Gay Teens: A Debate

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
**But Lamia I am an adult nerd. You seem to misunderstand cause and effect here. These nerds you know aren’t uncomfortable and unsure of themselves because they got beaten up, but rather they were beaten because they were already that way, they were incapable of participating normally in high school social life. Had they not been such losers, they would have fit in better.
**

I’m sure that thought must be of great comfort to them, just as it is a great comfort to gay youths to know that their problems would disappear if only they could turn straight, or to poor kids to know that if their parents only made more money they’d be able to fit in, or to disabled kids to know that they wouldn’t be taunted if they were healthy and normal like everyone else.

**
Look, getting picked on is a natural part of high school, and I don’t think anything should be done about it.
**

Even after all my time in GD, I can hardly believe someone has posted something so monstrous.

**
The people who from despair kill themselves have emotional problems that aren’t going to be solved by feel-good clubs. These angst-filled examples would find some reason to fall into a pit of depression no matter what the social environment was like.
**

Or so says you. Wouldn’t it be nice to give kids a chance to fall into despair on their own rather than being driven to it?

**
The majority of people get over high school just fine, both gays and nerds. And most nerds understand that the popular kids were right to pick on them, after you graduate and see how the high school social world works, it looks totally natural.
**

No it does not, and you are the only person I have ever heard even suggest such a thing. I know a lot of nerds, and if “most” of them shared your beliefs I think at least one of them would have mentioned it by now. Are you suffering from Stockholm syndrome or something?

[Siege]

Unomondo, considering you’ve just said, in effect, that I deserved to die, I hope you’ll understand if I beg to differ. Also, I don’t believe the popular kids were right to pick on my friend who had the handicaps, because she had no choice in the matter, and she did want to fit in. I’ll admit it looks natural, but so are polio and smallpox.

We’re on page 4 of a GD thread, and I haven’t seen that much in the way of cites. That’s got to change! In that spirit (and to counter Unomondo’s argument, here’s a cite from the American Academy of Pediatrics giving some more definite information about teenage suicide, and one from an organization called Soul Force which not only expands on the AAP site, but provides some insight on which environments work better than others.

CJ

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by cjhoworth *
**Unomondo, considering you’ve just said, in effect, that I deserved to die, I hope you’ll understand if I beg to differ. Also, I don’t believe the popular kids were right to pick on my friend who had the handicaps, because she had no choice in the matter, and she did want to fit in. I’ll admit it looks natural, but so are polio and smallpox.
**

CJ, whenever I hear people talk about school experiences like yours or your friends, I wish they could have had the same opportunity I did to go to a school where such things were not tolerated. Bullying, like polio and smallpox, can be virtually eliminated through well-implemented non-harassment policies supplemented if necessary by special instruction for students and staff. I know, because I have seen it. There can be schools where students are not tormented and abused for being “different”. There can be schools where students are free to learn and socialize without fear. This can happen. I hope someday it will happen, everywhere. The only thing standing in the way is attitudes like Unomondo’s and others who say that we should do nothing because nothing needs to be done or because it would be too much bother or would never work anyway.

[MrVisible]

I can speak to this one as a gay nerd.

No kidding. There I was, seventh grade. Broken thick-framed glasses with tape on them, button-down shirts, bookbag. Favorite pastimes included Dr. Who, Star Trek, taking tons of science fiction books out of the library, staying over at a friend’s house to use his telescope.

Of course, when I stayed over at my friend’s house, I was also checking out his brother, in awe over his muscular body. I dreaded gym class, not just because I’d get picked on, but because it got more and more difficult to be around all those naked guys and not get excited.

Which was worse? Well, I knew a bunch of other nerds. I knew why I was a nerd; my family couldn’t afford better glasses, or better clothes, and I really loved the things I did for fun. I loved reading science fiction, learning about the stars, watching those TV shows. I believed, deep down, that being a nerd was better than being a jock, that I was exercising my mind instead of my body, and in an odd way, I was proud of being nerdish.

I knew no-one else who was gay. I had no idea why I was gay. Being gay had no enjoyable components to it, back then; it was just this problem I had that I didn’t understand, and couldn’t find anyone to speak to about. I believed that being gay made me somehow inferior to everybody else, that there was something wrong, something monstrous about me that I had to keep hidden, because if people knew about it, I’d lose the people I loved, and probably get killed in the process. I was deeply ashamed of being gay, I wanted to be straight more than anything.

