A 10-year-old Takes Life After Gender-Based Taunting

[William769]

A 10-year-old Illinois girl has committed suicide after enduring bullying that included being called a boy when she had her hair cut short.

Ashlynn Conner, who lived in the small town of Ridge Farm in eastern Illinois, was found hanged in her closet Friday night, and family members believe she took her own life due to bullying and teasing that had gone on for several years, the Associated Press reports.

“When she started cheering for youth football, we’d gotten her hair cut in a bob,” said Lory Hackney, her grandmother. “The kids started making fun of her then. They started calling her a boy.” She was subsequently called “fat,” “ugly,” and “slut,” relatives said.

Vermilion County sheriff Pat Hartshorn said investigators “are not ruling out bullying, but we don’t have any firm evidence to support bullying,” the AP reports.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/11/15/Girl_Takes_Life_After_Gender_Based_Taunting/

[RKP5637]

1. K&R !!! n/t

[pnwmom]

2. I was forced to have a pixie cut in elementary school, and I hated it.

And not just because of the teasing -- though that did happen. Like a lot of girls, I liked long hair, and I was jealous of the girls whose parents let them grow theirs.

I wonder if this girl wanted her hair short or if her parents made her. How sad.

Note -- I just saw her picture and her hair doesn't look short to me! But, short or not, kids that age can be so mean. Parents and teachers need to be alert.

[enlightenment]

3. No, of course calling someone 'fat' 'ugly' and 'slut' isn't bullying.

Just good, clean, wholesome mid-western hijinks.

What the HELL sort of 'evidence' do they need?

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Seriously!

[NMMNG]

5. No firm evidence?

Does someone need to have it all on videotape or something?

[DURHAM D]

7. Exactly.

So sad...

[lbrtbell]

6. What kind of a-hole kids are they?

This is 2011, short hair for girls has been around forever. I can't help but think they were actually bullying her before the haircut, too. :cry:

[Angry Dragon]

8. Something is seriously wrong in a society where young people

resort to death to ease their pain.......
And the leaders of this country do nothing about about it
except to point the finger in a different direction

There is so much hate in the world today

[DirkGently]

9. Jesus. A nation of bullies.

[RKP5637]

14. We bully our children, other nations, anything that doesn't fit our acceptance, and we

make and sell killing machines for other countries and build mammoth bombs. We are a death nation. No wonder kids kill themselves in this environment its stinks

[MADem]

10. What is wrong with the families of kids who bully? Who the hell teaches that lesson

in the home, that it is "OK" to be a fucking shithead to a classmate like that?

They ought to sue the damn parents of the kids that bullied that poor child for everything they've got.

[Pab Sungenis]

18. More often or not the parents are mostly absent

or disengaged.

[xchrom]

11. Recommend

[DesertFlower]

12. so sad. K&R.

[G3ND3R_B3ND3R]

13. R.i.p.

I lived in a progressive area but I had some very un-progressive and conservative parents, who mainly lived there because it was a rather wealthy area. I was a little older than this girl when I came out, and my parents gave me an hour to pack a suitcase and told me to get out of their house. I had to live with a friend for a year because of this.

[yardwork]

15. I'm very sorry that that happened to you. Welcome to DU.

[mtnester]

16. She was 10......TEN..... n/t

[Initech]

17. I had to endure that shit in high school - fuck bullys and bullying. Damn them all.

[Irishonly]

19. My heart breaks for Ashlynn and her family

She was bullied and it is unconscionable that the sheriff would not think so. My daughter refused to wear shorts for years because kids teased her about fat legs. She was/is a swimmer and her legs are muscle. The teasing happened when she was ten and she was out of high school before she would wear them.

Bullying can no longer be covered up or called anything but what it is.