Each Child That Dies Gays and Lesbians in Your Schools by Wiggsy D. Sivertsen, L.C.S.W. and Terri B. Thames, Ph,D. PREFACE Many of you will ask what an article on lesbian and gay* issues is doing in this monograph on Multiculturalism. It will seem odd that this often invisible minority is addressed with issues of ethnic and racial diversity. However, it is important to look at prejudice broadly, not just at prejudice directed towards race and gender, etc. All forms of prejudice are based on ignorance and misconceptions and there are many misconceptions and much ignorance about gays and lesbians. If we are to ever effectively eradicate the pain caused by discrimination, we must recognize that we perpetuate prejudice by only addressing those issues that are familiar, i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, and sometimes disability. In so doing, we are effectively saying that discrimination is in fact acceptable and it is only certain groups that are to be protected. The deafening silence that pervades the issues facing lesbian and gay children and adolescents results in leaving these children to fend for themselves in a hostile and brutalizing environment. This monograph will attempt to provide you with sufficient information so that you can begin to make the gay and lesbian young people in your classrooms sense that perhaps you are not unaware of them, even though they are largely invisible in society.Much of the information you read here will challenge many of your beliefs and feelings about this community. All we ask is that you attempt to read this with an open mind and most of all an open heart. * For convenience we will use "gay and lesbian" to include bisexual and transsexual. INTRODUCTION Imagine waking up one morning and living in a world where everywhere you look, you see no one like you. a world where your family is not like you where the relationships are not like yours where what you see in movies, books, and magazines is not reflective of your life where if you speak about yourself you are subject to being brutalized verbally and physically where on Sunday mornings, many spend much of their time listening to respected ministers ranting and raving about what a moral pervert you are where the country to which you pledge allegiance denies you the same equal treatment that is enjoyed by your neighbors. And if that isn't enough, imagine dearly loving someone else and having to keep it totally secret because if you don't you will be punished -- cast out of your home by your family, ostracized by your friends, perhaps losing your job. This is the world of the lesbian and gay young person. IS THIS A SIGNIFICANT ISSUE FOR EDUCATORS? Yes, because the suicide rate for these kids is 30% higher than for any other group of youngsters. Not acknowledging the existence of gay and lesbian students puts educators at risk of having to live with the question of whether or not they contributed to a young person's suicide or murder. Educators are in the position of speaking out in ways that give children and adolescents messages of support. Every time they hear a derogatory comment about gays and lesbians and let it go unchallenged, they give a message of non-support. Many an adult lesbian and gay has stated that they are alive today because one teacher stood up for them or took an interest in them. One person can make a difference. In the words of Ellie Weisel, "Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" (Weisel, 1988). Yes, because according to the Kinsey report in 1948 (Kinsey, 1948) approximately 10% of 5300 males reported being more or less homosexual. In 1953 Kinsey et al (Kinsey, 1953) found that in a study of 5,940 white women, 2 to 6% reported being more or less exclusively lesbian. In 1970 a Psychology Today study of 20,000 readers found that 37% of the males and 12% of the females had had some same gender contact. Many other studies continue to find that anywhere from 2 to 35% of men and 3 to 12% of women have had some homosexual contact. From these studies it seems clear that all communities in this country have gay and lesbian people in their midst. It is likewise reasonable to assume that every school district in the country has lesbian and gay students, teachers, administrators and other school personnel. Furthermore, there is a growing number of gay and lesbian parents whose children attend our schools. The bottom line is that it is impossible for school administrators to know how many lesbians and gays are in their schools. Given this impossibility, a reasonable, statistical assumption for the purposes of planning would be to assume that about 10% of your students, parents, teachers and staff are gay or lesbian. TEACHING POSITIVE VALUES REGARDING HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT ABOUT TEACHING SEX One of the most common beliefs about the lesbian and gay community is that it is about sex. This is reflected in the focus on the bedroom of gays and lesbians by media, politicians, religious groups, etc. Even members of the lesbian and gay community will say that they don't talk about their personal lives because what they do in the privacy of their home is nobody else's business, implying that their lives are only about their sexual behavior. Talking about sex and sexuality is controversial at best in our schools. This commonly held attitude that homosexuality is about sex puts it into a hotly debated controversy in terms of its appropriateness for school discussions. One of the practical implications of this attitude is that often when presentations re. gays and lesbians are proposed for school-aged young people, principals will say they have to get permission from parents for children to attend the sessions. The principals' perception is that a sex lecture will be given. Asking parental permission to discuss homosexuality with their children reflects and perpetuates the attitude that it is about sexuality and usually guarantees that children will not hear the information they need. Even in schools where the presentations are allowed, they most often are confined to high school-aged adolescents. If you believe that homosexuality is about sex, then you don't have to concern yourself with it until the children reach puberty. The implication of this is that children before the age of 12 or 13 receive no education or supportive messages about homosexuality. To focus only on sex amongst lesbians and gays is to ignore the wide range of cultural and emotional