Queer Kid On The Playground

I am an eighth-grader at my middle school, and I recently saw a sixth-grader with a hair-cut much like Rihanna’s at its shortest. It was a great color and looked fabulous on her and I stopped her in the hall to say, “Hey, I really love your hair! Looks great!” It was an honest compliment.

My friend, whom I had been walking with, leaned over to me and said, “My brother and all his friends call her a dyke.”

Not only is the association between short hair and lesbianism extremely stereotypical, but there is no reason for it to be insulting! Being a lesbian should not be an insult, just like being a girl should not be an insult. I have defended gay rights many a time in political arguments, and someone never fails to accuse me with, “What, are you gay or something?” The truth is, I’m not. But I don’t think of myself as gay or straight. My personality isn’t defined by who I like. My respect for people of the LGBTQ community exists regardless of my own sexuality. So no, I’m not gay, but if I were, I wouldn’t be afraid to say it. When I see that girl’s haircut, I don’t think “gay” or “straight.” I think “beautiful.”

www.theabigail.tumblr.com

One day, at my lunch table with five of my closest friends and we somehow strayed into the topic of politics. I normally don’t mind but that day two boys were attacking gay people, saying it was unnatural and god would send them to hell and it became hate speech and got so personal. They kept on and on and I felt so assaulted by their language. I just felt terribly about who I am. I realize now that it was pure hate spewing from their mouths.

As a kid, I’ve always been really large, both ways. I’ve always been the tallest in my class, hitting six foot one inch when I was thirteen and since I was so tall, I’ve always weighed the most as well. I wasn’t aware, thanks to some effective parenting, that being a very large, intelligent, and bookish girl was something to be made fun of. I’ve been called a dyke, lesbo, Femme-Nazi, clam-bumper and many other ignorant names before I even knew what any of those things were.

It got significantly worse when I realized at a very young age, that I liked boys and girls, but girls a little more. It took me a really long time to be alright with being ‘queer’ let alone ‘pansexual’ like I prefer to be referred to now, simply because the teasing I got was so bad in my 2^nd grade year, I refused to go outside for recess. The administration at my school didn’t handle it very well, either.

I’ve been asked so many times ‘are you a boy or a girl?’ because of a slightly round shape and it didn’t stop when I reached puberty and grew hips and breasts. I found it rude and invasive when people asked about my gender and sexuality because they usually made assumptions and greeted me with disgusted faces and questions I didn’t even know the answers to.

It got a little better when I moved away to a different school, but I developed a crush on my best friend at the time and we held hands all of the time. Some boy saw us and yelled “Ew are you guys lesbians?” and she never held my hand again. We were in third grade; I wasn’t going to ask her to be my girlfriend or anything. I was really hurt by it and even though I talk to her now, she never knew I liked her that way.

My mother decided to send me to jesus camp one year, “to learn some respect, young lady”.   My entire group was very homophobic, and I spent literally fifty percent of my time trying to get these boneheaded bigots to understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone’s sexuality.  I  discovered I was bisexual one night when I awoke gasping and dripping in sweat, from an incredibly hot wet dream involving another girl in my cabin, latex, leather, whips, and gags.  I was about fifteen.

In middle school, I went to a charter school. Things went kind of okay until seventh grade; No one knew about my bisexuality, other than my best friend. It was an average middle school experience. In Seventh, though, my best friend and I decided to date for a while. And for a while, it was great, but we were kids and broke up over something really stupid- She thought I liked a student teacher, for some reason or another.

Being a jealous kid, she decided to tell people about how I was a raging bisexual slut. And some people backed her up! A few guys made up stories about how I had performed favours for them in the alley, and some girls said that I had always looked at them ‘funny’ in the dressing rooms. It wasn’t a week before I was the school curiousity. Everyone was coming up to me before, during and after school, making slurs. Some people asked questions, which was actually a relief for me.

Something I actually remember, in particular, was a second or third grader. I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, in front of the school, and she came up to me and grabbed my skirt and asked me why I liked girls AND boys. And I told her; I don’t know why. We both were waiting, so I told her about my first crushes, which I got around her age, and she listened really, really hard.