No question in my mind; being gay was intensely intolerable. Being a nerd was nowhere near as bad.

The other point I’d like to bring up is that you can learn to not be a nerd. When I hit sixteen, I started working out and running. I learned to juggle, and improved my coordination immensely. I missed a few haircuts, decided I liked it, and my hair got immensely long. I taught myself, deliberately, how to be funny. I tried cracking a few jokes in class, and they went over well, so I kept that up. I went from being a nerd to being a freak, but it was a change for the better. I kept doing the things I loved, reading science fiction and obsessing over monster movies and learning astronomical trivia, playing huge quantities of D&D, and I kept dressing badly, because I never could afford to dress well. But at the end of high school, I had a few good friends, I’d had a pretty good time, and I was voted Most Unique out of my senior class.

Meanwhile, I felt like a complete and total fraud, because I was keeping my sexuality a secret, feeling that if any of the friend I had found out, they’d never be able to handle it. I thought I was a monster, masquerading as a person.

I really, really needed to know a lot more about what being gay meant, and there was no-one to turn to about it, no information available, no support, nothing. It was devastating.

There’s just no comparison. I’m sorry.

[Hamish]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**Seriously, being able to discuss freely and frankly with a wide range of people has been an education for me. In particular, I want to single out matt_mcl and Hamish, Gobear, yourself, andygirl, and of course the Gay Guy Himself, Esprix, for broadening my horizons on what used to be called “alternative livestyles.” **

Thank you. I’m glad I’ve been of some help.

I’ve put most of my energies into writing, but I’m also looking into the possibility of teaching. I’ve often asked what I could do, as a teacher, to make things better in high school for others than they were for me. Which I guess brings us back to this thread.

I think there’s plenty of literature out there that teenagers could be given to read that’s both appropriate for age group and sympathetic. And as has been pointed out several times, the private lives of historical figures and artists and writers are regularly told to kids, including things many parents would find objectionable. If Byron’s sexual relationship with his sister is appropriate for the classroom (and it was for my classroom in Grade 10), then surely his romantic relationship with a young man at university is as well.

Extra effort is made these days to integrate literature by women and by racial minorities – good material that’s been left out of the official canon of English Literature. There’s no reason this can’t be extended to literature by gay, lesbian, and bisexual writers. Hell, a lot of the material already is by LBG writers – Walt Whitman, Byron, Marlowe, even Shakespeare – it just isn’t acknowledged.

This is the way to go, I think. Integrating a more tolerant view into the curriculum is better, I think, than separating out a special time to discuss these things.

[Hamish]

*Originally posted by His4ever *
**First of all God’s already said something about it, you just don’t like what He said.

Second of all, they aren’t obscure passages. It’s comdemned in both Old and New Testaments.
**

Depends on the translation, interpretation, and context.

Take this passage from the King James Version, Deuteronomy 23:17: "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. "

In the Robert Young Literal Translation, it becomes, “There is not a whore among the daughters of Israel, nor is there a whoremonger among the sons of Israel;” In the New American Standard, it’s “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute.” A cult prostitute is a pagan priest or priestess who had sex with pilgrims, and tithed a portion of their income to the temple.

This last one is probably the most accurate. The word in Hebrew is qadesh – “holy one.” Studies of the Greek passage in Roman 1:27, suggest the same thing – we’re talking about pagan ritual prostitution here. Even in the famous passage in Leviticus, there’s some question. The word used for “abomination” (tow’ebah in Hebrew) is commonly used in conjunction with idolatry – it might again be a reference to cult prostitution as a form of pagan idolatry.

Doesn’t mean your interpretation is wrong – I’m pagan myself, so all this is academic to me. But it does mean that there’s more leeway in interpretation than you suggest. Translation is far from a perfect science, and the King James Version, where homosexuality is most explicitly condemned, is not exactly the most accurate translation from the Greek and Hebrew originals.

[sub]*however, the King James Version does render an invaluable service by being the only printed version of the dietary rules to inform us (Leviticus 11:20) that four-legged birds are not kosher. [/sub]

[Hamish]

*Originally posted by Lamia *
Bullying, like polio and smallpox, can be virtually eliminated through well-implemented non-harassment policies implemented if necessary by special instruction for students and staff.

