How Homophobia Hurts Children

Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community

Jean M Baker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781560231639
• eBook ISBN: 9781317766391
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Gender Studies

Homophobia hurts kids. Explore ways to minimize that trauma!This book illustrates the ways that children growing up to be gay are harmed by homophobia before anyone, including themselves, even knows they are gay. This compelling and sympathetic volume describes many simple ways that these children can be helped to understand that they can grow up to lead normal lives, with hopes and dreams for their futures. How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community brings home the voices of these children. They describe their experiences to show how they came to the frightening recognition that they are part of a group held in disregard by the rest of society, even sometimes by their own families.Dr. Jean M. Baker, the author of How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community is a clinical psychologist and the mother of two gay sons. In this book she shares her experience as both psychologist and mother to show how the myths and fallacies about homosexuality have influenced parents, schools, churches, and lawmakers to send children the cruel message that if they are gay, they are not normal and will not be able to lead normal lives. In this unique volume you'll find:

• a chapter on identity development, following the Eriksonian model
• interviews with high school students who are self-identified as gay
• firsthand descriptions of the harassment and victimization of those perceived as gay in schools
• research on how victimization at school affects gay youths
• a discussion of the relatively new phenomenon of gay/straight alliances (gay support groups or clubs)
• a chapter on transgender identity with interviews with four transsexual persons who describe their personal childhood experiences and their transition process

The focus of How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community, centering on the social and familial experiences of children who will grow up to be gay but have not yet come to that realization, is unique. But beyond that, this book also explains how homophobia affects the attitudes of non-gay children by leading them to believe that it is acceptable to mistreat homosexuals. Finally, specific suggestions are made for changes in parenting and changes in school/classroom practices that could help prevent the harm that is inflicted upon so many of our gay children. Everyone who comes in contact with children on their way to becoming gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender adults needs to read this book!

Chapter 1

Shame Can Shatter Their Dreams

I was around thirteen when I realized what I was and the more I found out, the more scared I became, how it was in society and the family. (Eighteen-year-old girl)

Though many believe that there are no gay children, these children do exist and their minds and souls are shaped as they gradually grow in the awareness that they belong to a group disdained by many, sometimes even by the people closest to them. It is during their childhoods, before they are aware of sexual orientation and what it means, that these children begin to understand how our society views homosexuality. If children growing up to be gay hear little information to the contrary, their imaginations may be indelibly stamped with a sense of inferiority. They may come to believe that certain doors will be forever closed to them. Too many even come to feel that suicide is the only alternative to life as a homosexual.

Somehow, in the midst of the antigay rhetoric, a very simple fact gets lost: the fact that in every society there are and will always be individuals who fall in love with persons of their same gender. Another fact that gets lost in the clamor, one that is more difficult to acknowledge for those who believe homosexuality is a shameful or sinful condition, is that there will always be children who are growing up to be gay or lesbian. Denying that gay children exist allows the antigay movement to avoid placing itself in the ugly position of accusing children of being immoral or evil and further suggests that if we were only able to rid the world of gay adults, then there certainly would be no gay children. This perspective may come about as a result of one of the more damaging myths concerning homosexuality: that children would never grow up to become gay or lesbian unless some “perverted” gay adult had first molested, converted, or corrupted them. But elimination of adult homosexuals from the world or keeping children away from any contact with homosexuals would not eliminate a new generation of gays and lesbians. Children growing up to be gay or lesbian will not disappear because of social disapproval. No vaccine can prevent homosexuality in children. No parenting methods or religious admonitions can do so. There will always be children who will grow up to be gay.

We now know that, despite the social ostracism and the pressures to be heterosexual, homosexuals constitute a small part of every society. We also know that sexual orientation, whatever its origin, is often established at an early age and is not readily susceptible to change.