That was really the brightest part of that time, though. I couldn’t walk home, because I had been stalked and harassed by some of the boys from my school not long after. In class, people either stared at me or wouldn’t look at me. All but one of my friends decided that I didn’t exist. It was only a few weeks, but it was one of the roughest times in my life and for some reason, it was because of my sexuality… And I really couldn’t figure out WHY. More than once, I thought about jumping into this river behind the house I lived at.

It kind of… peaked, when I got called to the principals office. I wasn’t expecting a full-on interrogation, but that was what I got. They didn’t want to expel me, because I was one of the few people that tested well in the school, but they told me that if I didn’t… they would have to, and my mother WOULD be told. There was also the option of telling them if we had a ‘gay club’, which would also save my place in the school… I knew enough about witchhunts that I hadn’t ever had the intention of telling them about my ex girlfriend. I was the better woman, then.

But, I was upset. I caved. I told them that they were right in the first instance, and it was just a rumour. They ended up calling my mom anyway.

She was… idefk. It went better than most of my friends, when they came out… probably because my aunt is gay, and her only remaining family in the area. But she screamed at me about making bad decisions, and told me it was a phase. She still says it’s a phase, and I’m twenty now. We ended up moving closer to my aunt, in the town I had grown up in, because the teasing didn’t stop. I remained open for the rest of middle school and through highschool, and never had another problem regarding this… never even teased.

But what those kids did was not right, how the school handled it was not right. However, most of what happened was and STILL IS legal, because of laws that protect private schools… which disgusts me to no end. The logic behind it is that since they’re not funded by the government, they can make their own rules… but the Government IS able to make protection laws in these kinds of institutions. They just don’t, because they prefer to turn a blind eye.

There is a bright spot in the storm though. If you feel like it, look up Toledo Academy of Learning. It was closed shortly after I left. The reasons aren’t entirely clear; The sources say that it was between lack of budget and continuous bad testing, but I heard from the one friend I stayed close to that it had something to do with the principal having an affair with an eighth grader. 

I went to a pretty excellent school that tended to be open and accepting. For the most part, it was a smooth ride - especially since I wasn’t fully ‘out’ at my school (though by twelfth grade, pretty much everyone knew I dated girls).

In middle school, I and my very good friend/then-girlfriend (we were pretty cute and closeted) decided to participate in the Day of Silence. We had been attending the high school GSA meetings - we were sort of their little mentees - and wanted to be a part of that event. So, we got our cards and info from the high school and participated. And the rest of the middle school was DEFINITELY not ready for it. The whole day, some of the meaner and more popular kids gradually realized that since we were pledged to silence, they could say or do whatever they wanted to us and we would not argue. Mostly this took the form of taunts and teases, names and other not-nice comments. (One especially popular method was to say, “Are you a lesbian? If you’re not say no,” and then in response to our [obvious] silence, start chanting/yelling that we were lesbians.) I was already struggling - I was thirteen (hard for anyone!) and my dad was in the middle of his first rounds of radiation and chemo - and my reaction was mostly to withdraw into myself. I spent much of that day reciting song lyrics in my head instead of listening to the nasty comments.

After school, she and I had track practice. We were doing laps on the indoor track in the gymnasium when J.K., one of the meaner boys, cornered me and starting kicking my legs, stomping on my feet, and calling me gay/a lesbian/a dyke/a freak, etc. Wonderfully, brilliantly, my amazing, supportive, intelligent and compassionate track coach - with whom I am friends to this day - saw this going on. And ooh lordy, was he angry. He wrenched J.K. off of me and gathered the team to give us a lecture. And he gave a very excellent one, in which he condemned J.K.’s actions and any other teasing from that day, called the bullies ‘cowardly,’ explained to the kids that bullying had, in some places, led to kids’ deaths, and commended me and my girlfriend for our involvement with the Day of Silence.

I came out of that day feeling a bit shook up but mostly stronger and more determined, because my coach had seen what was going on and stood up for me. Thanks Coach N!

I was never really bullied by my peers for being gay, so I supposed I’m one of the lucky ones. No one really cared, but then no one really knew except those closest to me. My story is about being harassed by the system itself.