Further advances in medical science

[Guinastasia]

But nerds aren’t told they’re going to Hell for being nerds.

Or that they’re perverts who will molest little children or whatever.

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by Hamish *
**Further advances in medical science **

I meant to include “through ‘vaccines’ such as”, but you know what I meant.

[Polycarp]

Nice job, folks! Unu Mondo, I’m far from singling out gay teens as the only people who need help – I was myself a nerd in high school, very unpopular, erroneously thought by many to be queer (“gay” hadn’t entered the vocabulary then). And my one line to answer your comment about bullying being a natural part of high school is, it doesn’t have to be. As a generalization ,teenagers are crowd-critters; they feel effectively powerless and have a strong need to fit in with their peers. If bullying is acceptable in their social circle, they won’t feel right speaking out against it, by and large; if the conviction is formed and shared that it is not tolerable, it’ll be stopped – by kids who know that they’ll be backed up by the opinions of their peers. It’s as simple as that. All it takes is one kid with the courage of his convictions. (High school kids – that means you. If you’ve joined this board, you’re a thinker and respected by your fellows, whether you realize it or not. Speak out, using the conventions of your peer group, and you’ll get backed up.)

And that goes for accepting gay kids, mixed-race kids, nerds, Goths, whatever happens to be the ostracizable minority where you live and hang out. And, if you’ll forgive me saying so, there’s one thing even more terrible than a kid killing himself in despair because he’s been made to feel despicable by those he’s forced to associate with – and I can say that worse thing in one word: Columbine. Create a monster, and you may live to regret it, if you’re lucky.

Bobby Kennedy quoted somebody, “Some people see things as they are, and ask why. I dream things that never were, and ask why not?”

The problems all teens face, and gay teens more than most, are fixable, with a little courage and the backing of adults.

Okay, why not?

[iampunha]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
When I was in high school, I got beat up occasionally, laughed at very often. Was I a gay teen? No, I was just your usual nerd. I liked computers and science fiction, and the popular kids thought that was funny.

I was a nerd, dork, dweeb, all that stuff. Which is interesting, because I’ve never been particularly interested in Star Trek, SW, much of any scifi, etc. I think, other than spending massive amounts of time online (which was more because it was an escape from the people at my school), my only geek claim to fame is that I’d read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. All of it. But nobody ever asked about that, so I’m not sure it counted. I wasn’t cool because, basically, the other kids didn’t like me. ::shrug::

I don’t see why gay teens need so much attention in the issue. There are a ton more nerds than gays in your American high school, but you never see anyone saying that something has to be done about their hard times, there are no calls for “nerd/popular alliances” I’m sure that the amount of teenagers who suicide over getting laughed at for D&D or not getting a date are more than those who can’t find acceptance for their sexuality, but the usual way to deal with it is just to accept that these things are a part of high school.

Nerds and such can hang out with other nerds. Safety in numbers and such. You know who’s a nerd, generally. There’s almost always an identifying characteristic. At the risk of stereotyping, where I went to school you could pretty safely bet 75% of the time that 75% of the people in the computer lab or checking out books were unpopular. The lab was somewhat of a haven for me, as those who disliked me also usually disliked the lab.

Now where is there that someone who’s gay can go to get away from his/her tormentors and get with people who are gay or gay-friendly? There’s usually inherently little, if nothing, that can protect non-het youth from those who make their lives hell.

And the idea that it should be accepted that high school is rough for the unaccepted is almost the most odious thing I think I’ve ever seen posted on this board. That something is wrong and we shouldn’t bother about fixing it is beyond the pale, really.

Anyway, I just don’t understand why gays just can’t grit their teeth and bear their high school years like nerds do with few problems. In the end, most nerds grow up to be perfectly happy with no hangups.

Because they don’t need to. School doesn’t have to be a constant struggle for people who aren’t perfect. I’d like to think that the amount of suffering I went through in high school wasn’t just for nothing, but that it gave me the tools to start fighting the stuff I endured (note the lack of indication that it was required suffering, which is meant to indicate not that I chose to suffer but that it wasn’t necessary for me to).

