step may- high school days

This day is dedicated to the one hundred thirty-five Elk Grove High School kids who will one day fight for the right to love a member of the same sex.”

Wednesday: six members of Gay Liberation—one gay woman, four gay men, and Susan, the Polymorphous Perverse—travel to a white middle-class suburban high school to talk to a succession of sociology classes.

The six of us sit facing the class; the kids sit quietly, listening. What’s going on inside their heads? Do they hate us, are they afraid of us? Do they view us as a curiosity? It occurs to me that the most freaked-out person in the room may be one of the gay high school kids in his closet, struggling to control his emotions, not to let it show. His face is calm, he sits quietly, while his guts are ripping apart, his mind in turmoil.

We each give a short rap, then open it up to discussion. A girl asks us why we set ourselves apart from straight society, why we alienate ourselves. I tell her that the straight world sets us apart, not we ourselves. I tell her we’re alienated because we don’t marry members of the opposite sex, settle in Elk Grove Village, have kids.

Another student asks why, if God wanted homosexuality, did he first create a heterosexual couple? Someone else answers, while I frame my own, silent answer in my mind. It doesn’t matter what it says in the Bible; it’s fantasy, it’s made up. I don’t care what God wanted. It’s what I want that matters. But I don’t say that—wouldn’t want them to think all homosexuals are atheists.

Richard talks about his parents. “My parents know I’m gay. Their reactions are rather typical. My father tells me to go see a psychiatrist. My mother thinks I’ve made a bad decision.” The kids crack up. It’s great to hear them laugh. It says to us that they know that nobody decides to be gay; that we feel it in our guts, the same as straight people.

Another girl speaks up. (We’ve received five or six responses from girls. Not a single one from a guy. Why? Are the guys really that uptight, that insecure about their sexuality?) She asks, what determines whether a person becomes a heterosexual or a homosexual? Shelly answers that a gay man usually has a traumatic experience in his background. A woman’s gayness is determined more by social context. I disagree. I don’t think science has anything to say about sexuality. Neither social science, physical science, nor biological science. I say so. There’s disagreement on the panel. Gay Liberation has no correct line.

A couple of guys finally speak up. That’s an improvement.

There’s humor, honesty, exchange of ideas. Kids asking questions that would shock their parents. Have you ever slept with a member of the opposite sex? Do you want to have sex with every member of the same sex that you see?

(We’ve just learned that the local press has been alerted to our presence, possibly by an alarmed parent. A reporter is on her way. We’ll drive off this afternoon, leaving the sociology team and the principal to deal with the coming storm. We won’t even be aware of whatever goes on after we depart . . . hit and run: gay guerrillas.)

Toward the end of each period I declare that there are three or four or five gay kids in the room besides ourselves. My friends tell me after second period that I’m putting the gay kids uptight, that they must think for one terrified second that I’ve spotted them, will point them out. So I change my rap. “According to the Kinsey Report, 5 percent of the population is gay. We can therefore expect that 5 percent of the kids in this class are gay, blah, blah . . .” I tell the gay kids, whoever they may be, that they should memorize the telephone number written on the board (they won’t incriminate themselves by copying it down) and call if they want to talk about it. I wonder what I would have done if I’d been a high school senior and had suddenly been presented with a number I could call to talk to a fellow homosexual for the first time. I wonder if I would have called.

(In fact, it was in high school that I first became aware that I was gay. A friend asked me what homosexual meant. I looked it up in the dictionary and was mind-blown to find that the definition described an aspect of me. The story of my gay birth in front of an unabridged dictionary is unique. The rest of the Toms River High School story is the same as the Elk Grove High School story. I’m telling the gay kids a history that they’re living, that they know, but probably haven’t heard told before.)

“I couldn’t tell any of my friends that I was gay. I was ashamed. I thought I was perverted, a freak. I couldn’t sit around with the other kids when they were carrying on about their current crushes [that had to be deferred until now, when at twenty-two I babble on incessantly about the guy I like]. I couldn’t go out on dates with guys, didn’t want to go to parties or dances with girls. The worst part is having to internalize it all. You pack in the unspent energy, the untold thoughts, the unrealized longings, the unreleased emotions, pack ’em in, pack ’em in, until you think you’re going to blow apart. But you never do. Just painful day after tormented day after anguished day.”

As I say this I know it sounds awfully maudlin—yet I must, so that no one will get the idea that it isn’t hell. Because it is. People should know that. I feel a great love and concern for the gay kids in the class, a great empathy for their suffering. I wonder if any of them will call.

Now it’s fifth period and the room is packed. Kids on the floor, against the walls, sharing seats. The atmosphere is electric, everyone has a sense that something special is happening. We hardly have a chance to start our short presentations when hands start waving. Someone tells us she’s had a puritanical upbringing. “Shouldn’t some temptations be resisted? Should moral values be generated from within a person or should they come from an outside source?” I ask her, what outside source—Church? State? Yes, the Church is what she had in mind. I reply that religion has nothing to tell me, that it’s a bunch of myths. I’m surprised when there’s a burst of applause. We talk about morality, about happiness, about hurting people. “In terms of hurting people,” I say, “the Church is the most immoral institution in the world.” Oh brother, now I’ve done it. A gay atheist. Does anyone suspect that I’m a communist?

Yet before I know it, I’m doing it again. I’m attacking the family, marriage. “A child should not be subject to the domination and absolute dictates of the two people who happen to be his biological parents. Children should be raised communally by all adults—men, women, gays, straights.” There’s no response to this one. The kids are hearing it for the first time. I only heard it myself for the first time a few weeks ago. I had to think about it. Now they’ll think about it. I’m glad I said it.

Someone asks me if my parents know. Not yet. It wasn’t too hard for me to come out, because my parents are in New Jersey, a good safe distance away. But you’re going to see some real courage when gay high school kids start coming out, telling their friends, being up-front, organizing. Two guys’ll go to the prom together. Their four parents will look down from the balcony and agree that Jimmy and Tommy make a cute couple. 

We’ll celebrate the day that High School Gay Liberation gets rolling at home. They’re gonna start dating. A girl’s gonna call up a girl she likes and ask her if she wants to go to the movies. “If you don’t wanna go,” she’ll tell her, “just say no.” Gay kids’ll dance together wherever straight kids dance. Two guys’ll walk down the hall holding hands. They’ll protest when they’re discriminated against, they’re not gonna take that shit anymore. And they’ll be happy. That’s right, folks. Gay high school students will be happy. I hope the first High School Gay Liberation group is at Elk Grove. Young Gay Pioneers. I’ll be proud of them.

“I’ve heard about suburban high school sociology. One day an ex-convict comes in. He tells how he’s seen the error of his ways. He’s reformed and things are much better than they were (aren’t they?). Then a dope addict who’s kicked the habit. A prostitute who’s gotten a ‘decent’ job. So here’s your homosexual. Only he’s not reforming. Nothing to reform. Only to liberate. Things are gonna be so much better.”