An 'outing' of historical proportions
Newton school sparks debate with display

By Doreen Iudica Vigue, Globe Staff

NEWTON - The bulletin board at the Oak Hill Middle School artfully displays photos of 14 ''gay and lesbian contributors'' to world history - including two choices that may surprise some - Eleanor Roosevelt and William Shakespeare.

The schoolhouse ''outing'' of the pair, whom historians have never demonstrated were gay, was inspired by the desire to show youngsters ''it's OK to be gay,'' school officials said.

The debate is as old as homosexuality itself: When should the privacy rights of prominent figures who never admitted being gay or lesbian be superseded by society's desire to use them as symbols - either as role models or examples of undesirable behavior?

''Kids commit suicide over their sexuality; it's up to us to take this issue from under the covers, and say, `It's OK, it's normal,''' said Sheila Trunk, the art teacher who came up with the idea for the board and used as her reference a 1992 book by Paul Russell called, ''The Gay 100.''

''If kids question how the wife of a president could be gay, good. Then we can get into a discussion about bisexuality. It's about making them think, and teaching tolerance and respect.''

Most parents at the school apparently agree. Principal Murph Shapiro said feedback from students has been positive, and only a few parents have complained. One parent told his daughter to question whether Trunk was sure Alexander the Great was gay; another called Shapiro to complain that the display condones ''sinful'' behavior.

But some scholars say the ''outing'' of historical figures, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, for whom no solid proof exists that she was gay, is risky.

''The problem is, when you use those definitions and start talking about history, you are taking some chances,'' said Arthur Lipkin, an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of the forthcoming book, ''Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools.'' He says that while the intentions behind the school's effort are laudable, ''You cannot definitively call someone gay unless there is better proof than what we now have. She may have considered herself bisexual. We just don't know any of that for sure to accurately label it.''

There is no question the first lady, an outspoken feminist ahead of her time, and the famous bard who left his wife and children in the countryside to cavort with actors in London, led unconventional lives. But the ''evidence'' in their writings of homosexual lifestyles has been a hotly debated subject for at least 20 years, scholars and historians say.

Even ''The Gay 100'' in its descriptions of both Roosevelt and Shakespeare, leaves the door open to debate, declaring for instance in the case of Shakespeare that while some authors have ''proved'' he was gay and others have ''proved'' he was not, ''the fact that Shakespeare's sonnets have been read as homosexual texts by a not insubstantial number of readers ... merits his ranking in this list.''

Staff members at Oak Hills say the need to lessen the stigma of homosexuality among youth outweighs the need for what they view as historical hairsplitting.

Before the board went up, students were using `gay' as an insult in their hallway talk, Shapiro said. Thanks to its prominence over the past month - and some stern discussions by teachers - it ''is teaching them that gay is good.''

''By acknowledging homosexuality this publicly, it takes away the sting, the negatives that kids so often associate with it,'' said Shapiro.

One student told Trunk that one of her relatives ''came out'' to her family recently and, because of the bulletin board, the student felt able to handle the situation better than the adults - and told him what good company he is in, said Trunk.

Although many biographies of Roosevelt have detailed her passionate, intimate letters to ''first friend'' Lorena Hickock, Roosevelt never publicly described her sexual orientation. And, although some of Shakespeare's sonnets have recently been interpreted as having been written for men, he, too, never publicly disclosed his sexual preference.

In her acclaimed biography about the Roosevelts, ''No Ordinary Time,'' historian Doris Kearns Goodwin addresses Eleanor's relationship with Lorena directly, quoting the sometimes sensual letters between the two where they talk of tender kisses and longing for hugs. But she notes that whether their relationship became sexual is a question ''there is absolutely no way we can answer with certainty.''

On the issue of whether to use as a model for children someone who never publicly acknowledged their orientation, Shapiro said, ''There is nothing bad about being gay, and so I don't think Eleanor Roosevelt would mind being called gay.''

But Lipkin and others, such as Neal Kane, editor of ''Improper Bostonians,'' a book about lesbian and gay history in Boston, said it is problematic to apply 20th century definitions to historical characters. ''They are our own inventions and culture and don't apply to people of another time, like these two,'' he said.

Said Kane, ''What we did in our research was examine figures who had intense relationships with people of the same sex and let the reader decide.''

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