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Gay Straight Alliances in High Schools
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By: Greg
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| http://www.angelfire.com/ma/gregng/index.html |
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Meet Scott. (He asks that his full identity
remain unknown.) He clutches his soft and
scraggly teddy bear throughout the interview
while sitting in an armchair twice his size.
Scott is a senior in high school who is finally
happy with his life following years of ridicule
and harassment. "Almost every adult I talked to
about college told me that the best years of my
life would be in high school," said Scott.
In fact, they weren't. He hugs the bear close to
his chest in a tight embrace as he recalls his
past experiences. "Some guys at my school saw me
at the movies with a guy I was seeing, after that
night I was called a 'faggot' and 'homo' every
day." A tear now forming in his eye, Scott
recounts one out of several occasions where he
was physically abused because he is gay. "I was
tied up and stuffed in my gym locker, they
wrote 'fucking queers go to hell' all over me."
The students were never caught or punished; Scott
is too scared to turn them in for fear of
retribution. Scott's dream is to attend the
University of Pennsylvania, and become a
doctor. "I don't think I'll get in, my grades
have suffered since I got here (high school), but
I'll be happy at any place that's safe, with
friends that will actually like me for who I am,"
he said. Unfortunately for Scott and many of his
peers, choosing a high school was never an
option, unlike selecting a college to attend. In
fact, if he had the chance, Scott said that he
would have gone to another school that offered a
support group of some sort.
Despite Scott's terrifying ordeals, in addition
to countless others, the doors are open to a new
civil rights movement driven by America's youth
within their high schools. The dropout rates and
incidents of suicide among gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgendered, and questioning teens
maintain an eerie stability that some school
districts are committed to reduce. Yet despite
such efforts, various organizations and
individual parents are heard loud and clear when
in opposition. The ongoing debate centers around
controversial decisions to establish Gay-Straight
Alliances (GSAs) in high schools. These school-
sponsored clubs provide a haven for students
wrestling with their sexual identity, in addition
to helping gay students cope with "virulent
hatred," according to one group in Northern
California. In an interview with The Boston
Globe, a junior attending Everett High School in
Massachusetts expressed her feelings in the
importance of GSAs.
"It's important that people don't feel like
outcasts and can be in a group where they're able
to talk," says Fawnsa Rosario, 15. Central High
School, in Springfield, Massachusetts, has a
unique GSA that receives direct funding from the
Governor's Commission on Gay, Lesbian, and
Bisexual Youth, established in 1994. Joy Alonge
is the faculty-sponsor for Central High's
alliance, and she feels that it is absolutely
vital to have support groups for all teens. "We
continue to have issues," says Alonge, "[GSAs
are] very necessary [because] there is a lot of
harassment and it is important to have a refuge
for them, a place to come and have allies listen
to each other." Massachusetts is a legislative
and educational leader in the nation with laws on
the books protecting sexual orientation,
according to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
Education Network (GLSEN), a national
organization with a mission to make schools safe
for all students, regardless of sexual
orientation or gender identity. Since 1994,
Massachusetts State Law (General Law Chapter 76,
Section 5) prohibits discrimination based on a
student's sexual orientation, among other things.
Since the legislature's amendment to add sexual
orientation the year before, a rapid development
of GSAs occurred throughout the state in
subsequent years. Today, there are 140 publicly
funded GSAs in Massachusetts high schools. In
fact, the weekend of May 10, 1999 commemorated
the tenth anniversary of the GSA at Phillips
Academy, the first group in the state to involve
its straight peers as well. The models in
Massachusetts mirror the efforts of GLSEN,
serving a purpose to provide "a school-based,
student-led, non-curricular club organization to
end anti-gay bias and homophobia in schools and
create positive change by making schools
welcoming, supportive and safe places for all
students."
Despite what some feel is a natural and common
sense necessity, the opposing reasons for
establishing GSAs are rampant in society,
especially in schools. Religious and conservative
leaders, in addition to parents, feel that GSAs
focus on recruiting kids to be homosexuals. "Some
churches say homosexuality is fine. Some churches
say it is not fine," said Susan Carpenter
McMillian, a parent in the Los Angeles school
district, in an interview with The San Diego
Union-Tribune. "Since it's controversial, these
are things that should be taught at home. If you
can't teach religion in the school, you can't
teach things that are against religion in the
school," she said. According to Jay Ettinger, the
Assistant Director of Guidance and Counseling of
the St. Paul, Minnesota School District, the
purpose of GSAs is "to raise the self-esteem of
gay and lesbian students, not to promote their
sexual orientation."
