The Lycée Fénelon in Lille lost one of its students on Wednesday, about to change their sexual identity. A death which is now controversial and which has forced the rectorate to communicate.
This transgender high school student, born a boy under the name Fouad and on the verge of a change of sex, has indeed committed suicide in her foster home. A suicide that some people on social networks attribute to the removal of the teenager from her establishment on December 2. This followed an altercation with a member of the teaching team.
A minute of silence will be observed Friday morning at the school, according to France Blue, as calls for the resignation of management have been shared thousands of times in recent hours. “I learn with great emotion and deep sadness the death of a transgender high school student in Lille. All my thoughts are with his relatives and his comrades, ”for his part reacted in a tweet the mayor PS, Martine Aubry.
The high school student fired on December 2
Before the rectorate of Lille confirms this Thursday the death of “a final year student from Lycée Fénelon de Lille”, a series of tweets signed with the name of a woman posing as “activist author, pyromaniac poet” had gone viral . The latter claimed that this 17-year-old “trans high school student” had been “humiliated” and “psychologically assaulted” by a member of the educational community.
She was reportedly sent home on December 2 because she was wearing a skirt. This seems to attest a video, broadcast on Snapchat and apparently filmed by the missing high school student, where we hear a female voice evoking the problems posed by her denim skirt, in a dry tone. “But I understand your desire to be yourself, I understand that very well!” And all this is done to support you as best as possible, that’s what you don’t understand! Because once again there are sensitivities that are not the same ”. “But it is them that must not be educated! », Answers the teenager. “I agree,” said the lady then.
“A priori, the responsibility of the establishment has been excluded”
Jean-Yves Guéant, president of the North Federation of Student Parents’ Councils (FCPE), confirmed to AFP the student’s dismissal home in early December. But “no element, to date”, allows to link these facts, to the suicide of the student, “who also lived in a home of the ASE” (Social assistance to children) and had other “Difficulties”.
“A discussion had taken place” between the student and the establishment, and “a priori according to the team and the family, the case was resolved”, he continued, regretting the broadcast of the video. and warning against “fake news.” “It is very complicated to understand what can happen in the head of a young person who takes this kind of decision (…) but a priori, the responsibility of the establishment was ruled out, ”he concluded.
Lycée Fénelon “has been informed of the student’s progress and of his desire to change his sexual identity. The pupil, who found himself in a complex personal context, was accompanied in his approach by the educational team of his home and his school, ”assures for his part the rector Valérie Cabuil.
“For some time now, things have been going better,” says a student
According to several students of Fénelon interviewed by AFP and who requested anonymity, many high school students had mobilized after the events of December 2, some coming in skirts and sticking posters in the school to say “no to the transphobia ”.
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But “the management had apologized to her, and for some time things were better, she felt better in high school,” said a final year student. “She had told her friends about the event, it had affected her, but I don’t think that’s what pushed her to act.”
If the video seems authentic, “I think the management is not responsible (…) and that the CPE had no intention of harming” the student, even if she showed “clumsiness” », Said another student. “She had other problems”, related or not to her transsexuality, according to him.
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