Gay Youth Offered Safe Environment In LGBTQ High School

NEW YORK - The New York City-based non-profit organization Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI) recently celebrated its 30th year of helping the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and questioning youth community. For the occasion, they held a panel discussion on Thursday between founding members and current staff members, as well as various individuals who have benefited from their services over the years.

The discussion took place at Harvey Milk High School, which offers a safe environment for LGBTQ students who feel that they cannot attend mainstream schools due to intolerance and harassment. The school became a four-year, fully accredited public school in 2002.

One of the panelists, Joyce Hunter, D.S.W., an assistant professor of psychiatric social work at Columbia University in New York and founding member of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, came back on the circumstances of the creation of the non-profit. She explained how in 1979, life partners Dr. Emery Hetrick, a psychiatrist and Dr. Damien Martin, a professor at New York University, created the institute after hearing the story of a homeless adolescent who had been gang raped and kicked out of an emergency shelter because of his homosexuality. "We had to do something to make these young people part of the community," Hunter said. "We had to create a place where they could come and be safe."

And they have managed to do just that. Matthew Agostini, a senior at Harvey Milk High School, was one of the panelists and agreed to share his story with the audience. The young man explained how, after coming out at age 13 in a small "churchgoing" town in Florida, he was constantly being "teased" - an understatement to explain how he was being verbally and physically abused by his peers. Agostini ended up moving to New York with his mother to find a more accepting environment and attend Harvey Milk High School. "I made the best friends here." Agostini said. "It's also helped my mother understand me better. She still wishes I wasn't gay, but only because of safety reasons now. She doesn't want to change me anymore." Agostini will be graduating from Harvey Milk High School in July.

Ann Northrop, former member of the education department of the Hetrick-Martin Institute and co-host of Gay USA, explained that a reason for homophobic behaviors is often ignorance. Several years ago when she was doing advocacy and prevention work for the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York City's high schools, she remembers visiting a specific Catholic high school where some students told her that the meaning of AIDS was "Adios Infected Dick Suckers." She said that the key to ending homophobia was patience and conversation: "People are actually hungry for this conversation," Northrop said. "You just have to give them the opportunity." She said that after a talk on homophobia at a high school, it was not rare for students to come up to her and say, "We don't want to beat up gay people anymore."

Tenaja Jordan, a former student at Harvey Milk School, explained that her Jehovah's Witness parents did not tolerate her homosexuality. "It was just not possible for them," she said. Jordan described how the Hetrick-Martin Institute and Harvey Milk High School had been a saving grace for her. "This had to work," she said. "The consequences of it not working were just too bad." The young woman is now a junior at CUNY York College and is pursing a degree in social work. She wants to become an advocate and mentor to the LGBTQ youth community. When asked how she thinks life would have been without the Hetrick-Martin Institute, Jordan said she did not even want to think about it.

Not all of the students lacked supportive parents. Vidari DeGuzman's parents did not reject him when he came out first as a lesbian - when he was still living as a woman - and later as a transman. Now a staff member at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the former Harvey Milk High School student explained that the organization have helped him understand his worth, and given him the tools to advocate for himself and the LGBTQ community.

Thomas Krever, the current executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute said that approximately 2,500 young LGBTQ come to his organization's doors every year. "There is still a need for places like HMI," he said. When talking about the acceptance of LGBTG individuals by society, Krever explained: "We've made significant improvements, but there's so much more to do." He added that with the current financial crisis, the Hetrick-Martin Institute has had to lay off 25 percent of its staff and has lost over half a million dollars in charity money.

With the exception of housing, the Hetrick-Martin Institute offers every possible service to LGBTQ youth. However, it works in close collaboration with LGBT homeless shelters throughout New York. Out of the approximate 100 students currently enrolled at Harvey Milk High School, Krever explained that over 10 percent live in group-homes, and that 30 to 40 percent live in unstable situations (shelters, friends' apartments...). The Hetrick-Martin Institute makes sure that despite their unstable living situations, these young and often fragile individuals get a good education to hopefully one day make a better life for themselves.

