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to MSS Main Page(1) Lie, or (2) risk humiliation or harm
More than 17,600 school-age kids in W.Va. are gay, lesbian or bisexual, studies say
By Tara Tuckwiller, STAFF WRITER
West Virginia has more than 17,600 school-age kids who are gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to at least three government studies. That's almost twice the population of Pocahontas County.
Twenty years ago, Julia Hagan was surprised -- to put it mildly -- to find one living under her Cabell County roof.
Hagan's daughter, Laura, always knew she was different. But she didn't put the term "lesbian" to it until she was a junior in high school. And she didn't admit it to her mother until she was 21. She and some friends at Marshall University had decided to reorganize Lambda, a gay organization, on campus.
"I was on the school board in Cabell County at the time," Hagan said. "So she knew if she didn't tell me, I'd damn well hear about it. ... "I raised my voice. I said, 'How can you do this to me?' I said all kinds of things. I have literally spent the rest of my life making up for those words. "I had no idea I had ever met a gay person in my entire life. I was fairly sure I never had."
Which was preposterous, Hagan now says. Since 1989, at least three separate research teams conducting studies for the Colorado, Massachusetts and federal governments have found that 5 percent of youth are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
And nowadays, children are realizing it as early as fourth grade, a Cornell University researcher has found. So, at age 9 or 10, those children are presented with two choices:
Lie. Or, risk being raped, humiliated, ostracized, kicked out on the street or murdered.
Jamie Nabozny, a Wisconsin seventh-grader, made the mistake of telling his classmates he was gay.
They spit on him, hit him and called him "faggot." Two of his classmates cornered him in science lab and mock-raped him. They told him he should enjoy it; 20 other classmates watched and laughed. He attempted suicide at the end of his eighth-grade year and again in ninth grade.
In 10th grade, eight boys surrounded him before school one day. One of them kicked him in the stomach for five to 10 minutes while the others laughed. Weeks later, he collapsed from internal bleeding caused by the attack. He quit school in 11th grade.
Nabozny won a lawsuit against the school system in 1996, along with a $900,000 settlement. In its decision, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court stated:
"After the mock rape, Nabozny escaped and fled to [the principal's] office. [Her] alleged response is somewhat astonishing; she said that 'boys will be boys' and told Nabozny that if he was 'going to be so openly gay,' he should 'expect' such behavior from his fellow students."
And Wisconsin has elected not one, but two openly gay U.S. Representatives.
"West Virginia is still relatively conservative," said Lenore Zedosky, executive director of the state Office of Healthy Schools.
"I honestly wonder if students who reveal that they're gay would be safe in West Virginia's towns and cities." Zedosky's office tracks how many kids are harassed or attacked in each county for their race, religion or sexuality.
But even that doesn't reveal how much gay-bashing goes on in the schools. Although schools must report sexual harassment by law, West Virginia law does not state that gay-bashing constitutes sexual harassment. So Kanawha County reported 94 sexual harassment violations in 1999-2000 -- with 42 percent of victims in kindergarten through sixth grade, incidentally -- while 13 counties reported that absolutely nobody in the entire school system, student or staff, was the victim of any sexual, ethnic or religious harassment, or violence of any description, during the entire school year.
Kanawha County is not more hostile than other counties, Zedosky said. Other counties are just hiding the truth.
"It's fairly clear from looking at the data that there's gross underreporting," said Paul Sheridan of the state attorney general's civil rights division.
"Talk to the kids. These things happen on a daily basis."
One thing hasn't changed in 20 years, Hagan said. "In Cabell County, it was never talked about," she said. "Absolutely it went on. It does right now. It's terrible, the teasing kids endure. ... I tried to sneak sexual orientation into our discrimination policy and got caught. "Our kids have suffered a lot. And it's not fair, and it's not right, and somehow or other it's got to stop.
"I'm a mother, and I love children. Everybody's children."
Legislation derailed in House committee
Some West Virginia lawmakers tried to protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals from hate crimes, but they got derailed in the House Judiciary Committee.
"The fact that we won't even vote on it shows there's a problem with the inherent bias against gays," said Carrie Webster, D-Kanawha, who supported the bill.
Since 1987, West Virginia law has protected Jews, blacks, women and other minorities from hate crimes. In February, the Senate voted to extend that protection to gays.
In March, the House held a hearing. Baptist preachers and Delegate Larry Faircloth, D-Berkeley, denounced homosexuality as a sin.
After the hearing, the hate crimes bill never made it to the agenda. Webster was surprised the bill didn't pass. She believes West Virginians want to protect people from hate crimes more than lawmakers think they do.
"They let 50 phone calls shape what they think people want," Webster said. "The problem is, constituents only call when they're upset with something, not when they support it."
Next year, Webster would like the House to match the Senate's vote -- "the Senate's courage," she said. "I think we're getting closer and closer to getting the bill passed," she said. "But we're going to have to have a broader spectrum of groups supporting this publicly. ... Legislators are going to have to have a higher comfort level."
'As an educator, you have an obligation to protect'
This year, some of the House's most conservative delegates -- among them Lisa Smith, R-Putnam, and Rebecca Mathews, D-Kanawha -- pushed through an "anti-bullying" law for West Virginia schools. It does basically the same thing as the old policy that forces schools to report sexual, racial and ethnic harassment.
But the anti-bullying law covers all harassment, and it requires schools to develop penalties by Dec. 1. It's just one of several laws that can be construed to protect gays in West Virginia, including a sexual harassment law and the Title IX anti-sex discrimination law.
But none of them specifically say it's wrong to discriminate against gays.
"Most kids aren't lawyers," said Justen Deal, who left Boone County schools because he was being harassed for being gay. He testified before the Legislature, trying to get hate crimes protection for gays.
"I want it to be plain and clear that Boone County schools is a place for everyone," he said.
In the meantime, some people in the state are trying to make gay kids' lives a little easier.
An organization to which Hagan belongs, PFLAG (Parents, Family and friends of Lesbians And Gays), sent 1,300 brochures to schools all over West Virginia last spring, reminding them to provide safety to every kid in school.
Sheridan's civil rights office partners with several schools, and teams of student leaders spend the year developing strategies to stop intolerance.
In November, Zedosky's Office of Healthy Schools began traveling the state, putting on workshops called "Safe Harbors" to teach tolerance to school personnel.
"You might call it sensitivity training," said Martha Phillips, who helps conduct the workshops.
Phillips reminds people that gay-bashing doesn't just hurt gays. Sometimes gay kids fight back.
At Columbine High School, one member of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" -- whose members were responsible for the massacre that killed 15 people in April 1999 -- recalled that the jocks called him "faggot," smashed him into lockers and threw rocks at him as he rode his bike home from school.
"I know what it's like to be cornered, pushed day after day," he said.
Safe Harbors has been well-received by principals, Zedosky said.
Phillips realizes that some teachers and other staff may not agree that gays should be shielded from violence.
"You may not approve and think that's the way life should be," Phillips said. "However, as an educator, you have an obligation to protect."
. To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or call 348-5189.
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