A short speech I wrote and presented at today’s faculty meeting
I am addressing you this morning on behalf of our students who are members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, and also for those kids who hang on the periphery of the club.
First of all, a little history: the Gay-Straight Alliance started up here at Mayfair just last year, in the spring — although GSAs have existed in high schools around the country since the ‘90s. There’s an enormous national network of GSAs. Our little baby GSA will be participating in our 3rd club’s day this week, passing out ribbons and raising awareness. We’re a club that is still finding its identity and its purpose — well, obviously, a Gay-Straight Alliance has a ready-made identity and a purpose on a philosophical or symbolic level, but on a practical level, the kids have been trying to figure out what they want to do, and how they can contribute productively to life at our school.
But then, unfortunately, the recent tragic suicide of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi brought national attention to issue of bullying. It also brought attention to three other teen suicides that had not really made national news: Seth Walsh, 13, in California; Asher Brown, 13, in Texas; and Billy Lucas, 15, in Indiana. These teens, bullied by their peers for being different, decided that the best thing to do was to end their lives.
I have always been impressed by Mayfair’s diversity, and by how well we get along. We don’t, as a rule, experience many of the social tensions that we read about on other campuses. But, all the same, the students of the GSA have asked me to deliver this message.
As the adults on campus, please hold the line — in your classrooms and anytime within your earshot — on the phrase, “That’s so gay,” or any of the gay, faggoty, or queer quips that kids come up with. These phrases may seem meaningless to some of us, analogous to saying that something is dumb or juvenile. In fact, the phrase “that’s so gay” travels up with kids from the elementary schools, so in that sense, it is juvenile; it is also a phrase that many kids use, and are able to use apparently without being consistently challenged by adults.
But that phrase — no matter how benign it may seem to you — does two things for sure: first, there are kids who hear this as deeply offensive – comparable to hearing the Lord’s name in vain, or the f-word, or the n-word, or any racist or hate speech. But secondly, and more importantly, I think, is that it contributes to an atmosphere that accepts such speech and therefore accepts such thinking.
There is a young man on our campus who comes to the GSA meetings, and I don’t know his name. (I tend to sit to the side, and let the kids run their meeting.) And although he did not share this story with me himself, his friends have told me that because of his appearance and his demeanor, he is regularly a target of hostile speech that is delivered in the friendliest of tones. Kids walk past him and say, “Hey, there’s that faggot,” or “Hey! Aren’t you a faggot?” Fortunately, this student has a strong network of support through his family and his friends, so he has developed the confidence and the necessary inner resources to cope with these exchanges, but why on earth should he have to? And what about the kids who don’t have supportive families, or have only a few friends? Or no friends they can really count on?
Now, kids are crafty, and mostly manage to hold back their worst behavior when adults are present. I am sure that if any of us had heard anyone address this young man as a faggot, we would have stepped in and said something. But we are not going to always witness the things that happen on this campus. There’s the world we know about, and then, there is another world entirely.
I’d like to suggest that a campus that tolerates “that’s so gay,” is to some degree complicit when kids use more aggressive hate speech, like “hey, are you a faggot?”
So just like the frayed jeans rule, let’s not make it up to the kids to decide what degree of hate speech is OK. Say no to all of it. In the classroom, in the walkways, in the gym —hold the line on any form of hate speech, including the phrase, “that’s so gay.”
Thank you.