Homophobia: A Respectable Prejudice

Peter J. Gomes, professor of divinity at Harvard University, has referred to homophobia as “the last respected prejudice of the century.” Gomes’ words help explain why so many gay children and adolescents grow up afraid of what their lives are going to be, afraid that they will face harassment and ridicule if their secret identity becomes known. Gomes’ words also help explain why even people who would never make racist or anti-Semitic remarks feel free to express disdain for “queers,” and why we still have laws in states and communities across our nation that explicitly deprive homosexuals of basic civil liberties. Abuse and humiliation of homosexuals has long been actively allowed and even condoned by our society. And it is the social acceptability of this prejudice that contributed to keeping gays and lesbians silent for so long, fearful of asking for equal treatment. After all, if almost everyone seems to agree that antigay prejudice is justified, that there is something intrinsically wrong with being homosexual, then why should gays expect equality?

The Gay Rights Movement

As the civil rights movement of the sixties gained momentum, it gradually expanded to include sexual minorities, empowering some gays and lesbians to believe that they too had civil rights. Public protests against mistreatment of homosexuals were slower to erupt than among other minorities, but erupt they eventually did.

One of the early protests, and certainly the most highly publicized, happened spontaneously on a June night in 1969 at a popular gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. The Stonewall had long been a site for police raids, a place where customers were routinely arrested and hauled off to police stations for nothing other than their sexual-minority status. On that night, the long-passive bar customers resisted arrest and fought back against the astonished policemen.

Though not the first protest of the gay liberation movement, Stonewall became its symbol and its driving force. Once started, the rebellion was irrevocable and increasing numbers of gays and lesbians began to come out of hiding and join in the demand for equal rights. The fight continues to this day and progress has been made. Public attitudes toward gays have become more positive and certain court rulings and laws have ensured rights that were not previously granted. More details about these legal issues, about progress in the gay rights movement, and about what is still needed will be discussed in later chapters.

The Homosexual Debate: Pathology or Normal Variation?

Homosexuality was for so long a hidden issue, something not discussed openly except perhaps in clinical or criminal terms. But one major effect of the gay rights movement has been to force homosexuality into the realm of public discourse, to force an open discussion on a topic many would prefer to ignore. The inflammatory debate provoked by the gay rights movement raised questions around the nature and origin of homosexuality. In other words what is it, what causes it, and why does it exist? On one side of the debate, homosexuality has been defined as a crime, a sin, a sickness, an irresponsible choice, a sexual perversion, a dangerous threat to family values, and even a destroyer of morale in the armed services. On the other side, it is viewed not as any of these, but as a natural variation of human sexuality that occurs in every society. People with widely diverging viewpoints about sexuality, morality, and equality and inequality take opposing positions. The antihomosexual advocates claim that family values are threatened while gay supporters argue for their human rights and assert their own definitions of family values.

Growing up in a Homophobic Culture

Although significant progress toward acceptance of homosexuals has been achieved by the gay rights movement, antagonism and disrespect toward gays is still evident to anyone who reads a daily newspaper or watches TV news. The famous as well as the unknown feel free to vilify homosexuals and proclaim them undeserving of equal treatment. The implicit superiority of heterosexuality is the subtext underlying homophobia. Following, however, are some examples of explicit public messages about homosexuals that gay children and adolescents have grown up with. It is not difficult to imagine how these public messages, added to the implicit and explicit antigay messages they already hear from peers and adults in their private lives, must make them feel about themselves.

