Tyrone Unsworth deserved better. And now he’s dead

There are a lot of people with the innocent blood of a 13-year-old boy on their hands. I wonder if they’re happy about it.

Tyrone Unsworth’s tormentors have a lot to answer for, but so do many others. (Pic: Facebook)

There are a lot of people with the innocent blood of a 13-year-old boy on their hands this week.

I wonder if they’re happy about it.

I wonder, if after devoting significant portions of their lives to attacking, persecuting, degrading and seeking the continued marginalisation of gay, lesbian and transgender people, how those politicians and lobbyists feel when they hear a gay kid has killed himself.

Satisfied? Relieved that there’s one less of the people they deem so evil and unnatural? Like they’ve done a good job?

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if inside their cold, dead hearts there’s a rare and excited beat on awful days like today, when we as a nation awake to read about Tyrone Unsworth, who took his life on Monday.

Before today, we didn’t know Tyrone. His devastated mother Amanda did though. She mustered the courage to describe her precious child as a kind, happy and cheeky teen who loved fashion. He had big, beautiful blue eyes. He offered her tips on what to wear and wanted to be a vet when he grew up.

The world was his. But it was snatched away by relentless hate — a hate and a fear that we as a society allow to foster and at times even encourage.

Bullying about his sexuality led Tyrone to take his own life. (Pic: Facebook)

Tyrone was a bit different — a bit gay — and he suffered for it, the subject of years of relentless and suffocating bullying at the hands of his homophobic peers. Slurs, violence, an ongoing campaign of misery all instilled in him a dread of his everyday existence.

And for that, we should all be ashamed.

His tormentors have a lot to answer for, but so do many others.

The politicians who’ve stood in our hallowed Parliaments to decry the Safe Schools anti-bullying initiative, comparing it to paedophiles grooming for victims or sinister characters recruiting for additions to their ranks. The other elected officials who compare marriage equality to the greatest risk a civilised world faces.

The religious lobbyists who have spent every waking moment, every hate-fuelled breath in denouncing a group of people, representing them as the worst of the worst.

Authority figures who regularly appear on television, sprouting all kinds of awful rubbish.

They have a lot to answer for this week.

Children aren’t born homophobic. It’s a learnt behaviour, from parents and caregivers, from popular culture and from mass media. There are a lot of people who’ve contributed to young people feeling like they have no place in this world.

People like Tyrone.

I know his story because I lived it myself. I lived in constant fear that what I endured as a teen would be my future, never being accepted and never able to be myself. Hiding, living a lie, unable to marry someone I love. I figured walking down the street without being tormented or bashed would be impossible.

It wasn’t, but as a downtrodden 13-year-old, I couldn’t see any hope.

Those who perpetuate that fear all these years later should be ashamed of themselves.

A 13-year-old boy taking his life is awful and tragic, no doubt, but in this climate of fear and hate it can hardly be labelled a shock.

We have all failed — failed to support young people like Tyrone, failed to demand more of our education system, failed to stamp out hate when we see it and failed to slap down idiots in Parliament and on television and in print when they say the most unspeakable things.

From this tragic act that has broken our hearts we should all now rally and stand together — gay and straight — to demand this never happens again, and to demand the people who speak publicly do so with the consequences of their words in mind.

Tyrone deserved better. The many other kids just like him do too.

Shannon Molloy is a National TV Writer for News Corp Australia