Hey guys! So we all know this is an issue. It's in the news from time to time. You're gay. You're a student. You're in school and exposed to many people on a daily basis - many people with different views on LGBTQ lifestyles. Teachers, peers, maybe even a few other personnel. As far as I'm concerned in South Africa, there's a grey area when it comes to how these schools treat LGBTQ students as some schools are very accepting and others not. For instance, my school (I'm an atheist in a loosely Christian-based public high school for grades 8 through 12) has these really lame assemblies for the grade 8s and 9s and the other day, they split up girls and boys to face each other. They started a debate on what annoys each gender about the other. I don't know why. Symbolism or some shit. Someone mentioned LGBTQ students and a teacher gave us a scenario in which the schoolboard had to decide whether it was acceptable for a student to bring a member of the same sex to their senior prom. I could never think of our school, such a comfortable and accepting place, suggesting that anyone's rights be argued like that. Shocked by all of the negative comments (the boys seemed to be more anti-LGBTQ than the girls), the jurisdiction was no, they would not be allowed. A teacher source also told me that the same opinion was mirrored in the teacher's lounge and I started a secret initiative of ±4 students including myself and 2 teachers that put posters on gay rights and homophobia all over the school. Within a week everything was quietly taken down and every gay student who had been previously told that they would not be allowed same sex prom dates because it would make the straight students uncomfortable were suddenly called in to announce that they could not be stopped, should they want to bring a date of the same sex. This felt like a huge win on my side, because there's no way denying them that is legal in South Africa and there's just no logical ground for saying no. It felt like hard work had paid off! (It's really hard to hide so many posters in your room haha). I am still bummed that they did not receive any apologies though and that they were denied the first time, but small steps I guess? It got me curious though, so here's my question. Are/were you in a high school that discriminated LGBTQ-wise? Were you out at the time and did you do anything about it?
At my old high school on day of silence, one of the teachers screamed at the whole class about how being gay was wrong and against God. He didn't even seem to get in trouble for it. A lot of the people at my school seem to be at least slightly homophobic. People always rip the sign for the GSA down
Well, that's saddening. I'm glad it's all good now, though. But like you, it's a shame they didn't apologize to them for denying them the right the first time. My school barely recognized the LGBT+ community. My counselor mentioned it once, and that's it. She said it so neutrally I didn't know if she was discriminating against them or not, so, yeah. A lot of my classmates made homophobic jokes and they were generally really terrible when it came to gay people. I was called a lesbian multiple times, and since he said it with the intention of offending me, I was disgusted. I was, indeed, offended - but not in the way he thought I was. I'm a boy. He just called me a lesbian. What did you expect? If he called me gay, I felt like it would've been different. But that's all done and over now. I won't have to see him again. Or any of the other anti-LGBT+ people, for that matter. I just have to face the new ones at my new school.
The faculty at my school seem to be accepting of their LGBTQ students (they are a few of us who are out), it's just the students who are very homophobic. I'm not out to everyone at school yet, but I do get on everyone's case when they make a derogatory comment about gay rights. So many ignorant people in this world.
I definitely wasn't out at school and nor was anybody else. One camp kid got a pretty rough time for his supposed (correctly it happens, tbf) homosexuality but would deny it even if asked. It seemed like the default position for teenage boys to be homophobic, so even if I had my time again there's no way I'd be out at school, it would make for a very different experience of it I'd say. I never heard teachers even mention homosexuality, apart from one time we had some people in to talk about safe sex one of whom said that the anus is not for sex, in response to a question from someone trying to wind up aforementioned gay kid. Apart from that, nothing.
Acm, that sounds terrible! I sometimes wonder if a lot of these people love God or want to be God. Nych, I'm really sorry that you had to go through that but I'm glad that you're through with it now. Good lord, we can't even get through Life Studies class when mentioning lesbian or gay people without people frowning or snickering. Every time they do I feel like busting out Free Your Mind and twerking out of the window to fly to some isolated sky-kingdom of acceptance. Some school faculties don't like getting involved with LGBTQ issues so they rip pages from textbooks and don't discuss it like the theory of evolution. We've got a few out people in our school, lower grades usually aren't but from about 16+ people tend to take each other more seriously.
I don't know the position of other students at my school considering I go to a primarily online program, but I would be shocked if the majority of them where homophobic. I live in a very accepting city where people eat at vegetarian restaurants and shop at farmers markets and make fun of Fox News.
Short answer: I was closeted at a Christian school. "Homosexuals went to hell and lived in sin. They can change, but it's not easy." I'll never forget that f*cking(pardon my French) Dobson video we watched about equating gays with NAMBLA. The worksheet graph that accompanied the video showed that porn lead to homosexuality, homosexuality led to pedophilia and bestiality. By other students, I was called gay and everything when I didn't even know who I was even though I had a friend with benefits. In short, it was gay/bi hell. Long answer: That's for therapy on Tuesday, and I am not ruining an otherwise good day.
My school seemed very tolerant of it. I mean, we had an alliance, but I was just too afraid to even consider going to such a place. I didn't really trust my peers, since they seemed like the cliché shallowness and douchebaggery. So, I sad nothing, but let's just say that I was 10x happier when I got to college. I found people with whom I could relate, instead of being forced to be with.
I'm sorry your school is so full of hate. :/ It's cool the plan worked, though. My high school is split in half with tolerance extremes. One half is very LGBT-phobic, but tends to keep their volume down, the kind of people that don't make a big scene but whisper around. The other half has the "Whatever, as long as they're happy I don't care" line going on. I'm not out except to my two best friends, but when I do come out to schoolmates, I doubt I'll have much hate - vocal hate, anyways. The mental hate will most definitely be there. Most of the people I hang around are kind of queer as well so I have a lot of people to be backed up with if something does arise. My dad is also a well-respected teacher at school, so I doubt anything will go wrong when I do come out.
My dad's a teacher at my school too, Tai! Crazy huh? A lot of Christian people say that they do not agree with the lifestyle but they won't treat people negatively because of it.
I went to a Catholic high-school sothe religion classes had the whole "being gay is wrong" thing but other than that, the school was actually pretty accepting. I wasn't out to anyone when I attended, but I had a friend who was out and he didn't get harrassed or anything. For college, I un-intentionally ended up at one of the top-100 most LGBTQ+ friendly collegesin the nation so I'm hoping things should work out pretty well
Did they really say "lifestyle"? I just watched a funny TED talk about that on YouTube titled "The Gay Agenda..." It's pretty accurate.
I go to a Christian school, everyone there is a homophobic "freak" who thinks that lgbt people are going to burn in hell, even my best friend said that. Me and her were doing a project one day and we had to read a newspaper artical, on the other side it said something about a gay pride. She flipped out and said that they go against God and will burn in hell...no one stoped her.
I was out by middle school, and was taken out of class on multiple occasions for getting into debates/arguments with my other classmates, who told me that I was going to Hell, or who called me a fag. When I had explained what happened, the teacher just told me something along the lines of, "You can't say things like that here," or "We don't tolerate this kind of behavior." As vaguely phrased as that is, I never really could tell what they weren't tolerating: debating or homosexuality?? I was sent to detention, to the principal, home. I wasn't a bad kid or anything. I didn't bully anyone, my grades were excellent, except for in one class because the teacher didn't like me. (And even as an adult, I still think it was because he didn't like me for the way I identified).
My school was half/half. Granted this was late 80's early 90's when it was less in the eye and more in the media because of the AID's scare so it was on and off... on one hand I lived in a progressive area, but I also went to school earlier in time when it was less accepted and LGBT had to hide more...yes there was definitely a good deal of bullying and harassment
