Sixteen-year-old Jayden Tkaczyk, who is trans, was “badly beaten” at a party over the weekend by a group of teens in Gloucester, Massachusetts, as reported by NBC News, in what is being investigated as a potential hate crime. Local police have launched a civil rights investigation.
Jayden was at an outdoor party in Gloucester when he was attacked and chased into the woods by “nearly a half-dozen teenagers,” per the Associated Press, and called the F-slur, according to his attorney Craig Rourke. NBC News put the count of attackers at “20 to 30” people.
“One second I was having fun, the next second I was on the ground getting my face stomped and beat up," Jayden told NBC News. “They were just saying the F-slur over and over and over as they were punching me and stomping me.” After the attack, he escaped in the woods, called 911, and was found by police. Jayden is now recovering from a head injury, a broken face bone, nerve damage, and bruising.
Rourke told the AP that Jayden had long been bullied for being transgender, including allegedly being taken off the local high school football team; Jayden told NBC News that many of the attackers were on that football team, which is how he knows them.
“He’s been bullied by these children for years because he’s trans,” Jayden’s mother told NBC.
“Being bullied throughout your life sucks,” Jayden told a local CBS affiliate, "but being jumped is even worse."
According to The Washington Post, “School hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people have sharply risen in recent years,” particularly in states that have passed laws targeting LGBTQ+ students in schools. In Oklahoma, in February, 16-year-old Nex Benedict died a day after being attacked in a high school bathroom; Benedict had been repeatedly bullied prior to the attack.
Gloucester police told the media it was “too early to tell” if the attack would be considered a hate crime. Jayden's mother told CBS, "Stomping on my son's head and saying that slur is a hate crime.”
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