(Time)
Cabot, a charming village of 1,000 in the heart of northern
Vermont's dairy country, is known for its world-famous cheese,
not its gay activists. That's one reason why Palmer Legare is so
unusual. Earlier this year, he founded Cabot's first and only
lesbian and gay group and circulated a petition supporting gay
rights. Two weeks ago, he discussed gay issues with the state's
Governor, Democrat Howard Dean. The other unusual thing about
Legare is that he's just 17, and his group meets at Cabot High
School.
Gina De Vries is only 14 and lives a continent away from Legare,
in San Francisco, but perhaps not quite a world apart. Having
come out to her parents and schoolmates at age 12, she now calls
herself "a queer youth activist"--an identification she uses
effortlessly, as though she were saying "ninth grader" or
"aspiring poet," other terms that describe her. Articulate
beyond her years, De Vries' work with a gay youth group led to
her appointment to an advisory committee of the city's Human
Rights Commission. She is, by more than a decade, the
committee's youngest member. Jarringly precocious, she scheduled
an interview with TIME for a Saturday morning, sparing enough
time to attend a "transgender film festival" later that day.
For a country that had a hard time with the coming-out of a
39-year-old TV actress earlier this year, the whole notion of
the boy next door eyeing the boy next door--and talking about
it--is startling. The emergence of gay youth like Legare and De
Vries is sparking the newest battles in the decades-old brawl
over gay rights, which at the local level is more focused than
ever on schools. Groups like Legare's have formed in schools
(mostly public ones) in 25 states, according to the
Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network, an advocacy group based
in New York City. The organization at one time primarily helped
homosexual teachers; these days it employs a 19-year-old to
coordinate the student groups, usually called Gay-Straight
Alliances (heterosexual students are generally welcome).
Executive director Kevin Jennings says just two such alliances
existed in 1991, when he founded the network; now there are more
than 100.
More broadly, according to Columbia University researcher Joyce
Hunter, 3% to 10% of U.S. teens now tell pollsters they are gay,
lesbian, bisexual or "questioning" their orientation; in the San
Francisco Bay Area, the figure is 18%, according to one recent
study. While reliable historical statistics don't exist, Hunter
says few teens came out when she began examining gay youth in
the early '70s. "The change has been enormous," she says. Lonely
gay kids can find solace in two Webzines, dozens of online chat
rooms and some 500 community support groups, usually run by
social workers not affiliated with local schools.
Some churches are doing more to shepherd gay kids, in part
because studies have shown that suicide rates among young gays
may be quadruple those of heterosexual teens. In September, the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops urged parents of gay
children to demonstrate love for their sons and daughters and to
recognize that "generally, homosexual orientation is experienced
as a given, not as something freely chosen." The bishops made
clear, however, that they believe homosexual sex is wrong. There
is, of course, some evidence that homosexuality is something of
a fad among young people. On a few college campuses, the term
"gay until graduation" is used derisively to describe those who
experiment with gay sex. Gay equality has nonetheless become a
'90s version of Birkenstock environmentalism for many youths.
Even in certain parts of suburbia, gay is becoming more than
O.K.; it's cool.
But for most students taking baby steps from the closet, the
decision to broadcast homosexual feelings is fraught with the
possibility of negative, even violent reaction. The students
often dislike lying to classmates but know the consequences of
coming out can be dire. After Legare circulated a petition last
spring urging Cabot to combat antigay bigotry, some students
yelled "faggot" at him. An athlete in four sports, Legare didn't
suffer the worst abuse because, he says, "I'm not
stereotypically gay." But he was once shoved and kicked. For De
Vries, harassment came in the form of vulgarities whispered
behind her back.
Once Legare and De Vries spoke up, however, administrators
responded. Legare persuaded 34 of Cabot High's 100 students to
sign his petition, which led to faculty meetings and his
discussion with Governor Dean in a gathering with other gay
youths. Since school started, Legare says, he has heard "faggot"
just once. Similarly, even at the Catholic school De Vries used
to attend, several teachers applauded her for fighting antigay
attitudes. She's now enrolled at a private school where everyone
knows she's a lesbian.
