New York Open Gay Public High School

[Mystech]

Originally posted by static76
Sorry, but that's high school. Running from those who don't like you, serves no purpose but to give the homophobes what they want.

So, your honest and heart felt position on this matter is that openly homosexual teens do, in fact, not experience more persecution and ostracism from their peers in high-school? Be careful, because if you say yes I'm quite ready to show you how painfully wrong you are. Try to keep in mind that the issue at hand was caused by the fact that the state of New York disagrees with your opinion. Of course, that, alone, doesn't mean that you are wrong, but it should be the beginning of an indication that there is something to the idea.

Originally posted by static76
Also, I think your being unfair to the vast majority of American youth in their views of homosexuality. I'm willing to bet that they are many more people willing to defend gay students, than there are to opress them.

I'm sorry, but this is the most blatantly naive thing I've heard all day. I'd wager that most would react ranging from indifference to mild dislike, a large few would react with hatred, and a very small percentage would actually be willing to "defend" their homosexual peers.

High-school kids with their cliques, and heavy reliance on following the perceived social dictum for their particular age group aren't notorious for standing up for the rights of others, especially when social precept is working against such a thing. Much more likely they’d just fall in line and say that “homosexuals are gay”.

 

[static76]

Originally posted by Mystech
So, your honest and heart felt position on this matter is that openly homosexual teens do, in fact, not experience more persecution and ostracism from their peers in high-school? Be careful, because if you say yes I'm quite ready to show you how painfully wrong you are. Try to keep in mind that the issue at hand was caused by the fact that the state of New York disagrees with your opinion. Of course, that, alone, doesn't mean that you are wrong, but it should be the beginning of an indication that there is something to the idea.

It varies from school to school, from state to state. In the Western part of the US its not that big of a deal at all. Fat, ugly, and nerdy kids are the ones who get it the most. Most teens don't want to be seen as homophobic or racist, and the tolerance for either is very low. Maybe in the heartland and south its a little different, but not much.

As for the state of New York...They're wrong. I guess if the state of Kentucky feels that an all-Christian public schools is needed to shield students from "the dangers of no school pray and the evil atiests", I should just accept it. Running isn't the answer, they must stand and fight.

Thankfully minority students didn't take this attitude during the Civil Rights movement, otherwise schools would still be segregated.

I'm sorry, but this is the most blatantly naive thing I've heard all day. I'd wager that most would react ranging from indifference to mild dislike, a large few would react with hatred, and a very small percentage would actually be willing to "defend" their homosexual peers.

Incorrect. Where is this vast highschool hatred for gay students at? Perhaps I missed all the news reports?

Once again, I have seen no evidence to support your theory that gay students are treated any harsher than fat, ugly, nerdy, etc.

High-school kids with their cliques, and heavy reliance on following the perceived social dictum for their particular age group aren't notorious for standing up for the rights of others, especially when social precept is working against such a thing. Much more likely they’d just fall in line and say that “homosexuals are gay”.

Most students usually already know who the "openly" gay students are anyway, yet I don't see a plague of gay bashing in high schools at all.

When I watch these crying losers on these talk shows complaining about how they were mistreated in high school, NOT ONCE has it been because they were gay. It usually had to do with their weight, looks, or them being a geek.

Give me evidence that high school is a heaven for gay bashing, because right now I see it no more prevelant than racism, sexism, or any the norm.

 

[SwedishFish]

"I'd wager that most would react ranging from indifference to mild dislike, a large few would react with hatred, and a very small percentage would actually be willing to "defend" their homosexual peers."

i'm sorry you feel this way. i know it's accurate but i'm one straight girl who will assassinate the president for my gay peers. and it's not just because my dearest friend is a lesbian, it's also a matter of justice and morality.

static, it may not be a gay bashing heaven because it's more subtle than that. it's deep seated beliefs held by the students that don't need violence to necessarily take their toll. unfortunately i have heard "i'm gonna kill that fag" in the hallway more than once. it was never said straight to a gay person's face but it was always there. and i went to a performing arts school. i can't imagine what public schools must be like. to live in that kind of fear has to be detrimental to kids' education. if they'll feel safer and more comfortable, they'll be able to focus on their studies without the fear and pain.

bloomberg is for it. that guy certainly is unpredictable but so far he's not done anything that would make me want him out of office. i'm ticked off about recycling but i understand the reasoning behind it. so if bloomberg is for it, it needs no discussion because it'll happen.

 

[static76]

Originally posted by SwedishFish
static, it may not be a gay bashing heaven because it's more subtle than that. it's deep seated beliefs held by the students that don't need violence to necessarily take their toll. unfortunately i have heard "i'm gonna kill that fag" in the hallway more than once. it was never said straight to a gay person's face but it was always there. and i went to a performing arts school. i can't imagine what public schools must be like. to live in that kind of fear has to be detrimental to kids' education. if they'll feel safer and more comfortable, they'll be able to focus on their studies without the fear and pain.

