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Dying Canadian man described as a ‘fag’ in his 1970 yearbook seeks an apology – and closure
This story deeply upsets me because I was a closeted gay kid in high school and being editor of the yearbook during my junior and senior years gave me a sense of purpose that prevented me from feeling real despair over having to hide who I really was.
I was diligent about my work on the yearbook and took great care with each and every page.
Unfortunately for Robin Tomlin, the yearbook staff at Argyle Secondary School in North Vancouver did not take the same care and singled him out for a very cruel act that still haunts him 42 years later.
Tomlin, who is now dying of liver cancer, received his yearbook back in 1970 and when he opened it to the page with his picture on it, there was one word printed under his name: ‘Fag.’
Can you imagine?
For some reason, this story just strikes me to the core.
Tomlin, who is not gay, has gone public about the long ago incident because he wants an official apology from the school and wants it to delete the anti-gay slur from any remaining copies of the yearbook they may still have on hand.
‘I want to show the young people today that you can’t let them get away with it,’ he tells the Toronto Star.
To read the full story, go over to Gay Star News.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
2201 East says:
Gay or not, I am glad he is working on getting this slur rectified. Such a shame he can’t find out who the faculty advisor was, and if still alive, sue the daylights out of him or her, as well.
Lexxvs says:
There is a culture of mixed messages in place. Yesterday I was half seeing –I’ve just left the TV on- an American movie about basketball school players of different ethnicities and a “tough” coach who bullied them all to get the best of them, as a kind of a lesson of life; later on one player quitting and afterwards pleading to get back in the team etc.. The curious thing is that message –same one I’ve seen in other American movies- is that bulling is good, belittling someone is good as long as the bully has the right intentions or the right goal, because it’s a kind of motivational thingy, a manly thing to do, and other apparently “face the facts” rude way to make someone achieve a goal or just slave himself into submission because that’s what the society is about. As if there is no other possible way. And it’s the normal thing and the due thing and the right thing and the USUAL thing to do to keep the things working. And even worse: the message is that “success” only comes from enduring bulling and later bully others.
And I get that people –and obviously men even more- love that sense of necessary justice in violence. It’s like it is a society that only needs “THE reason” for violence, whatever it is, and then you have those things that only happen in America and rarely in the rest of the civilized world. You just need a cause for a violent action as long as it makes sense in your OWN terms.
I get that the tide might be changing though, maybe that “man up and suck it up” mentality that allowed such monstrous things like torture in fraternities and sororities as the ineludible rite to adulthood in those ambits is getting finally being challenged, maybe people get to know that there is no good in that.
I can only imagine the sense of humiliation and injustice the poor man of the article must’ve been living with all this years to make his reparatory plea his last mission in life.
Lexxvs says:
By the way about my other long comment and just in case: yes I know that North Vancouver is in Canada.
kdg says:
maybe its time to find out who is responsible for putting it there in the first place…..because i imagine that those who di are cringing right now and scared to death of being found out…. some one (a reporter maybe) should find out who and post the names and pictures so that there pears know who and what they did to this person