elements in the gay and lesbian community. As with other cultural groups lesbians and gays have their own literature, poetry, music and art, as well as other aspects of any cultural community. SUGGESTIONS Gay and lesbian teachers and administrators and school personnel must be provided a safe environment in which to come out of the closet. The attitude in our school system which requires lesbian and gay school personnel to be closeted affects their effectiveness, not only with gay and lesbian youth but with all youth. If for no other reason, everyone should be concerned about teachers' effectiveness. This attitude also means that lesbian and gay young people have no mentors. Gay and lesbian students will often "suspect" that some teacher is one of them but the teacher's silence and lack of acknowledgment of their gender orientation leaves the student totally without role models or mentors. Furthermore, the message communicated is that being lesbian and gay is so bad that one must keep totally hidden. Taking this one step further, gay and lesbian students are often treated badly by their lesbian and gay teachers who reject any attempts the student may make, in desperation, to reach out for some understanding. Many teachers will often explain their decision to be closeted by saying they need to maintain the "respect" of the parents, administrators, other teachers, etc. Rather than create bridges with the accepting members of their school community to form some safety and protection, they instead shun those people and court the "respect" of their avowed enemies. This behavior was well documented in early Nazi Germany when many Jewish people believed that the way for them to be safe was for them to be invisible or to attempt to join their enemies. Now, like then, there was no safety for the German Jews and there will be no safety for American gay and lesbian teachers unless they begin the long and frightening process of "coming out." This implies that non-lesbian, non-gay teachers and administrators must do their part to make it safe for gay and lesbian teachers and administrators to be out. They must actively work to make the school system a safe community for everyone. Just as they have learned to not accept racial, ethnic, or gender slurs, all educators must speak up when lesbians and gays are maligned or discriminated against. All too often people sit in small groups and remain silent when they hear racial, ethnic, anti-women, or homophobic jokes. By this behavior they participate in some of the most reprehensible forms of discrimination. Even if they are uncomfortable, frequently listeners will remain silent or even participate in the conversation in order to fit in. This most often occurs in small groups where there is no obvious member of the targeted group present. Because gays and lesbians so often choose to remain invisible, they are frequently members of a small group where anti-homosexual remarks are made. To speak out against the homophobic jokes or comments is tantamount to admitting one belongs to the community. Lesbians and gays who choose to remain in the closet are often terrified of being found out. To sit silently means participating in their own bashing in order to hide. For non-gay, non-lesbians, the risk of speaking out is of being believed to be something that has been labeled perverted, abnormal, evil, sinful, etc. Teachers have learned to address issues which have to do with race or gender discrimination. The skills needed are the same. The only difference is the fear that if they address homophobic remarks they will be "suspect." Clearly only someone who is lesbian or gay would speak out against "gay bashing" comments. These fears must be overcome so that teachers may respond in an educative way to homophobic behaviors, just as they respond to racist and sexist behaviors. Schools must make a conscious effort to teach the whole truth, including information about and by gays and lesbians. It is consistently amazing that when college-aged people are asked to identify major figures in history who were lesbian or gay, they draw a complete blank even though they have studied these figures in high school. A stunning example of this is that although students know that James Baldwin was African American, they do not know that he was gay and that a major reason Baldwin left the United States to live in Europe was because he felt so uncomfortable living in the U.S. as a gay man. For any high school teacher to teach Baldwin and not to talk about the issues he faced as a gay man is as unprofessional as it would be to not mention that he was African American. This type of distorted teaching is perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of the prejudice against the gay and lesbian community that infects the professionalism of education. Leaving lesbian and gay issues out of education distorts history, much as leaving out women and various racial or ethnic groups has distorted history to the detriment of the whole society. One of the fastest growing areas in publishing is in gay and lesbian studies. Fortunately that means there are a growing number of books for teachers, young people, and their families. Every school should begin to look at this material and start the process of placing age appropriate material in school libraries. Teachers should make sure that they encourage pupils to include them in their reports. IF WE FOLLOW THESE SUGGESTIONS WILL WE BE ENCOURAGING HOMOSEXUALITY? A major objection that lies behind many educators' reluctance to discuss gay and lesbian issues with their students is the belief that young people may be "recruited" into a lesbian and gay lifestyle. This reluctance rests on the belief that people make a choice to be gay or lesbian and that children are vulnerable to being swayed into being homosexual. Until very recently, the focus of the research on homosexuality has been to determine "how did they get that way?" Unfortunately the driving force behind the research was that after first determining the cause, the cure would soon follow. This research direction in the 1940's and 50's created an atmosphere of pathology when viewing the homosexual community that still remains today in many quarters of our society. Fortunately, beginning in the 1950's with the evolution of organizations like the Mattachine Society, the Society of One, and the Daughters of Bilitis, many lesbians and gays challenged that view (Blumenfeld, 1989; Legg, 1994). They were successful in