• General Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint U.S. Chiefs of Staff, in the early 1990s repeatedly stated that allowing openly gay individuals to serve in the armed services would be demoralizing and would jeopardize the effectiveness of the military. General Powell’s view helped define the current hypocritical policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” (In other words, it’s OK to be gay as long as you keep it a secret.)
• In 1992, the state of Colorado passed a constitutional amendment stating that no laws or statutes could be enacted anywhere in the state or in any of its agencies or subdivisions entitling any person to claim discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Fortunately, in 1996, this amendment was overturned as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Romer v. Evans decision. The majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said, “A state cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.”
• Religious right groups urged their members to boycott Disneyland and Disney products in the late 1990s because of the Walt Disney Company-owned TV channel airing an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which the Ellen DeGeneres character comes out as a lesbian.
• Dr. Laura Schlesinger, a well-known TV commentator and columnist, writing “I see homosexuality as a biological faux pas—that is, an error in proper brain development with respect to potential reproductivity.” (Rutenberg and Elliott, 2000, p. A-22)
• The Boy Scouts of America banned gays and atheists from membership in its organization and expelled an Eagle Scout assistant scoutmaster in 1990, when it was revealed in a newspaper article that he was gay. On June 28, 2000, U. S. Supreme Court Justices, in a five-to-four decision, ruled that expelling a gay scoutmaster was within the organization’s constitutional rights.
• Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott declared homosexuality a sin and compared it to alcoholism, sex addiction, and kleptomania. (Lacayo, 1998, p. 34)
• In South Carolina Reverend Stan Y. Craig, pastor of a Baptist church in Greenville, called homosexuality “demonic” and “a stench in the nostrils of God.” (Sack, 1998, p. A-12)
• A group of religious organizations including the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council sponsored newspaper advertisements in major newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, proclaiming that homosexuality is a free and sinful choice and can be cured. (Leland and Miller, 1998)
• A young gay man, Matthew Shepard, was brutally murdered in Wyoming in the fall of 1998 by two other young, presumably heterosexual, men who disliked “fags.”
• In Arizona, in 1997, state legislators for the second time introduced legislation that would ban student gay support groups in public schools, claiming that such groups would be “part support group, part recruitment.”
• Also in Arizona, one state legislator declared publicly that she finds homosexuality “disgustingly disturbing” while another said, “Gays want to sodomize and I don’t want them recruiting for that.”
• The U.S. Senate blocked the presidential nomination of a gay man, James Hormel, as Ambassador to Luxembourg because senators were disturbed by his sexual orientation.
• The Southern Baptists, at their annual meeting in 1999, voted to denounce President Clinton for his order proclaiming June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.
• The Army Reserve, in 1999, began an investigation of a twenty-seven-year-old Republican State Representative in Arizona because he publicly admitted that he loves another man. Another fall-out from the faulty “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
• A 1999 study found that 45 percent of military officers agreed with the statement that homosexuals should be barred from teaching in the public schools.

Messages denigrating homosexuals are not limited to those reported in the mass media but are repeated daily in homes and neighborhoods where gay children live and play and in the schools they attend. These messages can profoundly affect how gay children come to view themselves.

How Homophobia Affects Gay Children

Extremist antigay attitudes and practices inevitably harm homosexual youth, making them feel that something must be fundamentally wrong with who they are. Children are not born, of course, knowing they are gay or straight. They only gradually figure out the true nature of their sexual feelings and attractions. But before they are even aware of sexual feelings, those children who are growing up to be gay may start to catch on that they are different from other children and that this difference is shameful in some mysterious and poorly understood way. As they gradually become more aware of their sexual attractions they become frightened about what these feelings will mean in their lives. They may even come to hate that part of themselves that others seem to hate, a process that has been called “internalized homophobia.” This is a process of incorporating into one’s own self-image the negative feelings associated with the label “homosexual,” and it can cripple hopes and dreams for a productive future. Internalized homophobia may also help explain why gay youth are believed to attempt suicide at rates that are much higher than the rates among their heterosexual peers (Gibson, 1989; Goodenow and Hack, 1998; Remafedi, Farrow, and Deisher, 1991; and Roesler and Deisher, 1972).

How Homophobia Affects Nongay Children

Heterosexual children also are influenced by the homophobia in society. When they hear adults infer that gays are inferior and do not deserve respect, this attitude influences how they will treat their peers whom they perceive to be gay. The mistreatment of gay children by other children is a direct result of the attitudes that children have learned from the adults in their lives. When respected adults express contempt for homosexuals, how can heterosexual children help but conclude that it is permissible to harass other children whom they believe to be gay? Even gay children themselves, in desperate attempts to fit in and avoid being identified, may participate in the harassment of those children who have been targeted. Prejudiced adults send a powerful message to children that intolerance toward gays and lesbians is acceptable and that this group of people differs in such a unique way from others that their mistreatment is justified. We can see then that just as homophobic remarks made by adults hurt gay children directly, they also hurt them indirectly through their impact on nongay children who learn that it is OK to make fun of other children just because they appear to be gay.

What is it Like to Grow up Gay?

