Teachers Anonymous: A change in feelings about coming out

It's my fourth year sponsoring the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at my high school, and we've had a pretty solid core of kids — mostly girls. The club was actually all-female last year. But this year, I was really happy to get a lot more boys in the club, both gay and straight.

In general, it seems like teenage girls have an easier time coming out in high school than teenage boys — there's more of a stigma if you're a boy.

Being gay is not a requirement of the GSA — I have a lot of straight students who participate. But there's sometimes this assumption that if you're in the GSA, you must be gay. Just the general perception that you're gay can be dangerous, even if you're not. So a lot of students don't want to stick up for each other or get involved with altercations, because then they might be accused of being gay and then they could be attacked.

My school's a pretty safe space; we're really lucky that way. But boys often use calling somebody gay as an insult, an attack on who you are. And I do see it more and more that our young women students will stand up. And this year, we have a lot more boys in GSA.

I think it's indicative of changing feelings about being gay or lesbian, and less fear of "if you're an ally, you must be gay," you know? I think we have some straight boys in the club, and that's just as cool, because they're not afraid to be associated with the issue.

Like: I had this very athletic student who participates in a bunch of different sports; he was staying after school in my room to finish an assignment during a GSA meeting. When he came up to me at the end and asked me what the club was, I was a little bit nervous, because I wasn't sure whether he would react well. I told him it was the Gay Straight Alliance, and he asked, "Oh, what do you guys do?" I said, "We mostly just hang out together, but sometimes we'll talk about LGBT issues, or how we can implement things in our school, bullying, current events, things like that." He said, "Oh." Then he paused and asked, "Can I come next week?"

I was very, very surprised. I told him, "Of course!" He hasn't come yet, but I thought it was really cool that he was interested; it was the exact opposite response from what I expected.

It's been really refreshing this year to have more young men participate. It was interesting having an all-female club, but it wasn't an accurate representation of the people in our school. The club missed that point of view, and it's really great to have it this year.

Teachers Anonymous is a column that shares brief stories from Philly teachers and other school employees that illustrate the difficulties and joys of working in a drastically underfunded system. Interested in contributing? Describe a brief situation, scene or moment that you feel communicates something larger about the challenges or rewards of working in Philadelphia schools. Email stories to emilyg@citypaper.net or send by mail to Emily Guendelsberger c/o City Paper, 30 S. 15th St., 14th floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.