convincing people like the psychologist Evelyn Hooker (Hooker, 1965) and others (e.g. Marmor, 1980; Bayer, 1981), to reevaluate the nature of the research that was being conducted. This reevaluation successfully rejected the earlier theories of emotional pathology in homosexual men (early research was focused exclusively on gay males). However, it did not answer the question of "cause." Today the question of "cause" remains an open question but it clearly seems that we are moving closer to the answers. The most recent research by LeVay (1993) and others has opened the door to the issues of biology and genetics as major contributors to the ideas of gender orientation in both the homosexual and heterosexual communities. While we don't have the "real" answer to this question it has become increasingly clear that neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality is entirely about sexual behavior and certainly is no more about choice than, for example, height or gender. Continuing to believe in the idea of "choice" leads to continuing to debate the issues of free will, sin, and morality with groups which see it as a "choice", and wastes time which could be spent in more productive discussions. Continuing to believe in the idea of "choice" leads to the perpetuation of pain, guilt, and anger that parents of gay and lesbian young people often feel. They are told that they are responsible, e.g. they may be told to get little Johnny involved in sports to stop his interest in ballet dancing. The implication is that they can do something about this or could have done something, i.e. that it is their fault. Educators have many opportunities to help parents understand that having a child who is lesbian or gay is not a result of the parents having done something wrong. Continuing to believe in the idea of "choice" implies that children or adolescents who are gay or lesbian decide to be "that way," perhaps having heard a presentation about homosexuality or perhaps wanting to "get" their parents somehow. They decide this knowing that they will place themselves in the most frightening situation imaginable. The prejudice and discrimination against lesbians and gays that children and adolescents are exposed to frequently results in school drop outs, adjustment problems in school and home, homelessness, a variety of other emotional difficulties, and all too often suicide. The idea that someone would freely choose this is obviously ludicrous when you stop to reflect. Gay and lesbian romantic attractions occur in the same way as opposite gender attractions occur in straight youth, i.e. normal maturation of the sexual development of the human body. There are NO differences except in the object of those attractions. In other words, lesbians and gays and non-gays, non-lesbians are much more similar than they are different. The one difference is the gender to which they are attracted. Regardless of how gays and lesbians get here, we need to consistently focus on the fact that they are here and we have to realign the school curriculum to include them in a positive way. While the question of "cause" will continue to be open for discussion, it essentially should only remain in the realm of the pursuit of knowledge and should have no bearing on the issues we address here in this paper. John Boswell (1980) in his ground breaking text on Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, states that "the issue of who is "black" or "colored" or "mulatto" is only vexing to societies affected by racial prejudice; such differentiations, if present, are much looser in cultures not concerned to categorize people by skin color." It is easy to translate this comment of Boswell's into today's struggle to determine the "cause" of homosexuality. SUMMARY In summary, these children are your students and the adults are their parents and your colleagues. They are the class clown, the high school star athlete, the class valedictorian, the ordinary kid next door, your neighbor, your sibling, your child, your principal, your teaching partner. Unfortunately, because of the invisibility, it is often virtually impossible to identify the lesbian and gay community in your school. Tragically this invisibility has led to our collective ability to ignore the problem and failure to design a curriculum that will address these issues similar to the curriculum that has been developed to address the issues of other at-risk communities such as ethnic, racial, female or disabled groups. Each child that dies by their own hand is a child with loved ones who are left behind to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Each child that dies by their own hand could have become that adult who found the cure for cancer. Each child that dies by their own hand could have been that adult that made world peace possible. Each child that dies by their own hand may have been that invisible child in your school. BIBLIOGRAPHY Boswell, J. (1980). Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. University of Chicago Press. Weisel, E. (1988). Public speech on the occasion of the concentration camp memorial dedication. Kinsey, A., et al (1953). Sexual Behavior of the Human Female. New York: Pocket Books. Kinsey, A., et al (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders. Blumenfeld, W. & Dease, R. (1993). Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life. Beacon Press. Hooker, E. (1965). Male homosexuals and their worlds. In Sexual Inversion (J. Marmor, ed.). New York: Basic Books. Marmor, J. (1980). Homosexual Behavior: A Modern Reappraisal. New York: Basic Books. Bayer, R. (198l). Homosexuality and American Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books. Legg, W., et al (1994). Homophile Studies. One Institute Press & GLB Publisher (co publishers). LeVay, S. (1993). The Sexual Brain: Massachusetts: A Bradford Book. AUTHORS Wiggsy D. Sivertsen, L.C.S.W. Professor/Counselor Counseling Services & Sociology San Jose State University San Jose, California Terri B. Thames, Ph,D. Psychologist Counseling Services & Psychology San Jose State University San Jose, California This article appears in Multicultures, Unity Through Diversity - A Monograph of Diversity in the Field of Education, edited by Jean M. Novak and Louis G. Denti, Volume 1, 1995.

© Copyright 1995-2005 OutProud. Outpath™, QueerAmerica™ and TransProud™ are trademarks and OutProud® is a registered trademark of OutProud. Use subject to Terms of Service. Our Privacy Policy protects you.