Mores for Gays video blog (Ep. 21): Gay School

Excellent vlog once again, Daniel... I particularly appreciated how you took your approach to what can be quite a divided topic even amongst "the gay community". I like how you considered both sides of the debate and that you made good use of that amazing politically correct tone that you have.

I personally agree with pretty much everything you said. Sure, a separate school can do wonders for those who are abused and tormented, but I also think that segregation is not the answer. I also agree that if things are so bad for any individual, the school should be looking into the abuse and trying to solve it in another way (although thats obviously easier said than done). I especially liked that you highlighted the implicit mentality of accepting the notion of a "gay school": "See kids... if you're mean enough, the different kids go away!" <-- p.s... HILARIOUS the way you put it, rock on Daniel Leary!

  somewhere where the students sequestered from the rest of society.

It's not like it's hidden away in upstate New York somewhere were the kids only interact with other gay, lesbian and transgendered people.

It's right in the middle of the West and East Village in downtown Manhattan which are both pretty gay and very youtuful and a couple blocks from the main campus of NYU and the New School University and  Cooper Union School for the Arts. 

The kids aren't isolated into some all gay world where the don't interact with straight folks.  They all live in New York City.  They interact with straight people of all ages every day of their lives.  At home, on the subway, at the library on the streets of New York City.

I get a lot of the kids from there coming for tours at the Lesbian Herstory Archives where I am one of the Coordinators/Archivists and through my volunteer work with GMHC and The LGBT Center.  Yes, there are lots of transgendered kids but I think that has just been a defacto thing resulting from the fact that so many transgendered kids are abused and kicked out of their homes or run away.   Loads of transgendered kids are also Gay and Lesbian so i makes sense that they would make their way to Harvey Milk School.

But I also think folks need to understand that NYC  has a ton of specialty high-schools so it is not that uncommon for kids to go to a special school built around either a vocation or some kind of identity.

There is even High Schools in each borough for kids who have "aged out" of regular high schools without graduating or who have been incarcerated or for some other reason had dropped out or left regular high schools.    City As School is one of the more well known schools.

The point of Harvey Milk is to protect kids and allow them to get a good education without having to worry everyday about their safety.

People always talk about "all integration all the time" as if that's the end all be all but it really depends upon who's being integrated into whom.

The end goal should not be integration for integration's sake.  The end goal should be for every kid to have the same shot for getting a solid, good education that is equal in value and can prepare them for adulthood and to become a productive and happy member of the general society.

As a former black kid in Mississippi who was bused to white high schools as part of the Integration at all costs movement of the 70s'/80's I can say that not all integration is created equal.  

We can't expect  or ask kids to suffer repeated abuse in schools that are incapable of or unwilling to protect them just to prove some kind of point about  how beautiful integration is . 

None of us have had to walk in their shoes.  I say safety first.

UNTIL every single public school can be made safe (and I don't mean free of mere teasing) for every kind of teen  we need to have "pressue valve" places like City As and Harvey Milk to give teens  with a target on their back a fighting chance without all the fighting.

I think folks have the wrong idea of this school.

"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common." (Dorothy Parker)

Locker room nudity is the whole point of belonging to a gym! If privacy is of paramount importance to you, save yourself the membership fees, buy a Bowflex and stay home. ;Þ

If gay kids were taken out of their respective schools and banished to Harvey Milk simply for being LGBT without any choice in the matter, then that would be segregation and worth opposing, but that isn't the case.

I agree that integration is a goal worth working toward, but I would never ask someone to be a martyr to principle to get there - least of all, underprivileged teenagers. Also, despite the fact that it is obviously what they "should" do, it is a tad unreasonable to expect public schools to crack the whip and foster tolerance and acceptance in our nation's youth at this point in time when their adult counterparts in industry and government have such a poor grasp of the concept, themselves.

That said, the fact that there is even a need for such schools pains my heart every bit as much as anyone else.

From my only personal experience in school and them dealing with me was tough because I knew I was gay but I wasn't sure if I was ready to let everyone around me know, especially the teachers.  However, it seems that most of teaching and counselings staffs had their suspicions about my sexuality but didn't have the proper techinques and proper training of dealing with me and my so-called unique and fragile situation.

