TIME: Out, Proud and Very Young
diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Tue, 2 Dec 1997 23:11:43 -0800
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> TIME: Out, Proud and Very Young
> Date:
> Mon, 1 Dec 1997 02:40:15 -0500 (EST)
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>TIME Magazine, December 8, 1997
>
>SOCIETY
>
>OUT, PROUD AND VERY YOUNG
>
>GAY TEENAGERS ARE EMERGING AS NEVER BEFORE. BUT THESE
>NEW ACTIVISTS STILL
>FACE THE OLD PREJUDICES
>
>by John Cloud
>
> Cabot, a charming village of 1,000 in the heart of
>northern Vermont's
>dairy country, is known for its world-famous cheese,
>not its gay
>activists. That's one reason why Palmer Legare is so
>unusual. Earlier this
>year, he founded Cabot's first and only lesbian and
>gay group and
>circulated a petition supporting gay rights. Two weeks
>ago, he discussed
>gay issues with the state's Governor, Democrat Howard
>Dean. The other
>unusual thing about Legare is that he's just 17, and
>his group meets at
>Cabot High School.
>
> Gina De Vries is only 14 and lives a continent
>away from Legare, in
>San Francisco, but perhaps not quite a world apart.
>Having come out to her
>parents and schoolmates at age 12, she now calls
>herself "a queer youth
>activist"--an identification she uses effortlessly, as
>though she were
>saying "ninth grader" or "aspiring poet," other terms
>that describe her.
>Articulate beyond her years, De Vries' work with a gay
>youth group led to
>her appointment to an advisory committee of the city's
>Human Rights
>Commission. She is, by more than a decade, the
>committee's youngest
>member. Jarringly precocious, she scheduled an
>interview with TIME for a
>Saturday morning, sparing enough time to attend a
>"transgender film
>festival" later that day.
>
> For a country that had a hard time with the
>coming-out of a
>39-year-old TV actress earlier this year, the whole
>notion of the boy next
>door eyeing the boy next door--and talking about
>it--is startling. The
>emergence of gay youth like Legare and De Vries is
>sparking the newest
>battles in the decades-old brawl over gay rights,
>which at the local level
>is more focused than ever on schools. Groups like
>Legare's have formed in
>schools (mostly public ones) in 25 states, according
>to the
>Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network, an advocacy
>group based in New
>York City. The organization at one time primarily
>helped homosexual
>teachers; these days it employs a 19-year-old to
>coordinate the student
>groups, usually called Gay-Straight Alliances
>(heterosexual students are
>generally welcome). Executive director Kevin Jennings
>says just two such
>alliances existed in 1991, when he founded the
>network; now there are more
>than 100.
>
> More broadly, according to Columbia University
>researcher Joyce
>Hunter, 3% to 10% of U.S. teens now tell pollsters
>they are gay, lesbian,
>bisexual or "questioning" their orientation; in the
>San Francisco Bay
>Area, the figure is 18%, according to one recent
>study. While reliable
>historical statistics don't exist, Hunter says few
>teens came out when she
>began examining gay youth in the early '70s. "The
>change has been
>enormous," she says. Lonely gay kids can find solace
>in two Webzines,
>dozens of online chat rooms and some 500 community
>support groups, usually
>run by social workers not affiliated with local
>schools.
>
> Some churches are doing more to shepherd gay kids,
>in part because
>studies have shown that suicide rates among young gays
>may be quadruple
>those of heterosexual teens. In September, the
>National Conference of
>Catholic Bishops urged parents of gay children to
>demonstrate love for
>their sons and daughters and to recognize that
>"generally, homosexual
>orientation is experienced as a given, not as
>something freely chosen."
>The bishops made clear, however, that they believe
>homosexual sex is
>wrong. There is, of course, some evidence that
>homosexuality is something
>of a fad among young people. On a few college
>campuses, the term "gay
>until graduation" is used derisively to describe those
>who experiment with
>gay sex. Gay equality has nonetheless become a '90s
>version of Birkenstock
>environmentalism for many youths. Even in certain
>parts of suburbia, gay
>is becoming more than O.K.; it's cool.
>
> But for most students taking baby steps from the
>closet, the decision
>to broadcast homosexual feelings is fraught with the
>possibility of
>negative, even violent reaction. The students often
>dislike lying to
>classmates but know the consequences of coming out can
>be dire. After
>Legare circulated a petition last spring urging Cabot
>to combat antigay
>bigotry, some students yelled "faggot" at him. An
>athlete in four sports,
>Legare didn't suffer the worst abuse because, he says,
>"I'm not
>stereotypically gay." But he was once shoved and
>kicked. For De Vries,
>harassment came in the form of vulgarities whispered
>behind her back.
