Sweetest Kid Ever Dies After Being Outed
What Channing Smith’s suicide says about LGBTQ equality
Outed to his friends
Last Sunday night when 16-year-old Channing Smith discovered an explosion of online messages outing his romantic relationship with another boy, he frantically began calling friends. He lived in a small Tennessee town where, according to his older brother, “ultra-conservative” people would have had trouble accepting his sexuality.
A friend of Channing’s had argued with him about something, had discovered sexually descriptive text messages between Channing and the other boy, and had then sent those messages to several other friends. Channing wanted advice about what to do.
After about an hour of calls, he posted on Instagram:
I’m gonna get off social media for a while. I really hate how I can’t trust anyone because those I did were so fake. BYE.
Channing killed himself shortly thereafter
His father discovered his body in his bedroom Monday morning. Channing’s older…
