Seven teenagers suspended for vicious school attack on transgender teenager
A transgender teen says she was beaten in a school corridor by a gang of bullies.
Kylie Perez was walking through school when she was hit with a flurry of punches by fellow school pupils.
The 14-year-old says she was attacked for being transgender, with another teenager referring to her by an anti-trans slur.
The teen was walking down the corridor when the bullies punched her in the face.
Kylie said: “And the girl was like, ‘oh, there’s the tranny! Two punches, like right here, and i fell.
“And when i feel, I felt like everybody was coming towards me. Everybody.”
She added: “They would call me gay, and faggot…so that’s what they usually say,”
The teen’s mother, Lillian Richards, say bullies have made school life difficult in recent years, after Kylie transitioned in sixth grade.
“When I received the call, I just started crying, I just panicked,” her mother said.
Now seven pupils have been suspended following the attack.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said the incident is being investigated as a possible bias crime, but no charges have been filed so far.
“It just makes me very angry and hurt that my daughter had to experience something like that in this day in age especially” Perez’s mother, Lillian, told NJ.com.
“I’m not going let it fade away,” Kylie said of the incident.
“I’m going to make sure that people know that trans lives, every life, matters.”
