I grew up in a pretty conservative town in the Midwest and graduated about the same time as the OP (mid-90s). When I was a senior I knew of maybe two or three openly gay students in a student body of about 2,000, and they were pretty much seen as freaks. A GSA would have been inconceivable. Interestingly one of the “out” students was a preacher’s son who only a few years before was pretty much the stereotypical conservative evangelical, but who in his senior year basically turned himself into a Marilyn Manson clone.
Well, not from Calgary, but from Not-Saskatoon-or-Regina Saskatchewan and graduating in 2004, I can say this:
I didn’t know anyone who was shouting from the rooftops they were gay, but I mean, if you knew the theatre kids or alternative kids you knew who was gay and who wasn’t. There wasn’t any overt discrimination at all and I went to a Catholic high school. It’s actually kinda sad, one of my gay friends who graduated from there is going for his education degree but he wouldn’t be allowed to teach there!
Okay, if you’re still not with me and saying ‘pshaw, liar, this is Sask you’re talking about!’ I have another story.
Grad 2007, Catholic high school. Local Eastern Rite priest (so allowed to have a family) has a son graduating. School gets hypnotist as entertainment. Hypnotist does his thing on the priest’s son and tells him to pick out his crush. He picks out another guy! It was an awkward moment, but the issue wasn’t ‘he’s going to get his ass kicked!’ it was ‘what will his father think?!’.
Oh, I believe you. For a country that on paper is very gay-friendly, I think we still have a LONG way to go out west (we may have a long way to go other places, too, but I’m only familiar with western Canada).
My youngest niece graduated high school two years ago in Kansas City. Her school had a very active Gay-Straight Alliance. She was very active in the choir and the theater programs, and I wound up videotaping their productions. One out black kid was one of the most popular kids in school, judging by the reaction when he appeared on stage (it helped that he was very talented). I have no idea how accepted his homosexuality was at home or in his community, but it did not appear to be an issue in the school.
That’s whats really sad; if typical, more likely than not he’ll have more acceptance at school than he will at home or in his community.
We dropped him off at his home after a show choir performance, still dressed in the red sequined bow tie and vest uniform. I remember thinking “Damn, that kid has guts!”
I asked my niece about him, and she told me that he had photos of himself with huh boyfriend on his Facebook page.