Gay children often grow up with no one recognizing or accepting who they really are. As they become aware of their sexual feelings they also become aware of the stigma of homosexuality. They are afraid to tell anyone. They worry about their futures. They are sometimes very young when they begin to feel that somehow they are not like other children. Maria, an eighteen-year-old high school student, recalled that as early as first or second grade she started feeling different from other children and began to sense that she didn’t really fit in.

I noticed that the little girls were avoiding the boys and the boys were hitting the girls. I noticed the girls more, but I was more comfortable with the guys. I was definitely a tomboy. When I was about twelve, I understood what the term gay meant. It finally clicked. That’s what it is. I now knew what I was. The bad thing was that everybody said it was immoral—my grandmother, my family. I felt ugly, horrible; I wanted to change. That was my goal. If I couldn’t change I would still have to try to lead a straight life.

Rich, thirty-seven years old at the time of our interview, in recalling his childhood experiences also remembered the feeling that he didn’t fit in with other children, that he was different somehow. He remembered his struggle trying to figure out what that difference meant.

I had an awareness of being different at age six or seven and of the difference being shameful. I liked kickball, basketball, and so forth, but the girl games also felt natural. Playing the girl games quickly got you labeled as “homo” or “sissy.” In fourth or fifth grade I connected together what homo or sissy meant and I knew it applied to me, but I couldn’t quite articulate it. Awareness grew by high school when I had the cognitive ability to understand what homosexual men were. But I purposely tried not to acknowledge this in myself because of internalized homophobia. I allowed myself to think I was bisexual. I would think that I can’t allow myself to be gay. I have to marry and I can’t give expression to these feelings.

Ivy, a seventeen-year-old girl, said that she realized she was different by middle school, around age ten or eleven, but she had no idea what it meant.

I would bond with my girlfriends and get really close. I thought everybody was that way. I had never met anybody gay. But in my freshman year in high school I started thinking, maybe that’s what I am. I was very uncomfortable about it. I was raised that it was wrong and I thought it was wrong.

These memories of what it is like to grow up gay were similar to the thoughts that emerged in many of my interviews with students who were members of gay/straight alliances and support groups in high school. These young people talked about what it is like to go through each day of their lives worried about how they are going to be treated by other people and how they are going to deal with their sexual identity.

The hardest thing in high school is the name calling, the physical and mental abuse. To be tormented day in and day out. It still goes on. (Eighteen-year-old girl)

I felt shame to begin with and I have had to overcome it. I’m still ashamed in dealing with my family members. I’ve tried to deny my sexuality. (Sixteen-year-old boy)

Waking up every morning and not knowing what to expect. Having to face another day, the prejudice. Dealing with what other people think about you. (Eighteen-year-old girl)

It’s how some people treat you. Some people are so skeptical, unbelieving that we can be human. We get asked prying questions about what we do in bed. We wouldn’t ask straights what they do in bed. It’s like prying. Very uncomfortable. (Seventeen-year-old girl)

I got tormented my freshman year. Name calling, people throwing things at me. (Seventeen-year-old girl)

What’s hard in high school is not being able to be open. It’s your teen years and you want to be accepted. Straight couples can hold hands, but we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Shame Can Shatter Their Dreams
• Chapter 2. Myths and Fallacies
• Chapter 3. Identity Development
• Chapter 4. Coming Out
• Chapter 5. Parents and Families Coming Out
• Chapter 6. For All Parents
• Chapter 7. What Happens to Gay Children at School?
• Chapter 8. Students Tell Us How Schools Can Help
• Chapter 9. How Individuals Within the School System Can Help Gay Students
• Chapter 10. Gay Youth Support Groups
• Chapter 11. A School Climate Survey
• Chapter 12. Transcending the Stigma
• Chapter 13. Enlightened Mayor Seeks Acceptance for Gay Youths
• Chapter 14. For Mental Health Professionals
• Chapter 15. Legal and Social Policy Barriers and How They Affect Gay Children
• Chapter 16. Transgender Identity
• Chapter 17. Personal Stories of Transsexuals Growing Up
• Chapter 18. The Tipping Point
• References
• Index