Even with the doors shut, the sound of excitement from the meeting
room roared out into the hallway. More than 100 people — students and their
families — were gathered inside, applause and laughter rising above the
clatter of a screeching microphone as students walked to the front of the room,
accepted awards, and posed with School Superintendent Manuel Rivera. Tables
with trays of cookies, cheese, and fruit lined the back wall.
The Rochester
school district’s Hispanic Heritage celebration had all the earmarks of an
important community celebration. As the festivities ran overtime, people
expecting to attend the October School Board meeting stood waiting in the
hallway.
When the celebration ended and the meeting finally began,
Garland Miller-Lowe, a tall African-American student from Edison Tech, stood to
address the board. In sharp contrast to the delighted students who had preceded
him, a serious Miller-Lowe looked down at his notes and began to describe what
a day in school is like for him as a gay student.
“Things are so bad, I can’t get an education,” he said.
“Everyday, someone is harassing me and calling me names.” One of his teachers,
he said, jokingly calls him “Gay-lord.”
Marshall High student Joshua Arpon was next. “I feel
homophobia has reached an all-time high,” he said. “Teachers stand there and do
nothing when someone calls you a faggot. Discriminating on the basis of sexual
orientation shouldn’t be tolerated, just as racial discrimination shouldn’t be
tolerated.”
Miller-Lowe and Arpon are not alone. Verbal abuse and
harassment over sexual orientation are common in both city and suburban
schools.
“I’m afraid sometimes to go into the bathroom,” says Josh
Winslow, another student at Marshall.
“They [other boys] will say things like I’m going to try to rape them, or
they’ll turn around and put their butts up against the wall if I walk in. One
day, they threw baby powder all over me. They said if I wanted to be a girl, I
might as well smell like one. I don’t want to be a girl.”
“One kid asked me what I was carrying and if that was my
purse,” says Rush-HenriettaHigh
School student Joe Giro. “I told him, yes, what
about it.”
“The constant teasing can really get you down,” says Giro.
Miller-Lowe and Arpon
spoke were among more than a dozen students and faculty members at the
Rochester School Board meeting, trying to convince the board to act more
aggressively about discrimination toward lesbian, gay, bi and transgender
—LGBT — students. They also urged the board to be more supportive of
Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, organizations of both gay and straight high-school
students that discuss issues of diversity and discrimination and try to provide
support for LGBT students.
Middle and high-school students who are openly gay are
surprisingly common; gay teens are connecting the dots much faster than in
previous generations. But this early self-awareness can have a high price.
In a national survey on bullying in public schools, “From
Teasing to Torment,” conducted by Harris Interactive International and released
in October 2005, sexual orientation was cited as the most common reason for
frequent verbal and physical harassment among teens.
A 2003 survey by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education
Network found that:
• 91.5 percent of LGBT students report hearing remarks such
as “faggot,” “dyke,” and “that’s so gay” frequently in school;
• 64.3 percent said they feel that schools “are not safe for
them to attend because of their sexual orientation;”
• Students who experience significant harassment have lower
grades and are twice as likely to report that they will not attend college.
Feeling safe enough to go to school is only one issue.
Suicide, prostitution, and drug use are problems for many gay teens. Trying to
cope with their sexuality in the face of constant rejection and ridicule is
tough for some. And they can’t always rely on adults to protect them.
It’s on this point that GSA’s have found their footing.
Nationally, the number of GSA’s has grown from less than 100 in 1990 to about
3,000 in 2003, with an estimated 15 in Monroe County. Repeatedly, advisors from
local GSA’s told City Newspaper how
important it is for LGBT students to have a place to talk to other students
experiencing some of the same problems. Sharing experiences, they said, helps
students alleviate their anxieties and depression.
Although the clubs include both straight and gay students,
typically students don’t identify their sexual orientation.
“There’s no set rule for attending,” says Brighton GSA
member Jess Gersz. “Anyone can come in or go to another group if they like.
There’s no rule that says you have be out. There’s no identification here. You
don’t even have to introduce yourself — just come and be yourself and hang
out.”
