Local high school students attend ‘LGBT Youth Day’

Around 20 students from local high schools and the University gathered at the Frist Campus Center Rainbow Lounge on Friday evening to talk about their experiences with being openly LGBT or ally-identified in high school at an event titled “LGBT Youth Today.”

Sponsored by the Pride Alliance as part of LGBT Awareness Week, the discussion was also inspired by recent media coverage on bullying and harassment against LGBT people, including the story of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, who took his own life late last month.

“We wanted to create a dialogue where there isn’t usually a dialogue, because college students leave high school and then they get disconnected from it,” Pride Alliance co-president Rodrigo Munoz Rogers ’12 said.

“We had our perspective, as college students who were out and comfortable talking about these issues, but we wanted to see how high-schoolers felt, how they reacted, what they were doing about it,” he added.

The high school students said that they had had largely positive experiences at their schools but faced pockets of hostility and ignorance.

“It’s a pretty open environment,” Princeton High School senior Sasha said, “but there are some slurs in the hallway.”

The names of high school students quoted in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.

“People are careful not to say anything around me, but there are offhand comments and the way people act in the hallway,” PHS junior Hayley added. “In the locker room, if you looked at someone in the 'wrong way,' there would be comments.”

Students said that “stupidity” and ignorance could be more hurtful and damaging than blatant spite, stating the unintentional misuse of words like “fag” to mean “jerk” can be worse than outright attacks. They also cited the example of Dharun Ravi, a Rutgers University student who was implicated in the suicide of his roommate Tyler Clementi last year after Ravi secretly recorded Clementi's date with another man.

Ravi graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North. Alex, who is currently a senior there, said, “I know a girl who knew him ... She was LGBT-identified and said, 'Oh, he’s stupid. He would have done that to anyone,' ... Some people just do really dumb things and don’t realize how far they can go.”

Pride Alliance Vice President Rob Campos ’12 highlighted that it was nonetheless important to distinguish between unintentional ignorance and “jokes that are the basis of making fun of someone.”

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Sasha, who also knows friends and acquaintances of Ravi and Molly Wei, another Rutgers student who was implicated in the case, echoed these sentiments and said that having the Internet as a medium of communication complicated matters. “Things on the Internet never go away,” she said.

Students also said that it can be relatively difficult to establish social understanding of transgender and genderqueer issues even when there is acceptance of non-heterosexual identities.

“My mom is wonderful and accepting,” said Alex, who is biologically female but identifies as lesbian and genderqueer. “But she’s the only person who refuses to call me Alex. That really hurts. I’ve just recently tried to explain how insulting that is, but she still refuses.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to explain what transsexual and transgender means,” Hayley said. “People at school don’t understand the difference,” Sasha added.

The evening concluded with a showing of the University’s “It Gets Better” video and a consensus among participants that it was indeed possible for students to find support before leaving high school.

“It kind of is true ... the sooner you come out, the quicker it is for people to love you,” Alex said.

The organizers said they felt that that the event was a success. “We were surprised by how many people showed up,” Munoz Rogers noted. He added that he was “impressed” by the insight and depth of knowledge of the high school students.

“We’re all in this community together,” he added, noting that he hoped that the event had helped form a bridge for the future through which “we can support them, or they can even support us.”