Racial slurs are also thrown around. Along with Sexist terms calling girls "sluts" and "whores", even if they don't sleep around in many cases. That's what high school is, a cesspool of teenage egos and issues. I'm sure the geeky kid who gets physically assaulted would be glad to know his problems don't compare to that of gay students. I guess when Cindy is called a slut and her reputation is ruined for her 4 years, she can take solice that her plight doesn't compare. Poor Tom who is fat and physically and verbally abused by other students will have to realize that he doesn't really have it that bad. And I'll be sure to tell the black kid in a school with hardly any minorities, that he shouldn't worry about being degraded and called racial slurs.

You see, almost everyone gets it in high school, all in various ways. Running away will only give please the small group of homophobes, and alienate those gay students who choose to stay in a regular school. This is a can of worms you really don't want to open.

 

[SwedishFish]

i'm not denying there are plenty of racially motivated crimes. and i don't believe that hates crimes against gays are somehow worse than those crimes either. but somehow it makes sense to me. i guess it's because everyone knows race is not a choice but some still think sexual orientation is so it is acceptable to bash gays which makes life more dangerous for them.

 

[jps]

I don't understand the distinction between homosexuals and other minorities in terms of suffering harrasment in schools?

If gay students get a special school to escape persecution by straight students then why not have a special school for blacks to escape persecution from whites, whites from everyone else, etc...its a slippery slope.

The fact that these people are persecuted is undeniable, but they are not handicapped and should not need a special school.
Public schools should adopt AGGRESSIVE anti-discrimination and education campaigns to deal with this, segregation is not the answer.

 

[SpyMoose]

Originally posted by jps
I don't understand the distinction between homosexuals and other minorities in terms of suffering harrasment in schools?

go back a few pages and take a look at my link to the harasment statistics for gay teens on the PFLAG website.

 

[Mystech]

Originally posted by static76
It varies from school to school, from state to state.

I'd imagine that this is true.

Originally posted by static76
In the Western part of the US its not that big of a deal at all.

You've got to be kidding me. I live in the western United States, and I'm all too aware of the climate here. It's not better here at all. Maybe if you're referring to some parts of California I can understand what you're trying to say, but to imply that this backwater that we call the western US is, in general, more accepting of gays is about as far from the truth as you can get. All them cowboys in their big pickup trucks don’t take too kindly to fags. By and large the Western US is a very conservative area of the country, and in general (certainly not always) strong conservatism and homosexuality just doesn't mix.

Originally posted by static76
Fat, ugly, and nerdy kids are the ones who get it the most. Most teens don't want to be seen as homophobic or racist, and the tolerance for either is very low. Maybe in the heartland and south its a little different, but not much.

Oh yeah, lord knows that fat kids and nerds have it far worse than homosexuals. I mean people may be prone to point and even laugh at them, or even act snooty around them! I hear that sometimes they even get beat up! What a shame!

Look, I'm not looking to play the "Ohhh my high-school experience was so much worse than yours" game here. It's not my aim to compare homosexuals suffering with those of other kids, but mealy to show that it is enough to justify a school like this. If you're worried that maybe this is a personal thing and I'm trying to act all angsty or whatever and imply that you had it easier than me in high-school, you can just forget that. I wasn't openly gay in high-school and so only had the typical harassment for being a nerdy little book worm, though I can see that I could have been much worse off than that.

Originally posted by static76
As for the state of New York...They're wrong. I guess if the state of Kentucky feels that an all-Christian public schools is needed to shield students from "the dangers of no school pray and the evil atiests", I should just accept it. Running isn't the answer, they must stand and fight.

If Atheists were such a problem that Christian kids were fearing for their physical well being, and suffering from mental trauma induced by the hostile environment, then I'd be all for it. Don't demand that a bunch of frightened kids stay and fight some screwed up battle, that's not what they're at school to do. It’s not running from the issue, it’s setting their priorities straight. If they want to promote acceptance, they can do that on the weekends for all I care, their education shouldn’t be compromised because of it.

Originally posted by static76
Incorrect. Where is this vast high-school hatred for gay students at? Perhaps I missed all the news reports?

Maybe you just missed out on high-school? Did you fail to notice that calling something gay is pretty much the only insult kids even issue, any more? It's ingrained in their little society, homosexuality is wrong!

Originally posted by static76
Give me evidence that high school is a heaven for gay bashing, because right now I see it no more prevalent than racism, sexism, or any the norm.

Take a look at a few of these links:

http://www.pflag.org/education/schools.html
http://www.sexetc.org/stories/genStoriesArticleDetail.asp?aid=art_1092
http://www.pflag.org/education/hatecrimes.html
http://parentingteens.about.com/cs/gayteens/

It seems as if very many school districts, as well as many organizations around the nation seem to see this problem which you appear to be blind to. The fact is, if you are openly gay in high-school you will be subjected to verbal and likely physical abuse on those grounds, and usually on a regular basis. This is true of homosexuals out in the real world, as well, unless you happen to live in a very uncharacteristically tolerant setting you WILL be targeted. This is a very real problem, but don't just take my word for it, or just the sources that I provide you with, go out searching on your own, look into this, ask any gay friends you may have who were out in high-school. Violence and abuse in a homosexual's life is something of a grim inevitability.

