(Alberta Report / Western Report)
Toronto opens an alternative school for homosexuals
cartoon
This week the doors to Canada's first exclusive "gay-positive" school
will open. Under the patronage of the Toronto Board of Education (TBE),
25 seats will be offered to 16- to 21-year-olds who desire a segregated
(but tax-funded) high school geared to making them feel good about
homosexuality.
The new Triangle program is meant for students who are "uncomfortable
with homophobic attitudes" in ordinary public schools, explains TBE
trustee John Campey, himself a homosexual. Students do not have to
be homosexual to attend, he adds. They may have homosexual parents,
for example, or may simply be "seeking a safer place" to study.
To the Toronto school board, "safer" does not mean heterosexual. "
All of the teachers are going to be 'out'--transgendered, bisexual,
gay or lesbian," says Patty Barclay, the school's part-time lesbian
phys-ed instructor. The full time-teacher, John Tempstra, is a homosexual.
Classes will be held in spaces donated by Toronto's famously gay-friendly
Metropolitan Community Church, where pastor Brent Fox caters especially
to homosexuals and lesbians.
There will be no rigidly graded curriculum in the Triangle program.
Instead students of various ages and academic accomplishments will
learn together, Little House on the Prairie-style, with a teacher
to satisfy their personal needs as they arise.
The course material itself will be "gay-positive," adds trustee Campey.
"It will accentuate the achievements of homosexuals." That means,
he says, time will be taken out of computer class, for instance, to
teach that Alan Turing, the computer's inventor practised sodomy.
"That's rarely mentioned in regular schools," says Mr. Campey.
Some historical figures will be outed posthumously. During art class
students won't simply study Michelangelo's David or Leonardo da Vinci'
s Mona Lisa, explains Mr. Campey. They will be instructed to "explore"
both artists' homosexuality, (though it is hotly contested elsewhere
whether either one was indeed homosexual).
Special attention will be given to characters like sassy NDP MP Svend
Robinson, and to lesbian tennis superstar Martina Navratilova.
During the first week, adds gym teacher Ms. Barclay, 37, classes will
include "sharing 'coming out' stories" in "oral history" class. Students
and teachers will tell all of sex changes or struggles with sexual
identity, peers, and parents in the classroom.
And of course, the curriculum will include a heaping share of "safe
sex" instruction. The idea for the school came from Tony Gambini,
a homosexual social worker hired by the board three years ago to campaign
against homophobia in schools. He has been to more than 200 classrooms
encouraging students to "come out" and delivering racy "safe sex"
pamphlets about sodomy. "There will be nothing offered in the Triangle
program that shouldn't be offered in a regular school setting," says
Mr. Campey.
The chief criticism of the gay school is that it segregates students,
ironically when all other programs are geared to integrating students
of all sorts and capabilities. But the board's Mr. Campey insists
that the program is not segregation, but geared to re-integrating
students into the mainstream school--eventually. "Eleven of the 12
students who had registered for the program as of two weeks ago had
already dropped out of school
because of homophobia," says Mr. Campey.
Some are unimpressed by the defence. "Where do you draw the line?"
wonders Gwen Landolt, vice-president of REAL Women. "Why don't we
have a school for fat people who feel bad about their weight?" she
asks. "That's just as absurd."
Peggy Anderson, president of the Calgary Local Council of Women and
trustee candidate for Calgary's Wards 12 and 14, doubts the program
would ever take hold in the West. "It's not that we're more homophobic
than easterners," she says. "It's just that Albertans aren't so politically
correct."
ILLUSTRATION
~~~~~~~~ By Celeste McGovern
McGovern, Celeste, Reading, riting
and rimming.. Vol. 22, Alberta Report / Western Report, 09-11-1995, pp
33.