This happened in high school, somewhere around 2003-2004, in San Marcos, California. An article in our school paper had recently come out blasting on about the “gay agenda” and how we didn’t want or need a GSA at our school—a clear sign that yes, yes we did need a GSA badly. There was a petition going around to start a GSA (I don’t know if it ever actually happened, but I don’t think so) and a day of peaceful protest organized by the students to pretty much wear our gay pride apparel.

I had a shirt I made that said “PRIDE” across the front and the popular at the time slogan “I kiss girls” underneath. There was nothing provocative about my shirt—just a plain white t-shirt decorated with Sharpie.

Before my History class, my shirt was getting a lot of attention that apparently the teacher did not like. She said it would be a “distraction” and told me I either had to put on my sweatshirt or go to lock out (basically, go sit in a room for the period, usually for kids who were late or sent out aka “bad kids” [whatever THAT means]). I chose to go to lock out. On my way, I passed a security guard who asked why I was going to lock out as the late bell hadn’t rung yet (actually, when I was sent out, class hadn’t even started). I explained the situation and she told me that was “pretty messed up”.

Apparently, this struck such a nerve with the security guard that she actually pulled me out of lock out and took me to the assistant principle’s office to explain my situation and be readmitted to class. The exact opposite happened, however.

They cited some rule about my shirt being “sexually offensive” due to the “I kiss girls” slogan (which is crap, as I’d seen guys at school with half naked women on their shirts and no one ever batted an eye) and when I shot that down they grasped at more straws saying “home decorated apparel was not permitted on campus” or some garbage that pretty much meant since my shirt wasn’t silk screened—it was marker—I couldn’t wear it. They told me if I didn’t put my jacket on over it, I would be sent home. I refused and said that it was free speech and I wasn’t backing down from this.

At the time I’d been going through some other rough stuff and had been cutting. They saw the marks on my arms and decided I was a “danger to myself” and searched my bag (illegally, I found out well after the fact). They found an exacto knife I used for craft projects after school (I even had the project I was working on in my bag) and nailed me with a two day suspension—one for refusing to listen to a teacher/administrator and one for bringing a weapon to school.

They called my mom to come pick me up, and on the phone they mentioned what I was wearing. I couldn’t hear my mom, but from my side this is what I heard:
AP: Did you see what —— was wearing to school this morning? … *surprised look* And you thought it was appropriate?

My mother was seriously pissed off at the school for sending me home over the shirt and she told them so. She said there was nothing wrong or offensive about what I was wearing, but she couldn’t argue with my bringing an exacto knife to school, so I got suspended anyways.

I didn’t realize until years later how many of my rights were violated that morning and I wish that I had known at the time so I could have done something about it. To this day, it still sends me into a fit of rage when I think about it.

As a side note: I ran into that teacher two years later, while I was taking a different history class in summer school to catch up on some credits I missed during an interstate move. She asked if I was still angry about my getting suspended because she sent me out. She asked if I was still “mad at [her]”. I told her, “I was never MAD at you. I think what you did showed a very obvious homophobic bigotry and I have no respect for you as either a teacher or a human being. But I was never MAD at you. I know I didn’t do anything wrong—my MOM knew I didn’t do anything wrong, so it’s not like I was punished. All you accomplished was setting -a student- behind in courses I was already struggling in, so I nearly failed a semester. But I didn’t, so I don’t really give a sh*t,” and walked away before she could respond. I really didn’t want to be around her. I had so much more to say, and I still go over in my head what I SHOULD have said or what I COULD have said.

It bothers me that even teachers can play such a part in making sure LGBTQ teens feel isolated and wrong for being who they are. I’m actually kind of glad it happened to me instead of someone who didn’t have the strong support network I had at the time. At least I had my parents’ support and a whole mess of lgbtq acquaintances that I could vent to. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if I didn’t have so many people standing behind me.

So yea. That’s my story.

Thank you so much, love <3

Dear All,

My name is Nina Moon and I love you. I am the creator of Lipstick Feminists and All Women and Real Women . I am taking an Education Studies class this term and have created this blog as part of my final project. My group partners and I decided to focus on LGBTQQIAATSP related bullying in school. I created this blog in the hopes that it could be a place where people can tell their stories. Depending on the volume of stories I may create a zine of stories to distribute to my class and anyone else who would like a copy. I invite you to share your story here. 

Love Always and Forever,

Nina Moon