“I am tired of life really. It’s so hard, I’m sorry, I can’t take it anymore,” wrote Jamie Hubley on Oct 14. “I don’t want to wait three more years, this hurts too much. How do you even know it will get better? It’s not.”
That was Hubley’s last post before the 15-year-old committed suicide on Oct 14. He was the son of Ottawa Councillor Allan Hubley of Kanata South.
On his blog, Hubley wrote, “I’m not really anything special, just depressed, I wish I could be happy, I try, I try, I try…I just want to feel special to someone. Im gay?!”
Messages on Twitter and his Facebook tribute page, set up by friends on Oct 15, hint that Hubley may have been the victim of homophobic bullying.
One group of Hubley’s friends teamed together to raise awareness. They have ordered rainbow bracelets with the words “Acceptance” and “RIP Jamie Hudley” inscribed on them. Other Facebook postings comment on Hubley’s singing talents, his friendly manner and his openness to people.
In one message, the writer apologizes to Hubley: “I am so very sorry, you deserved nothing but the best, and a little message to who ever made fun of James, he wasn’t a bad person, he never did anything to harm you, I encourage all of you to sit back and take a minute to realize that everybody is an equal, it doesn’t matter whether you’re kind of weird, or gay.”
In Hubley’s final blog posting, he thanked his family and friends and listed his favourite singers (Adele, Katy Perry, Jessie James and Christine Aguilera) before writing, “but to the people who didn’t like me (many) a big fuck you.”
Jeremy Dias is executive director of Jer’s Vision. The organization works to address bullying and discrimination in schools and youth communities.
“We are deeply saddened by this; we are planning to work with the school and the community following this incident,” he says. “However, it is a reminder to educators to let programs like Jer’s Vision into schools before this happens, as opposed to after.”
Hubley was a student at AY Jackson Secondary School in Kanata, where he started a rainbow alliance club for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and their allies.
In 2010 the number of teen suicides because of homophobic and transphobic bullying garnered worldwide attention.
The It Gets Better campaign – which Hubley referenced in his last blog post – was launched as a result of the suicides. To date, more than 25,000 people have submitted videos telling youth that life does get better. The latest teen suicide because of bullying happened in September, when Jamey Rodemeyer, from Buffalo, took his life.
According to Dias, Jer’s Vision is aware of 14 youth in Canada who have committed suicide as a direct result of anti-gay bullying. The agency is organizing people to wear purple on Oct 20 to show their support for ending harassment of teens in schools.
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