his teachers. The two boys in question have been picking on him since the start of senior school and he's been handling it beautifully, ready with a witty put down and not afraid to stand his ground but the relentless harassment is really getting him down.
He reported the homophobic bullying to his form tutor who said he would look into it and get in touch with me. He didn't so I ended up going into school and speaking to the deputy head of house.
She rang me later in the day to say that she had spoken to DS and one of the boys involved who told her that he "didn't realise it was upsetting DS". To my mind this is complete bullshit. The other boy was being spoken to by the head of house.
My issue is that this is simply not enough for what is a hate crime. The two boys were calling my son gay with the intention of hurting and insulting him and my son was well aware of this.
I want both boys to be suitably punished for this and am seriously considering reporting the abuse to the police, if only so that they get a stern warning and hopefully a bloody good fright! I feel that they, and others, need to know that there are serious consequences for the use of homophobic language and that it is not considered acceptable in this day and age.
For the record my son knows that there is nothing insulting about being called gay, he'd be more offended if they told he he was boring or stupid.