Road Trip with Betty: Planes, Shuttles, and Gay Youth
By Betty Kijewski, MHRN Organizer
After three planes, four airports and one suicidal shuttle driver, I arrived on the campus of Indiana University for a conference on Sexual Minority Youth. More than 250 youth service professionals and young people from 17 states and two countries attended the conference. Workshops focused on the issues of creating safer schools for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) youth, comprehensive health education, and creating an environment where GLBT role models are easily identifiable.
I came away with a sense of the absolute isolation faced by GLBT youth. As I attended workshops and met with youth, recurring themes appeared. Many teachers allow harassment of gay students in their classrooms, and some administrators fail to intervene as the harassment escalates. Gay youth have no one to turn to. When a young man from Michigan shared his experience of a teacher's daily "fag joke," I was reminded of a local high school student's story of a teacher's favorite joke regarding Nazis and gays. When a young woman spoke about being raped by young men certain they could cure her of being a lesbian, I was reminded of a Montana student's story of the daily sexual harassment she endured from a group of football players. As with all hate speech, when anti-gay comments, graffiti and vandalism go unchallenged, our silence says this is acceptable. As a result, escalation of harassment often follows. When an administrator tells a GLBT student to dress differently, act differently, and try not to stand out, the student hears the real message ö disappear, we will not help you, and we don't take your situation seriously. Our silence only says this harassment is acceptable. It also tells gay youth that no one will stand by them.
Imagine yourself at 15, trapped for eight hours every day at school dealing with the comments, the shoves, the beatings, and the vandalism. This is school, where life is played out in a balance of fear and isolation. At home, your parents make jokes about gay people on TV. On Sunday, your minister says you are an abomination. Who would you turn to for guidance? Not the teachers, not your parents, and not your minister. You can't date, tell your friends, or express your feelings for another human. All the resources available to most adolescents are closed to you. Your education, potential and personal growth does not happen in this environment. Life is reduced to survival.
At the conference, keynote speaker Dr. Joycelyn Elders pointed out that GLBT youth are the most isolated of all minorities, marked by high suicide, addiction and homelessness rates. She said we as a society are willing to ignore the reality of their lives. There are 53 million students in America, and 6-10% are GLBT. That means between 3.3 and 5.3 million students are being denied a safe environment, adult role models, and accurate depictions of the current and historical GLBT community. The number of youth affected by anti-gay rhetoric grows when you include those students who have siblings, parents, or other family members who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
I believe that open lives and safe schools are the answer. If you want to know what you can do in your community, contact me at 442-5506, betty@mhrn.org.