Nor are the groups “all about gay stuff,” says
Rush-Henrietta student Spencer Sisson. The Rush-Henrietta club is organizing a
silent auction to raise money for the Red Cross and its hurricane-relief
efforts, for example.
Miller-Lowe and
Arpon’s presentation was not the first time the Rochester School Board had
heard about gay students’ problems. A similar presentation was made by students
and members of the gay community in December 2002. In response, the School
Board formed a 14-member Task Force on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Bias,
representing the board, the Rochester Teachers Association, the Gay Alliance,
and others. School Board member Jim Bowers chaired the group, which issued its
report in June 2004.
The report was a thin one, giving a brief summary of
anecdotal evidence rather than extensive documentation of harassment.
“Incidents reported to the task force from 2003-04,” says the report, “suggest
that many RCSD teachers, staff, and administrators remain uncomfortable with
and uncertain how to address LGBT students’ issues.”
Among the incidents cited: “Marshall High administration’s
uneasiness” with a recognition of Coming Out Day and “Franklin High
administrators’ concern over the formation and meeting of a Gay-Straight
Alliance student group.” Franklin
administrators’ e-mails showed a desire to avoid any reference to a “gay” club,
said the report. And a Franklin
staff member had suggested that one student stay away from another because “she
believes in a lifestyle their church does not sanction.”
The task force recommended that the district:
• Include a statement in employee handbooks saying that the Rochester
school district is a “Bias Free Environment.”
• Immediately implement top-down, district-wide sensitivity
training for all school personnel.
• Provide domestic partner benefits for district employees
by 2006.
The board accepted all three recommendations, and despite
the report’s brevity, Bowers says the task force was “extremely productive,
given where we started.”
“One of the first things we did was put into place a policy
change that says the individual chooses their gender,” he says. “We don’t make that determination for them.”
That means, for example, that students who identify with the opposite sex, and
dress accordingly, should not be sent home for coming to school in drag.
“We also passed the domestic-partner benefits, and they
should be available here shortly,” Bowers says.
But even though the board accepted the report’s three
recommendations, the one that would likely have the most effect on gay students
— district-wide sensitivity training for staff — has not been fully
implemented. And there was no sense of urgency in the report — no timetable,
for example, for the training.
Most important, there hasn’t been a “top-down” message from
the superintendent defining the issue or his position on it.
The first sensitivity training sessions took place only last
week, in only two schools: Marshall and Charlotte. And attendance was
voluntary. A total of about 200 staffmembers from those schools participated.
Bowers admits that the sensitivity training has been slow to
get off the ground. “It’s been hard to approach the superintendent” about the
training, says Bowers, “when there have been so many other issues that have
taken priority. I don’t want to say it’s been a case of out of sight, out of
mind, but in a way it has been. I’m glad the people at the last board meeting
brought it back to the spotlight, because it gave me the opportunity to push
for it again.”
“I don’t believe the district is homophobic,” Bowers says.
Instead, he says, many faculty members don’t know how to respond when straight
students harass gays. “That’s not the same thing as not wanting to respond or
thinking these kids are doing something wrong,” Bowers says.
Superintendent Manuel Rivera says he recognizes the need for
sensitivity training. “You hate to see discrimination toward anyone,” he says.
“It can’t be tolerated. When I talk about our organization going through a
cultural change, when we talk about diversity, it has to include everyone.
That’s the organization I’m going for, and yes, it [the training] needs to deal
very explicitly with discrimination toward gays and lesbians. That’s the kind
of environment we’re creating. And I am very grateful to those students for
addressing the board they way they did the other night. I was very impressed.”
If white students
were harassing black students, parents and the community would be outraged.
But for many public schools faculty, even acknowledging student sexual
orientation is a hot potato.
“School administrators sometimes fear that parents are going
to think the school is promoting the so-called ‘gay agenda,'” says Todd Plank
of the Gay Alliance. But sensitivity training “is not about that at all,” he
says. “This is about providing a safe, secure learning environment for all
students. These kids are not being set up for success. And if the
superintendent is really embracing a culture of diversity, top-down sensitivity
training demonstrates that commitment, because it works. And it works for all kids.”
