Rodd Gray, aka Patti Le Plae Safe, invited Matty and his family to attend Dalllas’ Pride parade as his guests after seeing a post Matty’s mom put on Facebook about the East Texas youngster being bullied.
A Facebook post led to an invitation to Pride that may have saved a little boy’s life
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
“Mommy, would you still love me if I had a boyfriend?” Matty asked.
Lynette Howe told her son that of course she’d always love him and asked her son if he did have a boyfriend. He told her he didn’t.
Matty was 9 years old at the time, and that’s when the bullying started.
“His attitude was, if people didn’t like it, they’d just have to deal with it,” Howe said. “Sometimes he wears feminine clothes.”
The bullying has most often been verbal, but at times has gotten physical. But when Lynette spoke to school officials, they didn’t take the physical abuse seriously, telling her that “boys will be boys.”
When well-meaning friends suggested she enroll him in football, Lynette explained that Matty had no interest in football.
“He wants to do dance and gymnastics,” she said.
When his parents took Matty to a local Pride event, he asked, “Momma, can I drag out?” And after the event, he told her, “Momma, I wish every day could be Pride. I could just be myself and no one was mean to me.”
Parade participants and onlookers welcomed Matty and his family with open arms.
This school year, the bullying began on the school bus on the second day, with other students calling him derogatory names.
Lynette said she saw the self-doubt in him then, and he began questioning himself.
So she posted something on Facebook; she asked people to send him notes of encouragement, which she’d print out and collect for him so that when he was feeling bad about himself, she could show him how many people cared for him.
Among the people who saw the post was Rodd Gray, aka Patti Le Plae Safe. And Rodd got in touch with Lynette.
“Her son was being bullied because of who he is,” Gray said explaining why he contacted the East Texas mother and how horrified he was at how Matty was treated.
Anyone who knows Rodd, knows that just sending a note isn’t his style. He insisted that Matty and family needed to come to Dallas’ Pride celebration as his guest and that Dallas needed to embrace Matty.
Rodd was hosting on the main stage at the Pride parade on Sunday, Sept. 17, and Matty needed to be sitting there with him, Rodd insisted. The family accepted his offer. Mom, Dad, an older sister and Matty all drove to Dallas from their home near Longview so Matty could go to Pride.
Before the parade started, Matty’s mom took him to the middle of the street and Rodd announced, “This 10-year-old is being bullied and you can help him.”
Rodd knew the crowd would find ways to give Matty positive attention. And he was right.
“He was overwhelmed,” Rodd said.
People gave Matty hugs. And flowers. And beads … lots and lots of beads — bags full to take home. And people took pictures with him and with his family.
Describing what happened, Rodd was in tears. “He’s an adorable child,” he said, wondering how classmates and teachers could be so hateful to him.
Parade director Michael Doughman called the reaction breathtaking and heart-stopping.
“Somehow,” Doughman said, “the story carried down the parade route.”
As each entry passed, people who had things to hand out along the route made sure Matty got some. Others made sure he got more hugs.
Rodd said he put the family in touch with a few people who can help them get the help they need.
Lynette said they’d like to move to Dallas where Matty will be safer at school and where she can enroll him in dance and gymnastics. She and her husband are trying to arrange transfers at work. Dallas-area school districts have better anti-bullying policies that are taken more seriously than in many rural areas and smaller towns. And Dallas has an LGBT community that wouldn’t put up with a principal that allowed physical attacks on a child because “boys will be boys.”
Matty understands that every day can’t be Pride, but that’s not going to stop him from wearing some makeup when he wants or a skirt if he feels like it. He’ll wear what he wants and be the only person he knows how to be.
Rodd said that while he loved the outpouring of love for Matty from the crowd along Cedar Springs Road, what he loved most was seeing how Matty’s family supports him.
“I’m so happy they’re letting him be himself,” he said.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 22, 2017.