Young Gays traumatized by shooting

by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

While the eyes of the world seemed trained on the families and friends of 12 students and one teacher who were killed during the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, about 75 Gay teenagers huddled in a meeting room the Wednesday night following the Tuesday, April 20, incident. The Gay teens assembled about 15 miles from Columbine, in the downtown Denver headquarters of Rainbow Alley, a youth program operated by Colorado's Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Services Center.

They were out of the media spotlight, but the Gay teens, who came from the Denver metropolitan area, including the suburb where Columbine High is located, expressed many of the same concerns and fears that Columbine students were expressing in press interviews. Just like their classmates at Columbine High, the Gay teenagers at Rainbow Alley talked about their grief and horror over the 15 deaths - including the two shooters, who committed suicide - and the wounding of 23 others inside the Columbine school building. They talked about how sorry they felt for the surviving families and friends of the shooting victims.

But, unlike their peers at Columbine, the Gay teens also expressed fear about rumors that claimed that Columbine killers Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, may have been Gay. The Rainbow Alley teens feared such rumors would trigger a backlash against area students who were known to be Gay and those perceived to be Gay.

There has been no confirmation or reliable evidence to establish that Harris or Klebold were Gay. Both teenagers committed suicide inside the school library a few feet from where they had shot and killed most of their victims. The rumors seemed based on little more than another rumor - that the two sometimes painted their fingernails black as part of their Trench Coat Mafia uniform. The rumors seemed undiminished by the fact that many of Harris and Klebold's friends insisted the two troubled youths were straight, that both took female dates to the school prom less than a week before they unleashed their shooting rampage, or by the news that the girlfriend of one of the teens has been implicated in helping the two acquire the weapons they used.

But whether Klebold and Harris were Gay or straight or something else, nearly a dozen Columbine students who talked to the press reported that Harris and Klebold had been harassed mercilessly with anti-Gay taunts from other students, many of whom were "jocks." The student harassers repeatedly called Harris and Klebold "faggots," fellow students told news reporters.

Some of the anti-Gay heckling directed against Harris and Klebold could have been due to their "Goth" style of dress, which was said to include the occasional wearing of makeup and black fingernail polish, Columbine students have said.

Although there has been extensive press coverage of the Columbine shooting, all seeking to explain "why" the shootings occurred, virtually none of the mainstream media outlets have pointed out that the Columbine incident marked the fourth time that a student-on-student attack in a U.S. public school during the past two years involved students who were harassed by anti-Gay taunting. In the previous incidents:

Fifteen-year-old Michael Carneal told court-appointed psychologists prior to his murder trial that anti-Gay taunting by fellow students played a key role in his decision to seek revenge. In 1997, Carneal fired a .22 caliber handgun at fellow students at his high school in Paducha, Ky., killing three and wounding five.

Fifteen-year-old Matthew Santoni allegedly stabbed a Northhampton, Mass., high school classmate last May who was said to have been a ringleader of an anti-Gay teasing campaign that targeted Santoni.

Fourteen-year-old Barry Loukaitis shot two classmates and a teacher in 1996 in his Moses Lake, Wash., junior high school. His prime target was a fellow male student who repeatedly had taunted him by calling him "faggot."

"You could see it in their eyes," Smith said. "It was a real gut-level human emotion of being in fear for being different. A lot of them said they were afraid to go back to school the next day."

Smith and others involved in Gay youth programs in Colorado and across the country said they expected the Columbine incident to wreak havoc on the emotions of many Gay young people throughout the nation. On the one hand, youth advocates note, Gay teens are frequently the targets of anti-Gay taunting and harassment in school and of anti-Gay violence by fellow students. Because of this, Gay teens could empathize with what Harris and Klebold reportedly experienced at Columbine. On the other hand, advocates for Gay youth say, Gay teens are likely to be even more apprehensive that Harris's and Klebold's shooting rampage will prompt other students to lash out against students who are perceived to be Gay, as a form of retaliation for Harris's and Klebold's actions.

On top of all this, youth advocates say, Gay teens share the anguish over the Columbine killings and like many other students are fearful that they could be caught in the crossfire of yet another senseless school shooting incident.

"We're all bracing for what may come up next," said Christa Kriesel, program specialist on Gay youth issues for the Boulder, Colo., health department. "What happened at Columbine High is a huge and horrifically dramatic wake-up call. It shows how volatile homophobia can be, regardless of whether its targets are Gay or straight."

Advocates for Gay youth have long declared Gay teens to be an "at risk" population. They cite studies showing that Gay and bisexual students are much more likely than others to be victims of violent attacks in school. Studies conducted in school systems in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Washington state, for example, show that Gay and bisexual students had been threatened or injured with a weapon at their schools at rates of up to four times greater than that of other students.

The Blade asked Rainbow Alley officials if they could arrange for interviews with some of their teen members about the Columbine High incident and about how the incident has affected them. Emily Hassler, director of the Rainbow Alley program, said no one would agree to an interview, even anonymously.

"I'm not getting any kids willing to do this," Hassler said. "This has been real tough for them."

This article appeared in the Washington Blade http://www.washblade.com/ issue of: May 7, 1999

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