The High Cost of Bigotry & The Death of a California Boy

Seth Walsh was 13 when on September 19, 2010, he hung himself from a tree in the backyard of the house in Tehachapi, California, where he lived with his single mom, two brothers and a sister.

For months and months Seth had been relentlessly and viciously bullied for being gay. The afternoon he killed himself, the harassment had been particularly bad, particularly scary.

The LA Times’ Tom Curwen, a elegant writer/reporter whenever he sets down words, spoke to Seth Walsh’s grandparents to find out more about this young California boy who, like a string of other kids across the country, decided last month that they couldn’t take the teasing about their sexual orientation any more—so ended it in the one way they knew would work.

I recommend you read the story in its entirety. (Plus there’s a slideshow and video.) It’s terribly saddening, but it is also well written. We owe it to the Seths around us to let it in, with all its everyday horror.

Here’s how it opens:

When Seth Walsh came home from school, he would open the gate to a chain-link fence, walk beneath a tall red oak tree and be greeted by five dogs and two cats.

Seth lived with two brothers and a sister, four children from three fathers who were seldom around, supported by their mother who worked long hours as a hairdresser. Their home was a rental, a few blocks from Tehachapi’s main street.

He was 13, and in the eyes of his grandparents, Jim and Judy Walsh, he was just a normal kid, pushing into adolescence. They looked forward to watching him grow up and never imagined that the harassment he experienced as a gay teenager, or his suicide, would resonate across the country.

Seth’s mother, Wendy, is guarding her privacy, lost in grief, and his friends are keeping quiet at their parents’ instructions. Only Jim and Judy are willing to share their memories.

They want to make sure their grandson isn’t remembered only as “the gay kid who hung himself,” so they tell stories about a bright and precocious child who enjoyed playing with their dog, Bambi, and who liked the Jonas Brothers and Magic Mountain.

“When he smiled,” Jim says, “he smiled with his whole face. His eyes twinkled. It wasn’t just the smile. You got it from the eyes and the beaming of the face. He really meant that smile for you…