The tomboy dyke in gym class. The faggot in home ec. The he-she beside you in Spanish. Bullying is a natural occurrence in school; after all, mandating that a large number of personality types spend a third of their day together in a controlled–often disciplinarian–space will definitely lead to friction.  Tension is rising already a month into the 2009-2010 school year, and for many students, a fear of bullying is increasing. We expect to be bullied, from representations of middle and high school in media, many times as the result of an arbitrary personality clash. But recently, anti-LGBT bullying has become a rising trend. The tragic consequences of this type of bullying ended the lives of 11-year-olds Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera as well as three students in Illinois. It was also a major factor in the highly publicized murder of Lawrence King in his classroom two Valentine’s Day’s ago. These were not simply cases of unbalanced students not being able to deal; these were cases that highlighted how acceptable it still is for anti-LGBT harassment to occur without repercussion.

A main factor is the refusal to acknowledge the problem for what it is: a systematic and targeted scapegoating of LGBT people by factions and zealots that makes the topic of sexuality, especially in regard to identity, a taboo in society. This taboo is understandably troubling and confusing for children whose minds and questions are developing, but who are given no direction on how to respond to behavior outside of the expected. They take their cues from others, and it is scary to realize that for many students, those cues are to abuse and degrade non-heteronormative children. The boys who killed themselves were too young to know if they were gay or not; all they knew is they did not want to be people who were constantly ridiculed.

The beliefs that feed the bullying are not held by a small group of people who are righteously justified by their intolerance of homosexual and transgender people; they are promulgated by mass media, given a framing that makes an easy, if obscure, case for rejecting LGBT issues. The best example comes from a recent Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson:

For many gay-rights supporters, it is easy to shrug off Fox News’ rhetoric as off-base and without merit. But Fox News consistently outperforms other cable news channels by roughly twice the amount of viewers every night. MediaBistro details how the audience share Fox enjoys is larger than CNN and MSNBC combined. Millions of people are taking the word “news” as a factual analysis, and thereby using it to legitimize their disgust of the LGBT community. Children only know to be afraid of showing signs that could cast them as one of those outsiders, and so they reject it in a more direct way that is natural to them, by bullying others.

Some ways to prevent this are fortunately being implemented in many progressive school systems. Chicago’s own public schools have recently expanded their anti-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation and gender expression. The key to this reform is an advisory council of students; by respecting the intelligence and autonomy of teenagers and young children, CPS has shown that it is possible to promote tolerance. National Coming Out Day is coming up on October 11, and the surrounding days are a perfect time for allies to show their support and for LGBT students to make themselves heard. Curricula that explore LGBT issues and problems in ways that engage students rather than keep them sheltered and afraid are important to creating a rich school environment, and the better the environment, the less students will feel a need to lash out. The more their intelligence is respected, the less reason they’ll have to fall back on prejudiced rhetoric to justify their behavior. And the more we fight for the integrity of free discourse in schools, the less likely we are to lose children due to shame and fear.

Lawrence King and gender expression in school
by Kevin Sparrow

The concept of sexuality in young people has been a focal point for Americans throughout history. The sexual mores of youth color the way we observe past and present eras. As mores change, an outcry against the demoralization of youth inevitably strikes, and recently, it has been against scantily clad female singers, increased teen pregnancy and sexualized teen TV shows ala Gossip Girl. However, sexual identity is another issue that has been misappropriated as part of this concern. This fear is one of the reasons for the shooting death of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old junior high school student who expressed himself as decidedly different from others. Newsweek’s July 28 cover story by Ramin Setoodeh followed a five-month investigation into King’s school—E.O. Green—his home life and his relationships. The angle chosen—delving into the responsibility schools and students having when dealing with sexual identity—contained a negative bias that will have an impact when future scenarios such as this tragedy occur.

An example of this bias comes early: “One study found that the average age when kids self-identify as gay has tumbled to 13.4…” First, the reliability of this statement is in question because the study referenced is not named and is only one example of possible statistics that could have been used. A more immediate impact is from the negative rhetoric employed when talking about the age of kids coming out. Setoodeh uses “tumbled,” implying that this is an undesired effect. Many people first discover sexual attraction around the age of 13, the average age of puberty. It’s sad that even after a wealth of media coverage, gay relationships for teenagers have to remain hidden behind locker doors and instant messages. While many of their straight peers are allowed to openly date younger than ever, gay teens are told that their sexual identity does not even exist at their age. “Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means.” Here, the experience of coming out is conceived as an even more complex, restricted action; only adults are allowed to be gay in society’s view.

On the other hand, the article addresses the multiple players providing children with moral values. “[T]eachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between.” This discomfort is real, but it seems acceptable by this statement; it reflects that parents are not held to the same accountability as schools. The subtitle for the article even states “… are schools ready to handle the complex issues of identity and sexuality.” It leaves parents unaccountable for their children’s actions, a problem that has been affecting schools with behavioral issues at a growing rate. By establishing school as the first line of responsibility, the article adds to this problem. In lieu of condemnation, the article does go to great length in establishing that the school had many forms of protection and information for queer students. Setoodeh mentions “… a [California] hate-crime law that prevents gender discrimination” and an e-mail by one assistant principal stating, “ ‘We have a student on campus who has chosen to express his sexuality by wearing make-up… It is his right to do so.’”

A clear indication that a large portion of the country’s concept of queer is misguided is provided secondhand by a source of authority on the subject. “… [Larry’s] therapist told Greg [King, Larry’s adopted father] he thought that Larry was just trying to get attention and might not understand what it meant to be gay.” Although many stories about superheroes contain a subtext of being gay and the coming out process, in this context, it is condescending. Being gay is not a simple construct; it is not a disorder or anomaly, so it does not affect everyone who is gay the same way. Being gay does not have a singular meaning. If it is considered acting out to identify as gay, it shows more about those who are bothered by that description than the person identifying as such.

The story only gives a cursory glance at a far more troubling issue that may not have been explored simply because it has recently been more prominent than sexual expression in schools. Jerry Dannenberg, the superintendent for the Hueneme school district, of which E.O. Green is a part, stated, “Why do we have youngsters that have access to guns?” The stance the article takes is that reactions to an admittedly disruptive student based on his sexual orientation are more a concern than the fact that his killer had access to a gun. It seems to reinforce an old sentiment that it is preferable to be dead than gay and even worse, it states unequivocally that Larry’s sexuality was more harmful than a gun when Setoodeh writes “… King… flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon.” It makes it all right for a person to shoot someone else when sexuality is seen as comparably deadly. A backtracking statement near the end of the article to disavow the notion that King was complicit in his death is accompanied by “For [many teachers and parents], the issue isn’t whether Larry was gay or straight… but whether he was allowed to push the boundaries so far that he put himself and others in danger.” Yet, the suggestion is that how he chose to reveal his identification as gay was what caused these boundaries to be pushed. Had he been straight, this article would not even have existed.