First off, I would like to clarify, one more time, the difference between the fanciful claims made in the OP and reality.
What the NEA is proposing is a task force to find ways to address some of the problems facing GLBT youths. This may include incorporating some material on the contributions made by gay people throughout history in regular course material. It may include outreach programs for gay youth. It may include programs which work with established GLBT organizations in the communities to provide support for studnets who need it.
All of this has yet to be determined. The resolution that Focus on the Family objected to so strenuously has been withdrawn, and a task force has been appointed to study the issue.
MGibson said:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but being picked on is only one component of the challenges that I faced in high school.
When I was thirteen, I fantasized about guys. From then on through high school, the only images I had of gay people were of the “really effeminate men” stereotype played up by the media. I didn’t associate myself with this image; it wasn’t me. I didn’t have any urges to be effeminate, I just wanted to sleep with guys. The only time I heard the term “gay” used, it was as an insult. I kept quiet.
You see, that’s the real sticking point in growing up gay. You’re not visible; nobody has to know. And it seems easier to just keep your mouth shut, and seem like everybody else. Keeping my mouth shut involved hiding myself from my family; never being able to explain why I was upset, or lonely, or frightened, for fear that I’d lose the only support I had. Keeping my mouth shut involved pushing my friends away, and keeping them at a distance. Imagine lying to everyone you care about, when you’re just a kid. Imagine what that does to you.
I don’t know that it was worse than the alternative, coming out and letting everybody know who I really was, but at least it didn’t involve physical beatings.
Do you have any idea what it would have meant to me, back in high school, to know that there was one other gay person, student or teacher, who was open about who they were? Or even to know that there was a teacher or counselor around who wouldn’t condemn me outright for being gay? I didn’t know that there wasn’t, of course; most of the faculty may have been gay for all I knew. But I didn’t know, and nobody ever mentioned the subject in any positive light, and so I kept to myself.
I came within an inch of killing myself when I was sixteen.
Gay kids have problems that nobody else has. They’re not worse problems, by any means, but they are unique to being gay in this society. And unique problems call for unique solutions.
I salute the NEA for recognizing that there are kids in school struggling in the current environment, and doing something to change that. I hope their task force finds ways to reach out to these kids.