In the end, as you just got done saying, some people who aren’t cool do end up killing themselves, just as some gay teens do. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to the only gay person I knew was gay in high school if he hadn’t had an out-of-school group place where he could go hang out and be consoled for all the shit he got for being gay. It’s bad enough his parents disowned him and threw him out of the house when he came out to them, shortly after he graduated from high school. I just wish I could find him so I could help him. Unfortunately, this is hindered by both the fact that I went to high school in Rhode Island and the fact that when I last heard he was living on the street as a male prostitute. So in a sad, unchangeable way I have vested interest in both aspects of this. I wish to God I had a success story about him, but no dice:(

In fact, I can actually look back and understand why the popular kids thought it was fun to pick on me.

Yeah, and I know why the kids liked doing it to me: because it was fun for them. Doesn’t make any of it right, nor does it indicate that it ought to continue.

Just because there is suffering doesn’t mean there needs to be or should be.

[Guinastasia]

*Originally posted by Hamish *
**Translation is far from a perfect science, and the King James Version, where homosexuality is most explicitly condemned, is not exactly the most accurate translation from the Greek and Hebrew originals.

[sub]*however, the King James Version does render an invaluable service by being the only printed version of the dietary rules to inform us (Leviticus 11:20) that four-legged birds are not kosher. [/sub] **

Of course, King James himself wasn’t exactly straight as an arrow. coughcoughkingflamescoughcough…

[Polycarp]

however, the King James Version does render an invaluable service by being the only printed version of the dietary rules to inform us (Leviticus 11:20) that four-legged birds are not kosher.

An obvious prophecy of the recent paleontological find in China!

[Scott_Dickerson]

POLYCARP:

Well…if you insist. (Thanks!)

[irishgirl]

Uno Mondo, come out and say what you mean.
" Nerds and gay kids should just suck it up, I had to."

Being “popular” seems to be paramount in high school, and it’s supported by the school authorities.

Everything from Homecoming Queen to special priveleges for the football team to electioneering for student body president.
ALL of it emphasises that the only way to get on in life is to be popular.

Of course, you have to be absolutely 100% conformist to BE popular. Any quirks or foibles you then display have been “earned” by your popularity.

Of course that’s not how life works and everybody here knows it.

You don’t have to be pretty to be liked.
Being good at sports doesn’t make you morally superior.
Wearing the right labels doesn’t make you better at your job.

And you don’t have to conform to stereotypes of normality to be anything other than an equal.

Lamia has it right.
Intolerance of ANY bullying for ANY reason by ANY person is how you teach kids that EVERYBODY deserves that respect.

Not for what they think, or wear, or say, or do, but because they’re a human being.
BTW as for teaching very young kids about human sexuality, I keep hearing Phoebe singing “some men love men and some men love women” to some kids in an old episode of Friends.

might be a way to go

[matt_mcl]

Of course, King James himself wasn’t exactly straight as an arrow. coughcoughkingflamescoughcough…

as they cheered at the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I… “The King is dead, long live the Queen!”

[lynn73]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**His, I’d like to see a site for this. I have never even heard about something like this. They couldn’t even do it if they wanted to, it directly violates the First Amendment.

**

Sorr, Guinastasia, I can’t locate anything. I just remember hearing something about it on TV (maybe they used the term hate crimes) and in some of the letters I got from a few ministries I supported. (I know you’ll have a field day with that). This happened awhile ago and my memory’s kind of fuzzy on it now. Hopefully, you’re right and they couldn’t do it. Just dropped in to read. Wasn’t going to post, just wanted to answer you.

[Polycarp]

From having run into much the same thing myself and done a little research, His, I implore you to read my post responding to your “thought crime” post, up above. It’s a classic example of somebody lying in our Lord’s Name. :mad: (<-- at them, not at you)

[lynn73]

Okay.

[agentfroot]

I’ve been corresponding with a 19-year-old guy online. He’s an open-minded Christian, and he goes to a fundamentalist school and what he says is a fairly liberal church. Recently he’s been having some homosexual feelings, but he’s really upset by the Bible’s position on homosexuality (among other things). From what he says, it seems like he’s turning away from Christianity because the religion condemns homosexuality. He’s also incredibly appalled at how society treats homosexuals, how they bully them to the point where many are suicidal. From what I know of him, he seems like a very nice, intelligent young man. He can’t help how he feels. He’s a Christian, but he’s ashamed of what the Bible says.

Why does a religion that claims to be good and right hurt people like this? My friend is innocent. He did nothing wrong. Just because he happens to feel something for guys doesn’t mean he should be condemned by others.