The gay students at issue not only have to deal
with their aggressors, however, they also are
confronted by their parents or religious and
conservative organizations who do not accept
homosexuality. Jeff Horton, an openly gay Los
Angeles Board of Education member, said that
opposition organizations "are trying to hurt
these gay kids, their message is 'you are wrong
for being gay. You should be conflicted, withdraw
and fearful about being gay.' I find that to be
basically abusive of children." This sends a
mixed message to gay teens when their schools and
peers support them, yet parents and organization
coalitions tell them they are wrong. "The whole
purpose of this (gay pride month and GSAs) is so
these kids can put aside these obstacles and get
about their education. We have to get this
message to them: 'It's OK to be what you are, and
we want you to get good grades,'" said Horton.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, many
parents see the groups as recruiting clubs
promoting a homosexual lifestyle. Evelyn Reilly,
the Executive Director of the Christian Coalition
of Massachusetts, told The Monitor, "they are
homosexual propagandists and will recruit these
kids into the homosexual lifestyle." Since the
passage of the federal Equal Access Act, many
GSAs do not receive funding, and neither do any
other extracurricular clubs. The Monitor reports
that in Salt Lake City, the school district
banned all extracurricular clubs, and in Colorado
and New Hampshire, cases have been dropped prior
to facing potential lawsuits. In Massachusetts,
the Parents Rights Coalition secretly tape
recorded a forum of discussions answering
students' questions about sex. The coalition's
recording ultimately led to one of the dismissal
of one of the facilitators, leaving the other to
resign. "Children are being victimized by these
groups and their parents don't even know it,"
said Brian Camenker, the coalition leader, to The
Boston Globe. The coalition demanded that the
state legislature remove all of the $1.5 million
funding in the 2001 budget for homosexual
programs; fire the state's education
commissioner, David P. Driscoll; disband the
Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth;
and, pass a law to strengthen the parents
notification bill, allowing parents to forbid
their children from attending any sexual
education programs.
In several cases, if not all cases, students
attend the GSA meetings unbeknownst to their
parents. Many teens struggling with their
sexuality, however, have previously cited that
they could not tell their parents about their
sexuality because they in fear of rejection.
Psychological studies on the coming out process
prove that such decisions can be detrimental and
force gay teens into isolation. "Adolescents fear
disclosing their sexual preference to their
parents because they anticipate responses of
anger, shock, and denial," according to reports
in Adolescence, a psychological journal focusing
on adolescents. GSAs attempt to fill this void to
help gay students, who choose to attend on their
own, understand their feelings through talking
with peers about their experiences in a safe
environment. "Research shows that gay teens
suffer from isolation and that school programs
help alleviate that," said Gary Remafedi, the
Director of the Youth and AIDS Project at the
University of Minnesota, in an interview with The
Star Tribune in Minneapolis. "We're not talking
about political agendas or religious beliefs,
we're talking about saving people's lives," he
said. In the same interview, a gay man, who
wishes to remain anonymous, said that he was
suicidal in high school because he was not able
to discuss his feelings. Numerous recent studies
have observed the processes involved in an
adolescent's coming out. According to
Adolescence, coming out is defined as "the
developmental process through which gay people
recognize their sexual preference and choose to
integrate this knowledge into their personal and
social lives." Students coming out not only deal
with the developmental processes that all
adolescents go through, but they also meddle with
feelings that range from confusion to
frustration, and often times denial.
The same studies suggest that there are
definitive stages in coping with and developing
sexual identity. The stages include: identity
awareness, identity comparison, identity
tolerance, identity acceptance, identity pride,
and synthesis. The adolescent usually begins by
considering the possibility of being homosexual,
then can progress to denial, yet they would
manage to privately acknowledge his/her
homosexuality. Later, the individual may come out
and explore homosexuality in efforts to achieve
self-acceptance and ultimately acceptance from
peers. Adolescence has been described as the
period unique to human beings where self-identity
is developed. Due to society's misconception and
disapproval of sexual orientation, adolescents do
not have the resources necessary to aid in their
development. Luckily for today's teens, however,
the Internet has filled this need, including
educational materials about homosexuality, and
the contact information for various support
groups. The Vermont Board of Education released a
report in 1997 that said, "gay-identified
students are seven times more likely than others
to have been threatened or injured with a
weapon." Two years earlier, the Massachusetts
Board of Education concluded that gay students
are far more likely to skip school because they
feel unsafe. The report cited 22 percent of gay,
lesbian and bisexual students who reported they
skipped school because of safety concerns,
compared to four percent of heterosexual students
who reported the same. "The GSAs provide safety
for its students," said a Bromfield High
Sophomore in Massachusetts. She reported feelings
of isolation before joining her high school's
GSA. She says: "I was so afraid to come out. What
if my friends didn't like me? What if they didn't
want to talk to me anymore?"
Currently the GSAs in existence are forging
through the debates with a pledge to support
their students. Despite the opposition, there are
some who feel that expansion beyond high school
should take place because young students are not
exposed to diversity awareness and tolerance
early enough. Identifying homophobic harassment
as a civil rights violation, Central High's
Alonge said that "we don't have any education
programs in the lower schools [about sexual
orientation], and it's necessary to provide
awareness." Alonge also said teachers are more
reluctant to defend gay students or stave off
hurtful homophobic remarks. The majority of her
colleagues are supportive, she says, "but they
don't always address acts of harassment because
they don't know what to say or do, and they are
fearful of getting involved." When asked for his
response to Alonge's statements, Scott simply
replied with a gleaming smile, "we need more
heroes."
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