The author of the
gay teen novel Geography Club and a resident of
Tacoma, Wash., hails Wednesday’s Day of
Silence—and questions whether all the talking
expected on the Christian right’s “Day of
Truth” on Thursday can really counter the power
of silence to support equality for LGBT students
People joke these
days that the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name has
become The Love That Won’t Shut Up.
Gay and lesbian
Americans and their allies are finally making themselves
heard. Even in some high schools.
It wasn’t
always this way. I first joined the gay youth movement back
in 1989, when I helped establish Oasis, a Tacoma
support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender youths. Only one of our 150 members was
“out” at school, and he was receiving death
threats.
I knew of no
openly gay teachers or administrators. But even then, the
teenagers I worked with yearned to be open and honest about
who they were. Heterosexuals often ask me why gay
teenagers would want to talk about their sexuality in
the first place. “Their wanting to talk about
sex is just another form of rebellion, right?”
But being openly
gay doesn’t mean rebellion, and it isn’t
talking about sex. It just means no longer maintaining
the elaborate ruse of pretending to be straight.
I always ask
heterosexuals to imagine their teen years if they had had to
hide the fact that they were straight. That means no talking
about which pop star you thought was cute and
definitely no idealized night at the prom. You might
have had to date someone you’re not emotionally
attracted to, even becoming sexually active in order
to keep your lie intact.
In other words,
being a closeted gay or lesbian teenager means being
silent. And for someone who is itching to forge a
self-identity, as all teenagers are, this is a very
frustrating way to live.
In 1996 some gay
and straight students at the University of Virginia
created the Day of Silence—going a whole school day
without speaking—to protest the silence of most
gay students and teachers and the fact that most
school curriculums ignored the contributions of gays and
lesbians in history and literature.
Since then, the
protest has mushroomed. This year, on Wednesday [April
26], an estimated 500,000 gay and straight students from at
least 4,000 schools, some in the Tacoma area, will
participate in what is now called the National Day of
Silence. In the history of the civil rights movement
there have been few protests this dignified and this exactly
appropriate.
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Reprinted with permission from The News Tribune of
Tacoma, Wash., the author’s hometown.
Hartinger is the author of the teen novel
Geography Club and its sequel, The Order of the
Poison Oak. Find more information on his work at www.brenthartinger.com.