Kenneth Zeller (June 5, 1945 – June 1985) was a

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

and

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, who was employed by Davisville Public School,

Williamson Road Junior Public School The Beaches (also known as "The Beach") is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is so named because of its four beaches situated on Lake Ontario. It is located east of downtown within the "Old" City of Toronto. The approximate bounda ...

and

Western Technical-Commercial School Western Technical-Commercial School is a high school in the High Park North neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada oversighted by the Toronto District School Board. It shares the same building with Ursula Franklin Academy and The Student Scho ...

. He was the victim of a

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

hate crime when he was beaten to death by five youths in Toronto's

High Park High Park is a municipal park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. High Park is a mixed recreational and natural park, with sporting facilities, cultural facilities, educational facilities, gardens, playgrounds and a zoo. One-third of the park remains ...

. Five young offenders were convicted and sentenced to prison. The crime received media coverage and was the subject of a play called ''Steel Kiss'', written by Robin Fulford and produced by

Buddies in Bad Times Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is a Canadian professional theatre company. Based in Toronto, Ontario and founded in 1978 by Matt Walsh, Jerry Ciccoritti, and Sky Gilbert, ''Buddies in Bad Times'' is dedicated to "the promotion of queer theatrical e ...

theatre. Ken McDougall directed the 1991

Dora Award The Dora Mavor Moore Award (also known as the Dora Award) is an award presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts which honours theatre, dance and opera productions in Toronto. Named after Dora Mavor Moore, who helped estab ...

nominated production which featured Andrew Akman, Michael Waller, Derek Aasland, and Fab Fillippo. Fulford wrote a sequel play, ''Gulag'', in 1996, and the two plays were jointly revived by Buddies in Bad Times in 1999, as a response to the October 1998 murder of

Matthew Shepard Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6, 1998. He was taken by rescuers to Po ...

John Greyson John Greyson (born March 13, 1960) is a Canadian director, writer, video artist, producer, and political activist, whose work frequently deals with queer characters and themes. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in ...

also produced a movie called ''

The Making of Monsters ''The Making of Monsters'' is a 1991 Canadian short film, directed by John Greyson. Matthew Hays"Legends: The Making of Monsters" ''POV'', February 1, 2009. Made while Greyson was a student at the Canadian Film Centre, the film's premise is that p ...

'', which analyzed the incident through the lens of radical queer activists disrupting the production of a heavily sanitized commercial

movie of the week A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

about the incident.

Matthew Hays Matthew Hays is a Canadians, Canadian film critic, writer, film festival programmer and academic. He won a Lambda Literary Award for his 2007 book ''The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers''. Hays teaches film studies, j ...

"Legends: The Making of Monsters"
''POV'', February 1, 2009. It was screened at a number of film festivals in 1991, but was never commercially released for general viewing. The incident also spurred the

Toronto District School Board The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franc ...

into implementing a program designed to eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation.Alanna Mitchell, "Welcome to Canada's gay high school: Toronto's Triangle program offers an educational refuge". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', May 29, 2004. The murder of Zeller was dramatized on '' Killer Kids''.

References

LGBT history in Canada 1985 in Quebec Crime in Toronto 1985 in Toronto 1985 in LGBT history 1985 murders in Canada Violence against men in North America {{LGBT-bio-stub