 

[jps]

Originally posted by SpyMoose
go back a few pages and take a look at my link to the harasment statistics for gay teens on the PFLAG website.

Ok. I did. The fact that the abuse is severe does not change anything.
Setting up a seperate school is like admitting that our public schools cannot be made safe for all the students which is something we should never accept.

 

[Mystech]

Originally posted by jps
Ok. I did. The fact that the abuse is severe does not change anything.
Setting up a seperate school is like admitting that our public schools cannot be made safe for all the students which is something we should never accept.

But should we, then just turn a blind eye to it all? We can't control everyone's minds. So long as the cultural climate stands as it is, there's not a hell of a lot that can be done. This solution is perhaps the most effective toward the end of making homosexual kids feel that they are in a safe learning environment.

 

[jps]

Originally posted by Mystech
But should we, then just turn a blind eye to it all? We can't control everyone's minds. So long as the cultural climate stands as it is, there's not a hell of a lot that can be done. This solution is perhaps the most effective toward the end of making homosexual kids feel that they are in a safe learning environment.

I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye, i'm saying we should make the public schools safe for everyone. If anything, the kids making the schools unsafe for gay students should be sent to special reformatory schools

 

[Mystech]

Originally posted by jps
I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye, i'm saying we should make the public schools safe for everyone. If anything, the kids making the schools unsafe for gay students should be sent to special reformatory schools

I like that line of thinking, too. It's a much better solution than simply letting the gay kids removes themselves from normal public schools if they choose. However, as easy as it is to talk about doing something like that, it'd be all but impossible to actually implement. It's a huge and complex problem, and I honestly don't think that there is any quick and dirty way to get results from that kind of strategy short of completely hijacking the public school system and bogging it down with homosexual issues. Even then, such action could cause a backlash, so hell that probably wouldn’t even work.

 

[jps]

I actually think our educational system for the most part should be rebuilt from scratch.
It may be that this gay-only school will make things easier for some kids and thats great, but I think it sets a bad precedent.

 

[TheEnd]

At both highschools I attended, I don't remember there ever once being a problem with descrimination of any kind. Hearing of things like the Columbine shootings always simply struck me as odd. Here were two boys who'd apparently been tortured to the point of going on a homocidal rage..I never witnessed, even once, anything like what apparently goes on in some parts of the country.

 

[Tiassa]

Stories (brief, I promise)

When I was in fifth grade, I sat in the classroom for ... an hour or so I think ... while my teacher chewed out the entire class. We later found out the entire fifth grade got it, whether we were there for the incident or not. But apparently a bottle of spilled apple juice resulted in pants-wetting jokes which resulted in a sudden feeding-frenzy which apparently resulted in five or six of our social-climbers beating the most effeminate boy in the class for being a girl. The part of the classroom my teacher spent the most time yelling at was the first-tier cool group cloistered on one side of the room. Apparently, the alphas of the herd chose to cheer on the beating.

A faggot-related aside in ninth grade ended up with me in two fistfights and I eventually assaulted a teacher. I got away with it because the administration knew, schoolwide, it was a matter of time before one of the lone wolves started devouring people. (At that school I got away with every fight I ever got in on the grounds that people really were stupid enough to start it with me. I even got away with taking a chick up on a challenge to a fight, but that's because they were busy managing the near-riot that resulted in a Hollywood-like flash escalation of several fights. It was an ... amazing day. Everybody in a PE class of forty who had a problem with someone else in the room suddenly decided to have it out after the mega-obese special-ed student went stratospheric all over the teacher and one of the metal-stoners that were of the mold that would eventually inspire Beavis and Butthead. As to my contribution to that morning, I quote Tim O'Brien: Boom-down. Like a sack of concrete. Needless to say she had a better, attitude for the most part after that.)

One of my junior high school's top agitators and suave operators would eventually see his world collapse. People "thought" he was gay. He shot himself with a shotgun at 17. I heard about it a year later. The last day of school in ninth grade I passed on an opportunity to fight him because I was ready to kill him. Needless to say, I was not dignified when I received the news. The dead through my high school years hurt dearly. That one of the worst people I knew of chose to kill himself rather than simply change his image or be thought of as gay ... well, I always knew he was that stupid; I won't pretend I received the news with anything other than zealously angry glee.

In a non-faggot issue, I was once attacked by three people for looking too Asian. The school chose to hold me accountable for being in a fight. And I learned for the second of about four times in my youth exactly how stupid my parents are. ("Well if you didn't do anything wrong, why are they punishing you?" Because they punish everybody in fights. "Well why did you get in a fight?" Because they jumped me. "Well what did you do to upset them?" How do you look at your white adoptive parents and say ... I exist.)

By the time I got to Catholic school, people had generally gotten over it. They simply presumed I was Satan.

May good fortune continue to smile upon you, TheEnd. I'm glad you were spared the battlegrounds. I knew how to make explosives in high school. The big difference is that we never actually blew anyone up. Then again, when the Beavis-and-Butthead metal-stoners set the vice-principal's truck on fire in junior high, it didn't even make the local Herald.

:m:,
Tiassa