Once a counselor told me that I needed to have more positive male remodels in my life because I was lacking male identity.  I was in a public school and this was coming from a counselor in junior high.  I was raised by a single beautiful woman and she didn't do a bad job, she actually raised me pretty well.  It seems that my effemininate mannerisms left several counselors and even teachers bewildered, puzzled and confused even at a young age. 

I remember my family moved from one public school area to another and I quickly made some friends and ran into some kids that would end up being curious about their own sexuality but wanted to take out their frustration on me because I was an easy target.  It seems one of those boys and I would have a bit of history but before our history he started some rumors and gossip and on my first day of going to 5th grade, I had to endure having my head banged against a sink in the bathroom and name calling like you wouldn't believe.  I was attending this school because it seems that my step-father just passed away and moved in with an Aunt.  I had a great deal of my own stuff to deal with but now I had kids who just heard that I might be gay and I'm only 5th grader.  It seem my new neighbor, had a little thing for me because until him and I ended up, experiementing, he would cause so much trouble for me and I realized that it was the facts that maybe someone was molesting him because he was a few years older and secondly he liked me. 

He would be my 1st everything but before him and I would engage in a good game of touch, nudity magazines and a great deal of confusion, it seems he would make up some wild stories about me to classmates and other peers that had people just ready to sock me.  It seems that for close to two years, I would endure some serious unnecessary beat downs and all because of me being gay-acting, queer or a 'little fag'.  I just remember running home daily, until I got to junior high but still those mental scars never left and on occasion haunted me.  I have to say that I got over them but it took some time and even now talking about them brings back the pain that was associated with all the hitting and bullying.  You have to remember during most of these events, there was teachers staff and other adults standing by and actually chuckling under their breaths because by saving me from being harassed, is like sticking up for the underdog.  It's easier to send me to the fryers and watching me burn.

Do I think I would have had a better childhood at an all gay school?  I have to say  maybe because even most of the bad events took place in elementary and junior high,  I made through.  I would end up being semi-popular but most of the time I had to be this light-hearted guy that took abuse because as not only the token black kid but now I'm the token alleged gay kid too, it was hard.  High school I ended up going to two proms with female date and I ended up being this dating machine but with many girls.  Most of these special and very loved girls would end up telling me the same thing, "I think your gay but you just don't know it yet".  On the flipside, I watched in sheer horror several openly gay people in my school struggle and especially when it came down to the big events like bringing their significant others to dances or the biggy, THE PROM.  It seems they would have to take all the steps, to bring their dates but most of the time they were shot down.  The really sad part was most of these gay kids were super intelligent, with good grade averages.  Most were in college prep classes and were mainstays on Honor roll.  Even though they were learning a great deal, they still had so much mental BS going on. 

What I'm not torn about is the fact that you are as cute a button and I will check you out from time to time.  Happy Holidays.           

P.A.B. -- People are broken. Lets face it, arguing from a point of integration to "well balance" kids is wonderful and might work in a perfect world, but this world is far from perfect. In the meantime you have homophobic parents raising their homophobic kids and no amount of integration is going to change that, at least not over night. So what do you do in the meantime where these children must be edumacated in an environment that is safe and conducive to their learning. This School does not solve the problem for the bullyers but it solves the problem of the bullyees, mainly getting to a future free of a suicide that many of these bullies drive them too.

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"A woman never runs away, a woman never hides away in order to survive." - from her song 'Real Me' by Ayumi Hamasaki

i think its a good idea its not like they are forced to go to such schools against their own will. (well other than being harassed into doing so).

Personally i think it's always good to have an extra option whenever possible! 

Thank you, Daniel, for highlighting the really interesting questions about this issue - and thank you to all the bright, articulate posters above that have really helped me learn more about the school.

I'm glad this video about a gay school was posted. It raised some issues I hadn't considered.

I'm was a bit distracted by the music playing in the background throughout the talk. Not needed at all.

A lot of discussion here... All I want to point out is how some members of the LGBT community calling 'segragation' on the Harvey Milk School are probably doing so from their own self-segragated villages (i.e. West Hollywood, Lower East Side of Manhattan, etc.)  When they're willing to move next to Billy Bob in rural Alabama, then I suppose they can talk about segragation.