Comments

[MajorKong]

High School was hellish enough to begin with. I couldn't imagine having to go through it as a gay or transgendered person.

[LintLass]

Not everyone makes it, to be quite honest. Conditions in conservative places like Texas are particularly appalling, the rates of suicide and depression and queer youth living in physical fear are just tragic.

This only makes it more important that the rest of the country show as many signs of hope out there for a free and open and dignified life out here as we can. You never know what might be keeping someone going, and those who try to dash those hopes really deserve to reincarnate somewhere where they'll be treated as they dished out, if you asked me.

It's not just LBGT kids that the rampant homophobia hurts, ...straight people use threats and fears of being labeled gay to keep *each other* from being able to accept themselves, as part of those often-cruel dominance games. How many straight could-have­-been-arti­sts never picked up a paintbrush because they were afraid they'd be subject to all the scorn and harm gay people are?

[deepintheheartoftejas]

Ok, on first glance, I assumed the Q meant Queer, for the queer subculture... but questioning? What the hell is a questioning person?

[LintLass]

That'd be someone who doesn't feel sure what their orientation may be... And is.. questioning. :)

Sexual identity isn't always as clear-cut for some as others, particularly in an environment that doesn't talk about these things very much or deeply: being bisexual can confusing for a while, particularly: perhaps it takes falling in love a few times to stop wondering if you're really straight or gay, and accept it could be someone of either sex next time: trans youth usually try hard (with of course lots of pressure from most of the rest of the world) to construct identities in their birth-assigned sexes... and even if you're pretty clear-cut gay or lesbian in your own mind, denial and fear of the social repercussions can be a strong force. Always stuff to sort out. What might make a straight person think they might be queer, I really don't know, don't think I could.

But, there's a lot of reasons why people needing some support might not want to feel pressured to come to any particular conclusion, or accept a particular label, before they've really come to terms in whatever way suits.

[jeburr24]

I think it's great that there's a place gay kids can learn without harassment. However, if I were just out of high school and looking for a job, I might feel uncomfortable putting "Harvey Milk High School" on my resume, because that would be pretty much a dead giveaway as to one's orientation. Not to say one should remain in the closet, but I don't know if I'd want to make it so obvious right up front to an employer.

[avocats]

lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and questioning ?

Oh, for Pete's sake . . .

[cinemaven]

When I think of the torture my wonderful cousin went through as a young teen, it makes me think that in this day and age, allowing gay teens to choose to be segregated might be a viable solution but I hope for the day when being who you are isn't a license for others to beat and ridicule you. My cousin was so real. He didn't try to be anyone but who he was and although everyone in the family showered him with love and understanding, his classmates were unrelenting... so much so that he was allowed to leave school at 15 and gain his education though distance learning.

My cousin has gone on to lead a wonderful life except for the time his partner of 12 years was assaulted on his way home and almost killed.

Every time someone comes out, it's a step forward. Pride parades, gay marriage and high schools are all ways to let those who oppose the rights of others learn that their neighbors, friends and family are the people they're trying to keep the rights from.

[PeaceIsMyName]

I've got a question. Which bathroom does someone who chooses to be transgendered utilize: boys or girls?
So a male student who thinks he's a female and dresses like a female would be allowed to enter a girls bathroom?
How does that work?

[cinemaven]

Well, she goes into the girls bathroom, goes into a stall like everyone else and does her business in private....

Trust me, if you are attending a LGBTQ high school, no one would be offended.

Oh, and "chooses to be transgendered" isn't really very accurate.

[PeaceIsMyName]

I find it absolutely inappropriate for a male student to enter a girls washroom, period. As far as I know, transgendered people don't only use bathrooms at gay schools.

I wrote "chooses" because I have yet to see clear indisputable evidence that anybody is born gay. Until I do, I shall continue to believe what I think is true and you are free to do what you want as well.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

"Questioning Youth?"


How many more initials do they intend to add on?

[SD Indy]

I noticed they didn't have the I at the end. Typically it is LGBTQI; however it seems to have been shortened to LGBT. And in case you were wondering what I stands for, it is "intersexed" (those who are born with the genitalia of both genders).

