GAY PEOPLE'S Chronicle

OCTOBER 2, 1998

Evenings Out

telling tales

The good old days? out of school

Writers tell of the fear and abuse they experienced as the 'queer kid' in school

by Doreen Cudnik

In the introduction to his new book, Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network executive director Kevin Jennings describes his present life as "pretty fabulous" with a prestigious job, a wonderful partner, a golden retriever named Luke, and an apartment on New York's Central Park West.

But "don't be fooled," Jennings writes. "Like most gay people, just beneath my fabulous surface is a little boy, one who grew up feeling alone and freakish and desperate. I don't see myself as this successful adult: I still feel the pain of rejection that I experienced growing up in rural North Carolina, taunted in school, with few friends, because I am a faggot."

So begins Telling Tales Out of School: Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals revisit their school days, a book edited by Jennings and inspired by GLSEN's "Back-to-School campaign, a program which encourages individuals to write their schools and share their experiences as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender alumni.

"Youth are targeted for

gender non-conforming

behavior long before they

realize they are gay."

"People started sending me copies of their letters, and the stories were so incredible...that I knew there was a book crying out to be made from them,” Jennings writes in the introduction.

More than 30 authors contributed with stories of harassment and strength, including Jennings himself; noted African-American author Larry Duplechan; Jon Barrett, an Advocate editor, and bisexual activist Loraine Hutchins.

Of the letter-writing campaign that inspired the book, Jennings said, “There is no substitute for a teacher or an administrator getting a letter saying 'I'm gay and it was hellish [at school] and I want to know what you're doing to make it better.'

"I think that teachers and administrators are good at heart," he added. "As a former high school teacher, I can tell you nobody went into this for the money! What really motivates teachers and administrators is the well-being of children. And oftentimes they allow awful things to happen in their schools simply out of ignorance. An individual can have an enormous impact by simply writing that letter and erasing some of that ignorance."

Jennings, who previously edited two other anthologies, One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories and Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for High School and College Students, said he did not anticipate how the letter writing campaign would serve to heal the letter writers, and thus, the gay and lesbian community.

"I believe the gay community needs to be viewed in the same way one would view people who have survived physical or sexual abuse," Jennings said. "The experience of growing up gay in America is an abusive experience. And people that have been victimized by abuse often act that abuse out in various ways that are very similar to some of the self-destructive behavior we see manifested in the gay community.

"There is a lot of healing that needs to go on in this community," he continued. "People need to go back and try to confront the abuse we experienced as young people. There is something incredibly empowering and healing about going back to that painful time in your life and taking control of

Kevin Jennings

it-moving yourself from being a victim to being a person with power."

While careful not to establish a “hierarchy of oppression,” Jennings said he was struck by the differences between the experiences of men and those of women evidenced in the book.

"The type of suffering is different,” Jennings said. "Young [lesbian] women seemed to suffer more from feelings of isolation and confusion simply not knowing what was going on, not understanding. Whereas the young gay men tended to ex-

gaya. i**bians, and bisexual revisit their school day a

edited by kevin jennings

perience more direct harassment and physical and verbal abuse. I think they each have their own unique pain, and I wouldn't say one was worse that the other, but they are different."

Another realization Jennings came to while editing the book is "the extent to which gender variance was the key issue."

"Even for people who did not yet understand themselves as gay or lesbian," Jennings said, "when they would act out in gender non-conforming ways, that became the reason that they were targeted." That

experience, emerging from so many of the letters, gave him a “gut level understanding of the link between homophobia and sexism."

"I think that we in the lesbian and gay movement need to understand that we can not be free unless sexism is defeated, because the reality is that gay people are being targeted for gender non-conforming behavior long before they realize they are gay. Even if we somehow manage to eliminate homophobia without eliminating sexism, people would still be targeted, so therefore I've come to an understanding of just how inextricably linked those two forms of injustice are."

Although gay and lesbian youth still face struggles in our nation's schools, Jennings believes that anybody can make a difference by simply "telling their own tale."

"I think one of the frustrations in America today is that it feels very hard to make a difference. This [the letter writing campaign] is an issue where a single individual in a very simple act can make a big difference. I urge everybody who reads the Gay People's Chronicle to pick up their pen or turn on their word processor and engage in the Back to School campaign this year. Because I really believe, as Anne Frank said, that ‘in spite of everything... people are good at heart.'

Telling Tales is published by Alyson Books. For more information about the Back to School campaign, visit GLSEN's website, at http://www.glsen.org, or contact Kate Frankfurt, 212-727-0135; e-mail

k frankfurt(@glsen.org.