Dear Safe Schools Coalition members and friends,
Shattering the labels
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By Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe, May 15, 2002
Box 2378, Boston, MA, 02107
(Fax:617-929-2098 ) (E-Mail:letter@globe.com )
( http://www.boston.com/globe )
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/135/oped/Shattering_the_labels+.shtml
Speaking last weekend before the Greater Boston chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, I mentioned the late writer James Baldwin. Baldwin said "thank heaven" that "all of the American categories of male and female, straight or not, black or white, were shattered very early in my life. Not without anguish, certainly, but once you have discerned the meaning of a label, it may seem to define you for others, but it does not have the power to define you to yourself."
That was an appropriate way to ask the crowd to give another round of applause to two young people who refused to let labels define themselves. Chad Newman of Triton Regional High School and Hannah Zipple of Somerville High School were the two winners of the group's essay contest. The contest was for the essays that best described how a student was changed by her or his involvement in a gay-straight alliance at school or in their town.
Newman wrote, "When I finally did come out of the closet to my friends and family in my junior year, it was like a breath of fresh air I hadn't smelled in years." Newman, a member of the Triton Youth Alliance, said that in the course of making newsletters, posters, and logos, he did more than promote acceptance. "It was allowing me to build confidence in who I was," he said. "The more I became involved with it, the more comfortable I became with myself. I soon stopped purposely lowering my voice so that it was deeper, and I stopped worrying about excessive hand motions. I forgot those mannerisms that made me insecure before."
Zipple said her experience with the gay-straight alliance at Somerville High taught her both not to accept homophobic remarks and to try and talk to people who make such remarks without labeling them as "bad." She wrote:"I will not be mute. I will not sit idly at a table and listen to others speak when I have something to contribute.... While I strive to not act hostile towards people who say unkind things, I leave no room for such language. I will not be silent anymore when my voice is relevant and appropriate. I will no longer be afraid to disagree with someone, but I will not judge him or her solely by the issues on which we diverge."
Like Newman, Zipple said her experience with the gay-straight alliance gave her "a sense of self-acceptance." She said she was once "very quiet in class, at lunch, and around other people for a long time, but not anymore." She said, "I will continue to be socially and politically active, promoting sexual, religious, ethnic, gender-related, and cultural tolerance and unity between all people."
Newman and Zipple got a strong whiff at the dinner of just how much their voices will be needed in the future. While an increasing majority of Americans now tell pollsters gay and lesbian people deserve basic antidiscrimination rights in the workplace, 61 percent of gay and lesbian people told a major Newsweek poll that they have suffered an antigay slur and 67 percent of gay and lesbian people say they have been at the receiving end of an antigay joke.
While Americans display decreasing resistance to gay and lesbian employees making money for the Fortune 500 or helping the military bomb the latest bogeyman, there is still potent resistance to recognizing the full humanity of gay and lesbian people. Americans are split in the polls over gay marriage and adoptions into gay families and whether homosexuality is a sin. In Massachusetts and several other states, mean-spirited advocacy groups are actively campaigning to ban gay marriage and block or take away domestic partner benefits.
But with people like Newman and Zipple, perhaps those attitudes will change. While most politicians still feel they have to block gay and lesbian people from the full humanity afforded to heterosexual couples and single straight people in order to win votes, two-thirds of high school students in a Zogby poll said gay and lesbian people should be allowed to marry and adopt children.
One day some of those students will become the shapers of laws and social policy. Two of them are likely to be Newman and Zipple. Newman said being gay "does not mean you have to be a stereotype." Zipple said she will no longer be mute. Because of her activism, she talked with the mayor of Somerville to address antigay harassment at the high school. "I listen more closely to the other voice," Zipple said, "and I have my own with which to speak."
* Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com
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The Safe Schools Coalition is a public-private partnership of 80+ organizations (government agencies, schools, community agencies, churches, youth/student groups, gay/lesbian groups, human rights groups) and 400+ individuals working to help schools become safe places where every family can belong, where every educator can teach, and where every child can learn,
regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.
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Last updated 5/16/2002 by Jean Richter, richter@eecs.Berkeley.EDU