should i remove it?

[Gustav]

For creative writing we all wrote plays to enter into the VSA playwrite contest. now, mine's amazing (Of course) and all is good. But we also had to give a brief 250 word biography of why i write, what difficulties i face...and so on. I included my acceptance of my homosexuality in my biography-- just one brief sentence, no, not even a sentence; maybe... about four words out of 250.
so, my teacher tells me it's inappropriate. she first said it was giving too much information about myself. then she said it will attract pedophiles, and my play may be chosen for the wrong reasons, or denied for the wrong reasons. she told me to remove the sentence(Four words). i thought about it all yesterday, but then decided to keep it. i mean, being gay is part of the reason i write- why wouldn't i include it? plus, it seems to me she is insinuating that gay people are pedophiles- i mean, what if i said i were straight in the bio, would i be attracting pedophiles then, or is it only cause i'm gay.
so she won't let me hand it in with that sentence present without going to the guidance councilors first, getting approval by the principal, and also my parents permission. my mom knows im gay, but my dad doesn't.

should i just remove those four words-- which orchestrates a marvelous bio-- or keep it and go through all that trouble, and attract pedophiles, lol

[Beebo]

sigh...

first of all. I think you should wage the consequences of keeping it, if keeping it causes more stress and misery than good, then ditch it. and vice versa.

BTW I would love to read it.

[Lexington]

Our opinion doesn't matter.
Only yours does.
And it's clear from your post that you're positive that it should stay.
So let it stay.

Lex

[pianoguy]

a little cocky eh?
i would toss it
it wouldnt matter that much to me, especially because there are idiots out there who would discriminate and mayb toss your essay for that reason

[CrimsonThunder]

Keep it, its your work and your teacher can't change the way you are or write. I think this teacher is just being homophobic, not trying to protect you from "pedophiles" (you're bloody 17 for crying out loud)

[Beebo]

so so far the bad parts:
Your work gets tossed.
You might get discriminated.
You might get outed to your dad.
You might get pushed off a cliff by a pedophile.

so far, the good parts:
you would be standing up for your rights.

so the way I see it. keep it and you are standing up for your rights. ditch it and you are allowing your work to explode into its maximum potential. Yes it sucks that we have to keep things below the surface to succeed sometimes, but you know what? Become a famous writer/play write, and then come out; that way people will know you are gay, but they wont be able to do anything about it, because you have a portfolio to stand on.

[CaptainTrips]

it depends on if it is an important enough part of your life that you are willing to let an unrelated part of you be judged by it. if you're lucky, it wouldn't even play a factor, but we all know that such an ideal situation doesn't occur very often.

I don't agree that your rights play much of a role here--she's not denying your right to be who you are, or even to advertise it, she's just trying to advise in accordance with the very real reactions that it might incur.

bottom line: your sexuality is obviously very important to you as a person, but are you willing to let it cloud other people's judgment of you, for better or worse?

[Gustav]

yea, i'm keeping it. the paper just doesn't make sense without it, and i don't want to rewrite it. if it gets thrown out, so what.

[sdc91]

I'm kind of in a similar situation. I had to write 25 "I Statements" for my college academic counselor today and listed that as #20. Haven't heard back from her about it, but she went through Ally training so I doubt she'd say anything.

Good luck!