Lack of support by adults — at home as well as at school
— makes GSA’s particularly important. But it’s often hard for the clubs to
find adult advisors. Some faculty members are afraid others will think they’re
gay when they are either not or are not out at work. Others worry that
attention to the GSA creates controversy. There is a GSA in the PittsfordCentralSchool District,
but the advisor declined to talk about it for this article. And one suburban
GSA advisor interviewed retracted most of her statements afterwards, saying she
feared it would “rock the boat.”
Even at Rochester’s
School of the Arts — which health-education teacher Marybeth Mueller
describes as “a very gay-friendly environment” — there are concerns. “Some
teachers would rather not be advisors,” says Mueller, who is SOTA’s GSA
advisor. “We have an active GSA, but there’s still some concern among the gay
teachers. They would like a little distance from it, and I understand.”
And at Webster’s Schroeder High — whose large GSA is in
its fourth year and is solidly supported by administrators — advisor Amanda
Tierson says the school receives e-mails and complaints from some parents and
residents.
“There’s a lot of
homophobia in the schools,” says David Hursh, an associate professor at the
University of Rochester’s
Warner School of Education. “And there are a number of reasons why teachers are
not always prepared to talk about it or intervene in a problem between two
students. Some teachers are questioned about their interest in the issue. And,
says Hursh, teachers are already feeling pressure about raising test scores and
other educational issues.
But, says Hursh: “Homophobia isn’t just bad for homosexuals.
It’s bad for everyone. We all pay the price for homophobic language. It makes
same-sex friendships difficult, because they become suspect. And it makes
relationships with the other sex limited and fraught with innuendo. Men and
women’s relationships are distorted by it.”
For much of the last 20 years, the gay community nationally
has urged tolerance. But tolerance can be an empty box. It doesn’t change
relationships, and it isn’t the message behind GSA’s.
“I don’t like teaching ‘tolerance,’“ says Joe Brown, head of the NAACP’s Rochester
chapter and president of a consulting firm that deals with diversity issues.
“It’s condescending. It really means that I don’t accept you: ‘I don’t like
you, but I’ll put up with you.’ It doesn’t allow me to be appreciative of you
as a whole person, based on all of your qualities beyond your sexuality.”
“All students need to learn that words hurt,” says Brown,
“to understand what it means to be marginalized by nigger, faggot, and spic. Once we understand how these
words join the same family of things that hurt and marginalize people, that
demean and devalue people, we can all sit in the same room. That’s how we begin
to get through this together.”
Social worker Erica
Eaton, a GSA advisor in the Rochester
school district, was among the group of staff and students making the
presentation to the School Board in 2002, and she was back again last month,
urging the district to provide more support to LGBT students and to GSA’s.
Eaton, herself a lesbian, says GSA’s provide a critical support for LGBT
students who face discrimination not only by other students but by school staff.
“They just can’t take the constant tormenting,” says Eaton
(who emphasizes that she’s speaking for herself and not for the Rochester
district). “And it doesn’t help when you have staff that says things like:
‘Maybe we should just pray for him,’ or ‘Can’t you just talk to him and tell
him not to act so gay?'”
Eaton throws up her hands. “Can you imagine? These are
people with master’s degrees in education. Do we go up to African-American
students and tell them not to act so black?”
Eaton’s own situation illustrates the tensions that surround
homosexuality in education. She was the adviser to the GSA at Rochester’s
MarshallHigh School
for several years, and there have been rumors that the club was shut down. It
has not, but Eaton was reassigned this year and now splits her time between
three other city schools.
Eaton says the change was an attempt to isolate her because Marshall
administrators objected to the GSA and to her publicizing its events. Marshall
Principal Joe Bruno disagrees.
“I won’t comment on a personnel matter involving Ms. Eaton,”
says Bruno, “but I tried to be supportive of her. This is not about me not
wanting GSA’s in the school. We have a GSA. I support them. I think they serve an important role in these kids’
lives.”
GSA’s can have a
major impact on schools. Two years ago, it was common to hear gay slurs and
taunts daily at Rush-HenriettaHigh
School.
“We had a definite problem on the buses with a lot of
homophobic remarks and a few instances that got a little testy,” says Lea
Theuer, school nurse and the advisor to the Rush-Henrietta GSA.