Others aren't so lucky. According to a 1995 Massachusetts study,
62% of students identifying themselves as gay, lesbian or
bisexual said they had been in a fight in the previous year, in
contrast to 37% of all students. According to the
Gay-Lesbian-Straight Network's Jennings, administrators often do
little to stop the violence. Some of the stories are harrowing.
Jamie Nabozny, who in the early '90s attended high school in
Ashland, Wis., says he was kicked in the stomach so many times
he required surgery. A group of boys also urinated on him.
Robert McDonald, 20, a former student at Jefferson Township High
School in southern New Jersey, claims he was spat upon while he
rode the bus and beaten up after track practice one day.
Gay bashing is nothing new, but what's unusual is that these
students are holding their schools accountable. In 1996 Nabozny
brought a groundbreaking federal lawsuit alleging that
administrators hadn't done enough to protect him. A jury agreed,
and the school district settled for $900,000. Four similar
lawsuits have followed--McDonald filed one in October--and the
U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines in March barring
certain kinds of antigay harassment.
Elsewhere, efforts to form gay-straight alliances have caused a
backlash from officials who don't want schools to endorse gay
rights. In the most noted case, the state of Utah banned gay
school clubs last year after students at Salt Lake City's East
High formed such a group. The legislature got involved because
the local school board feared that targeting gay clubs could
provoke a lawsuit. Indeed, the Lambda Legal Defense and
Education Fund has used legal threats to shelter gay-straight
alliances at more than 20 schools nationally. Ironically, the
fund's primary weapon is the federal Equal Access Act, a 1984
law designed to safeguard religious groups. The act says schools
must treat clubs equally, regardless of beliefs. Lambda has
found no student willing to bring a suit challenging Utah's
statewide ban. Nevertheless, the East High group still meets
each Thursday, skirting the ban by paying a fee to rent a
classroom.
Last year, school boards in Anchorage and in Niskayuna, N.Y.,
voted to allow gay-straight alliances after nasty debates. And
last month, the Hemet, Calif., school board narrowly approved a
measure protecting gay students from harassment. A remarkable
feature of these skirmishes is that they have been fought
largely as local issues, without national attention. Neither the
Christian Coalition nor the Human Rights Campaign, the country's
largest gay group, has developed a strategy to deal with the
emergence of gay youth. Indeed, most gay organizations have
avoided children's issues, apparently fearing the old charge
that gays try to "recruit" kids. For conservatives, the
appearance of gay teens presents a p.r. challenge, since young
local faces can win sympathy and trump charges of outside
influence by gay activists.
For the students themselves, coming out is as personal as it is
political. After Christopher Humphreys, 18, came out at West
Valley High in Hemet, he received death threats. But he held his
ground and in May took a friend named Dan to the prom. His date
forgot his boutonniere, and other guests hurled dirty looks, but
in the end, he and Dan slow-danced to The Lady in Red, one of
Humphreys' favorites.
[BOX]
Class of 2001
SCHOOL: Urban School, San Francisco
NAME: Gina De Vries
AGE: 14
ACTIVITIES: Serves on the lesbian and gay advisory committee of
the city's Human Rights Commission
SHE SAYS: I've had it easier
than a lot of the queer kids I know.
Class of 1998
SCHOOL: Cabot High School, Cabot, Vermont
NAME: Palmer Legare
AGE: 17
ACTIVITIES: Founder of Cabot's first and only lesbian and gay
group
HE SAYS: I didn't think I could do anything about [anti-gay
discrimination] at least until
I graduated from high school.
JOHN CLOUD, SOCIETY: OUT, PROUD
AND VERY YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS ARE EMERGING AS NEVER BEFORE. BUT THESE NEW
ACTIVISTS STILL FACE THE OLD PREJUDICES. , Time, 12-08-1997, pp 82+.