[ibsteve2u]

My theory is: Whatever keeps kids alive until they can load and aim a Glock for themselves.

People are too quick to judge - and way too quick to assume.

[AbstractionAction]

So like 11?

[Moshe]

There is a shameful culture of bullying in far too many schools in which if the victims complain they are again victimized by the adults that are supposed to be protecting them, belittled as whiners and tattles tales, and then retaliated against by their abusers as whiners and tattle tails. And if they fight back on their own, they are punished under "zero tolerance" policies against fighting. The only "acceptable" option for them is to allow their abusers to continue to abuse them.

There are far too many sick bullies, far too many bystanders who do nothing, and worst of all, adults (school admnistrators, teachers, and parents) who refuse to help children who desperately need their help. Some of these children end up physically and psychologically scared, some of them end up dead.

Bullying is not part of a normal, healthy culture, it is a symptom of a very sick, authoritarian culture that allows the most vulnerable among us to be tormented and abused, and sometimes even killed or pushed to suicide.

Don't allow it. Child abuse is a crime. Bullying and knowingly allowing bullying of a child is child abuse.

If you see it, stop it. No child should be excluded, tormented, and sexually and physically abused for the sick pleasure of sick bullies and their shameful bystander audiences. It is a deed that shames both the victim and even more so the perpetrators and those who allow it.

Don't allow it.

[LuckyLT2]

By having that school, I believe it'll further perpetuate the ignorance that they're trying to alienate themselves from.

[SBrooksB]

@LuckyT2..­.......But regular schools don't always work out well for gay kids. Effeminate boys, especially, are prime targets for abuse. Unable to defend myself, I was bullied for years. The school's half-heart attempts to stop the bullying accomplished nothing, and I finally dropped out of school in the middle of my junior year. I wish I'd had the option of attending a school like Harvey Milk.

[SBrooksB]

Children -- including bullies -- take their cues from adults. Until society stops treating gay people like second-class citizens and/or the punch-line of jokes, gay children will be targeted for abuse. It's possible that in a more enlightened society (and let's hope we're moving in that direction) there will no longer be a need for schools like Harvey Milk.

[messy]

Jim Crow returns, how fabulous!!!!!!

[TheBlackCat]

I agree. While I understand that this environment is easier for kids to exist in during their high school years...that's what it was like under segregation as well. But in the long runs, it alienates the gay community from the straight community.

It works both ways. If you are a straight kid, being exposed to gay kids in high school gives you an opportunity to get to know them as they really are, as opposed to how they are depicted to you. Exposure to people different from oneself at an early age is probably the best way to prevent intolerance.

And for gay kids...the real world is not a safe, isolated island. I see this as akin to homeschool­ing...sure it makes things EASIER at the time for the kid to have a safe, sequestered environment, but that hardly prepares them for what they can expect once they're all grown up.

[historymatters]

I agree with the overall gist of your comments. But I respectfully disagree that schools such as the one described do not have an important use. A one-size-fits-all approach is not the best approach for providing for LGBTQ children and their educational needs, imho. I think having a range of options available is best for meeting the needs of a wide and diverse audience. Each person's situation is unique, so not everyone is able, for any number of reasons, to cope with being in a potentially hostile environment.

Also, people shouldn't have to learn how to deal with every possible situation before they graduate high school. Most people still have plenty of growing up and maturing to do all the way through their twenties, and hopefully most people are willing to keep learning and trying new things through their whole lives. Speaking for myself, I was an underachiever and malcontent all through high school. The environment was stifling and emotionally and intellectually deadening. College was a whole different story and I loved it. I don't think most of the people who knew me in high school would've recognized me as the same person in college. For sure, the teachers wouldn't have! :-)

[LintLass]

No, the 'real world' isn't safe for LBGT kids, either, but schools aren't 'the real world,' anyway. Outside the school, they're citizens, ...inside, they're basically locked up with abusers ...and you really just can't get an education, that way.

When I was younger, I would have not wanted to go to a specialized school as of sixth grade. As of seventh grade, I would have had a different opinion about the option.