>
> Once Legare and De Vries spoke up, however,
>administrators responded.
>Legare persuaded 34 of Cabot High's 100 students to
>sign his petition,
>which led to faculty meetings and his discussion with
>Governor Dean in a
>gathering with other gay youths. Since school started,
>Legare says, he has
>heard "faggot" just once. Similarly, even at the
>Catholic school De Vries
>used to attend, several teachers applauded her for
>fighting antigay
>attitudes. She's now enrolled at a private school
>where everyone knows
>she's a lesbian.
>
> Others aren't so lucky. According to a 1995
>Massachusetts study, 62%
>of students identifying themselves as gay, lesbian or
>bisexual said they
>had been in a fight in the previous year, in contrast
>to 37% of all
>students. According to the Gay-Lesbian-Straight
>Network's Jennings,
>administrators often do little to stop the violence.
>Some of the stories
>are harrowing. Jamie Nabozny, who in the early '90s
>attended high school
>in Ashland, Wis., says he was kicked in the stomach so
>many times he
>required surgery. A group of boys also urinated on
>him. Robert McDonald,
>20, a former student at Jefferson Township High School
>in southern New
>Jersey, claims he was spat upon while he rode the bus
>and beaten up after
>track practice one day.
>
> Gay bashing is nothing new, but what's unusual is
>that these students
>are holding their schools accountable. In 1996 Nabozny
>brought a
>groundbreaking federal lawsuit alleging that
>administrators hadn't done
>enough to protect him. A jury agreed, and the school
>district settled for
>$900,000. Four similar lawsuits have
>followed--McDonald filed one in
>October--and the U.S. Department of Education issued
>guidelines in March
>barring certain kinds of antigay harassment.
>
> Elsewhere, efforts to form gay-straight alliances
>have caused a
>backlash from officials who don't want schools to
>endorse gay rights. In
>the most noted case, the state of Utah banned gay
>school clubs last year
>after students at Salt Lake City's East High formed
>such a group. The
>legislature got involved because the local school
>board feared that
>targeting gay clubs could provoke a lawsuit. Indeed,
>the Lambda Legal
>Defense and Education Fund has used legal threats to
>shelter gay-straight
>alliances at more than 20 schools nationally.
>Ironically, the fund's
>primary weapon is the federal Equal Access Act, a 1984
>law designed to
>safeguard religious groups. The act says schools must
>treat clubs equally,
>regardless of beliefs. Lambda has found no student
>willing to bring a suit
>challenging Utah's statewide ban. Nevertheless, the
>East High group still
>meets each Thursday, skirting the ban by paying a fee
>to rent a classroom.
>
> Last year, school boards in Anchorage and in
>Niskayuna, N.Y., voted to
>allow gay-straight alliances after nasty debates. And
>last month, the
>Hemet, Calif., school board narrowly approved a
>measure protecting gay
>students from harassment. A remarkable feature of
>these skirmishes is that
>they have been fought largely as local issues, without
>national attention.
>Neither the Christian Coalition nor the Human Rights
>Campaign, the
>country's largest gay group, has developed a strategy
>to deal with the
>emergence of gay youth. Indeed, most gay organizations
>have avoided
>children's issues, apparently fearing the old charge
>that gays try to
>"recruit" kids. For conservatives, the appearance of
>gay teens presents a
>p.r. challenge, since young local faces can win
>sympathy and trump charges
>of outside influence by gay activists.
>
> For the students themselves, coming out is as
>personal as it is
>political. After Christopher Humphreys, 18, came out
>at West Valley High
>in Hemet, he received death threats. But he held his
>ground and in May
>took a friend named Dan to the prom. His date forgot
>his boutonniere, and
>other guests hurled dirty looks, but in the end, he
>and Dan slow-danced to
>The Lady in Red, one of Humphreys' favorites.
>
> Class of 2001
> SCHOOL: Urban School, San Francisco
> NAME: Gina De Vries
> AGE: 14
> ACTIVITIES: Serves on the lesbian and gay advisory
>committee of the
>city's Human Rights Commission
> SHE SAYS: I've had it easier than a lot of the
>queer kids I know.
>
> Class of 1998
> SCHOOL: Cabot High School, Cabot, Vermont
> NAME: Palmer Legare
> AGE: 17
> ACTIVITIES: Founder of Cabot's first and only
>lesbian and gay group
> HE SAYS: I didn't think I could do anything about
>[anti-gay
>discrimination] at least until I graduated from high
>school.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca