When the two teenagers walk through the doors of Ripley High, they say they’re never sure what kind of harassment they’ll encounter.
“I don’t even like to use the term bullying,” John said. “I think the words verbal abuse and verbal harassment. That’s what it is.”
John has been openly gay for several years. But Nicholas was forced out of the closet. A month ago, he was subjected to over an hour and a half of verbal assault during 4-H camp.
“Like I expected, maybe people to talk about me behind my back,” Nicholas said. “I was in my room and people come up to me and there are three of them sitting there cussing at me for like an hour and…no. There’s no way I thought that was going to happen.”
Hate crimes are the pairing of both actions and intent, aimed at someone because of race, sex, nationality or a bevy of other factors. But right now, sexual orientation isn’t one of them.
Both the U.S. House and Senate recently passed the Matthew Shepard Act, named after a Wyoming student who was tortured and killed in 1998 because he was gay. It expands the 1969 federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Once the president signs it into law, it would allow the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate hate crimes—even those that local law enforcement doesn’t want to prosecute.
Once that law is passed, incidents like the one at 4-H camp could be classified as hate crimes.
But that event is just an example of what John and Nicholas go through.
John says he’s frequently harassed at school.
“And people seem to think just because maybe it happens once a week that it makes it better than it happening a full straight week,” he said. “The fact is that people are made fun of to the extent that others kill themselves over it. And this is something that needs to be out there.
“Whether you’re made fun of one day or for a full week makes no difference. It’s still just as hurtful. And I think people need to understand that.”
Since Nicholas’ experience at 4-H camp, his mother has thrown herself into her son’s cause, researching support groups and advocating on behalf of everyone who’s discriminated against.
“If you were to call somebody fat and harass that child for an hour and a half, that’s a crime,” Valera Donat said. “Skinny. Somebody that’s autistic. Somebody that’s slow. Somebody that has acne. Any of those things fall into a similar category.”
Donat says every time her son leaves the house, she worries about him.
“But I can’t imagine from the time they hit that school front door till they get home from school, I don’t think any of us could stomach what these boys really have to deal with,” she said. “And it’s sad as a mother that you have to be scared every day if our sons are going to make it home safely or if someone’s going to hurt them.”.
Both John and Nicholas are lucky in that they have supportive parents who say they’re proud of their sons. Still, both dream about a place where they can lead what they call a “normal life.”
“You can’t a normal life,” John said. “What’s a normal life to me? I don’t know. I’ve never lived a life of normality before. It’s always been constant chaos and confusion it’s never been what most people in this town would call normal. I’ve never lived that before.”
Sometimes, that bastion of tolerance and diversity they dream about is Charleston.
“It’s just crazy when you’re in Charleston and there are a lot of open people there,” Nicholas said. “You go 45 miles to Ripley and it’s like you’re going back 450 years back in time honestly, because people think like they did when they were pilgrims and it’s sad.”
But more often, the boys dream about moving further away, to New York City.
“Just a place that has a high acceptance rate of people like us,” Nicholas said. “Where you don’t have to worry about going out in public and people staring at you differently and you knowing that they’re looking at you because of that fact is disgusting to me.
“You don’t want to be around people like that at all, who bring you down like that.”
“We love our kids no matter what,” Donat said. “Nobody could understand what this feels like. You wish, it’s almost like you go to bed every night and feel like you’re in a bad dream. And you wake up the next morning and it’s not a dream.”
Jackson County Superintendent Blaine Hess says he hasn’t been made aware of any harassment problems at Ripley High School. He says the school doesn’t tolerate bullying and deals with incidents as soon as they’re reported.