Since they started the GSA, students say they’ve noticed a
real drop in the remarks.
“Attitudes have changed a lot since last year. There was a
lot of hostility last year,” says member Joe Giro. “People had to deal with
change.”
“The kids have a genuine interest in impacting the school’s
awareness and safety for all students. They want this to be a welcoming and
tolerant environment,” says Theuer.
“I’m very proud of us for trying to eradicate the word
‘faggot’ from the school,” says student Julia Eddy. “Do you know how many times
a day you hear that?”
“Our teachers and administrators are very good about it.
They’ve been supportive of us,” says GSA member Marirose Dempsey. “A student in
one of my classes said something like Oh, that’s so gay or queer or something
like that, and my teacher, who has an openly gay brother, turned to him and
said: ‘Do you know who you’re talking to? Because my brother is gay, and I
don’t appreciate that comment.'”
At Brighton High,
Shana Krisiloff, a straight member of the school’s GSA, says the group is
important to her because she has many gay, bisexual, and lesbian friends. “I’ve
also got family members who are gay,” she says, “and I see what they have gone
through: the names, the bigotry, the pain they’ve dealt with from people who
don’t even know them. I like not being judged, and I find it comforting to know
that all people are not blinded by stereotypes. I hope to be on the positive
side of that social change.”
Jess Gersz, a gay member of the Brighton GSA, says the
group’s meetings encourage debates on current events. “A lot of the students
who come to the meeting are not anti-gay, but they were against gay marriage.
And they felt comfortable expressing that to the group.”
Krisiloff says she believes the day will come when groups
like hers will become irrelevant in a multi-cultural society. “Sometimes it
really confuses me,” she says. “What’s all the fuss about? I mean really,
what’s the big deal? Parents sometimes put so much pressure on their kids about
it. Let them decide for themselves. Don’t hide or censor information from them.
It’s the same with religion. My dad is Jewish and my mother is Christian. My
parents introduced me to both religions when I was 13. They didn’t say you have
to believe one or the other — or anything at all. They let me make up my own
mind. I really respected them for that.”
Leading the
sensitivity training at Rochester’s
Marshall and CharlotteHigh Schools last week was Keith
Powell, a Kodak executive and chair of the Rochester
chapterof the Gay, Lesbian and
Straight Education Network. The organization has a guide and videos that walk
teachers and school administrators through the questions that come up during
sensitivity training sessions: “How do I handle parent objections to the
formation of a student club that addresses gay issues?” “A same-sex couple
wants to attend a school dance. What is the proper course of action?” “I have
students wearing both pro-gay and anti-gay messages on T-shirts. I’m getting
complaints on all sides. What am I supposed to do?”
“A lot of teachers have been dealing with it [harassment]
for a long time on their own,” says Powell. “They didn’t know there were
specific techniques that can be used.”
Powell instructs teachers to do three things: when they see
harassment or bullying, intervene and stop it, point out the behavior, and
remind the offending student about the school’s policy.
Gays, Oklahoma
Senator Tom Coburn said recently on NBC’s Meet the Press,are
“symptomatic” of the serious problems facing the American family. The comment
illustrates the depth of discrimination toward gays, and why so many students
feel the need for protection and support.
Marshall’s Josh Arpon and Josh Winslow described their last
two years in a GSA where, even there, discussions can be stressful.
“One of the first things, really one of the main things the
straight students always ask is why? Why
are you gay?” says Winslow. “They always want to know, how did it happen? How
do you know?”
“Yeah, ‘Why are you doing this?” — like it’s just
something we decided one day,” says Arpon. “‘We went out with a girl and it
didn’t work out and now we’re gay.'” Arpon shakes his head. “I don’t even know
how to answer that. It’s like you’re under a microscope or something. It’s hard
to give them an answer most of the time.”
“There isn’t an answer,” says Winslow. “Everything doesn’t
have an answer.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be treated with respect,”
says Arpon. “I’m not asking for special privileges. I just want to feel safe in
school. They’re always saying that this is a diverse society and we should be
accepting of other people’s differences. I guess they’re talking about people
with handicaps or inter-racial marriages or something. That’s all fine. But
what about us?”
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2005.
