Just last week I got a classmates.com notification about my 20th high school reunion coming up. And now this week my high school, in Lexington, Mass., is in the news for a good reason and a related bad reason. The good reason is that students at my high school, like students all across the country, are holding a Day of Silence "to peacefully bring attention to the pervasive problem of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) bullying and harassment in schools," as it says on the official website. More info can be found in this fact sheet.
The bad news is that some bigots have decided to make Lexington a site of protest against the Day of Silence. They're planning on protesting outside the high school today. No word yet on how it went, but my dad forwarded me this article in the Boston Globe and this editorial in my hometown paper, the Lexington Minuteman. The Minuteman is no liberal rag, but they came out in support of the Day of Silence. (I mean, who wouldn't, except for some real right-wing zealots?!?) I also found this related article about a Lexington parent who's upset that her 7 year old son's teacher (at the school I attended some 30 years ago) read a book to the class about 2 princes marrying each other.
What does all this tell me? That it's been a long time since I was in high school. It's been a long time mostly because when I was there, no one talked about anything LGBT-related. No classes, no discussion, no nothing. If there were kids of gay parents, we didn't know about them. People made nasty comments about other kids being gay, and I was vaguely aware that some of my very femmey male classmates and very butch female classmates were probably gay, but I didn't even know I was! Once, one of my fellow students asked my English teacher if he was gay in front of our whole class. It didn't go over well. My favorite French teacher died of AIDS in the late '80s, but we were all supposed to think he died of gout. Very, very sad.
It also tells me that I'm glad these 20 years have passed. Now I'm an adult woman with a partner and a daughter, living in perhaps the most supportive, queer-friendly community in the country. So queer-friendly that we live across the street from another lesbian family with a daughter the same age. So queer-friendly that when we put an ad in the Berkeley Parents Network looking to share our nanny, and said nothing about our family structure, the only family that responded was another lesbian family! I am happy that my daughter will grow up in an environment where it's not strange to be who she is.
I'm also glad these 20 years have passed because today, I feel fully and 100% supported by my family of origin. Maybe I would have been supported 20 years ago, had I come out then, but I think times really have changed for all of us. I am happy that my aunt, who is very active in local Lexington school politics, is up in arms about the anti-gay protesters. And that my dad is sending me articles about the whole controversy. And that my sister is googling Day of Silence.
I do believe that the vast majority of Lexingtonians are supportive or neutral about the Day of Silence and queer youth/queer families. I'm impressed with what the school superintendent said to the Globe:"This district is committed to teaching children about the world they live in. Seven-year-olds see gay people. They see them in the schools. They see them with their kids," he said. "I see this as a civil rights issue. People who are gay have a right to be treated equally....We have lots of gay families in Lexington."
I believe him. But I'm glad I don't live there anymore.
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3 comments:
that's a lovely post. I'm glad we're that much into the future here as well, but berkeley is an especially rare land on this planet, still.
I'm really glad not to be in Lexington anymore, too! Funny that you fled to Berkeley and I fled to Venice Beach - two of the most diverse communities in California. I think that despite Lexington's relative political liberalism, it's still a very narrow-minded community from a cultural perspective. So in the same sense that Berkely and Venice are especially good places for you and me to live, Lexington was an especially bad place for us. I guess my real point is that Lexington and Berkeley are two extremes on a continuum of cultural acceptance, and most of the other places I've been in the U.S. (outside of Texas) sit somewhere in-between. xo JoGirl
Emily Rooney, on the Boston PBS station, had a piece about the "King & King" lawsuit last night. One School rep, one party to the suit. The only thing that actually caught my attention was the guy who's suing saying "I believe it's a choice," speaking of homosexuality. I'm inclined to think that, to believe it's a choice, one has to feel significant homosexual attraction oneself, and be repressing it like crazy, which of course makes you angry at all the people who aren't repressing it. The obvious conclusion is that there are a whole lot more closeted homosexuals than we ever thought!
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