Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 16:09:34 -0800 From: Jean Richter Subject: 1/14/99 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. GA: More on censorship of gay holocaust victims in teacher's guide 2. KS: School district signs up for LGBT-tolerant inservice program 3. VA: Gay teen fights to start gay-straight alliance at high school ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 8 Jan 99 20:05:00 -0500 Subject: "Erase Hate Not History" implores NGLTF From: "Channel Q News" To: Multiple recipients of Activist - Sent by *********************************************** NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE PRESS RELEASE Contact: Tracey Conaty, Communications Director 202-332-6483 ext. 3303 800-757-6476 pager tconaty@ngltf.org http://www.ngltf.org 2320 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009 *********************************************** GEORGIA COMMISSION DELETES GAY MEN FROM TEACHERS' GUIDE ON HOLOCAUST;"ERASE HATE NOT HISTORY" IMPLORES TASK FORCE WASHINGTON, DC---January 7, 1999---The Georgia Commission on the Holocaust has deleted from a teachers' guide the only two paragraphs addressing the persecution of gay men in the Holocaust. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force denounced the commission's action. There is a rally today in Atlanta of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community and its allies within the Jewish community who have denounced the commission's action. In addition, tomorrow community leaders will meet with the Georgia Holocaust Commission to demand a reprinting of the guide with the deleted paragraphs reinserted. They will also request that a resource booklet on gays in the Holocaust published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum be distributed to middle school teachers along with the guide. Jane Seville, a board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a former board member of Bet Haverim, a GLBT synagogue in Atlanta, will attend the meeting along with Harry Knox of Georgia Equality Project and Steve Kovall of the Atlanta Executive Network. Below is a statement from Task Force executive director Kerry Lobel followed by the two paragraphs that were deleted from the guide. "This decision by the commission is deeply troubling and dangerous. The Holocaust has taught us about the insidiousness of hate and intolerance, which can take root quickly and deeply in a society. The Holocaust has taught us to be vigilant against hatred, intolerance, and ignorance - in all their forms and manifestations. As a Jew, I am chilled by this attempt to erase gay men from the pages of Holocaust history. It is hate we must erase, not history. How ironic that this curriculum, intended to teach tolerance and understanding, will now foster more misunderstanding and intolerance. It is our hope that the commissioners will take the lessons of the Holocaust to heart. If they do, then they will have no other choice but to include in the curriculum the full truth about the persecution of gay men by the Nazis. We implore the commissioners to look to the work of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC where the stories of gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals are woven into every aspect of Holocaust history. The words of Pastor Martin Niemoller serve us well in remembering the Holocaust's most important lesson to all humanity: "In Germany they first came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up." The two paragraphs deleted from the guide: "German male homosexuals were targeted and arrested because they would not breed the master race: they were an affront to the Nazi macho image." "The doors of the third [cattle] car open and the homosexuals spill forth, males only, because as Himmler concluded, 'lesbians can give birth.' The taunting jeers, and blows of the guards stun the men. They will stay a night and then be rerouted to Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald to be with their kind. The pink triangle they will soon wear is a result of a judgment that they have broken Article 175A, by sexual act, by kissing, by embracing, by fantasy and thought. Some will be given an opportunity to recant by successfully completing sexual activity with a woman in the camp brothel. Most others will find themselves tormented from all sides as they struggle to avoid being assaulted, raped, worked, and beaten to death." For more information about local organizing efforts to reverse the commission's actions, contact the Georgia Equality Project at (404) 872-3600. -30- _____________________________________________________________________ Founded in 1973, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force works to eliminate prejudice, violence and injustice against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people at the local, state and national level. As part of a broader social justice movement for freedom, justice and equality, NGLTF is creating a world that respects and celebrates the diversity of human expression and identity where all people may fully participate in society. _________________________________________ This message was issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. If you have a question regarding this post, please direct it to the contact at the top of this message. If you wish to UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, please send an email with "UNSUBSCRIBE ACTIVIST" in the subject and body of your email message to . You may also unsubscribe by visiting http://www.ngltf.org. =================================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 09:51:50 -0700 From: Jessea NR Greenman Readers may wish to contact the Silver Lake Unified School District Board c/o the District offices: School District Unified School District 372 200 Rice Rd PO Box 39 Silver Lake, Kansas 66539 Phone: 912.582.4026 TOPEKA CAPITAL JOURNAL, January 12, 1999 616 SE Jefferson Street,Topeka,KS,66607 (Fax 785-295-1230 ) (E-MAIL: letters@cjnetworks.com ) ( http://cjonline.com/ ) Silver Lake public schools renew membership in Kaw Valley Inservice By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, The Capital-Journal Silver Lake public schools renewed its membership in the Kaw-Valley Inservice despite a controversial course offering last fall that advocated tolerance towards gay and lesbian students. "I believe the benefits make it worthwhile," Dr. Bob Albers, Unified School District 372 superintendent, said during a Monday night school board meeting. "As a member, we can try to influence the inservice sessions as much as we can." The questionable course, "The Silent and Invisible Minority: Addressing the Needs of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Our Schools," set off a string of heated discussions among teachers that eventually made their way to the school board. At one point, the board considered discontinuing its Kaw- Valley Inservice membership in favor of other teaching training options in the community. With the board's direction, Albers wrote the Kaw-Valley Inservice and requested clarification of the questionable course's content. No Silver Lake teachers attended the course offered at the Oct. 13 conference in Lawrence, Albers reported. The board waited to make its decision until surveys of staff inservice preferences were tabulated. Of 55 surveys received, 29 teachers supported continued membership and attendance at the Kaw-Valley Inservice. "We can always revisit if we feel problems are continuing or escalating," said board member Emilie Fangman before making a motion that the district renew its membership for an additional year. O+O+ O+O+ O+O+ O+O+ O+O+ O+O+ Jessea NR Greenman, "Talk does not cook rice." Chinese proverb. =============================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:04:59 -0700 From: Jessea NR Greenman Readers may wish to take action in support of Jon's request for a GSA. Contact: Wilson High School 1401 Elmhurst Ln Portsmouth, Virginia 23701 Principal: Rosa M. Wells-Garris Office: 757.465.2907 Paul D. Stapleton State Superintendent of Public Instruction James Monroe Building (25th floor) 101 North 14th Street Richmond, VA 23219 telephone (804) 225-2023, e-mail address: pstaplet@pen.k12.va.us Kirk Schroder, President Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Education LeClair Ryan 707 East Main Street Richmond, VA 23219 -------------- VIRGINIAN PILOT, January 12, 1999 P.O. Box 449, Norfolk, VA 23501-0449 (Fax 757 446-2051 ) (E-Mail: letters@pilotonline.com ) ( http://www.pilotonline.com/ ) One teen's fight for acceptance: Portsmouth teen-ager is trying to start gay- straight student alliance BY LORRAINE EATON, The Virginian-Pilot PORTSMOUTH -- For the longest time, Jon Leszczynski's mornings remained shrouded in sameness. The alarm clock rang at 6:30 a.m. He padded across the hall to the bathroom, careful not to wake his sleeping brothers. A shower, a shave, a comb through his hair. He put on a flannel shirt, a pair of Levi's. Conservative. Safe. Safe enough? he wondered. Then, standing before the mirror on the back of his bedroom door, he put on his mask, staring at his reflection for 10 minutes, sometimes more. Often, there were tears as he checked for telltale clues. It was an intensely personal hell. The need to escape it has propelled this 16-year-old Wilson High School student into the fray of one of the nation's most sensitive issues: homosexuality. The AIDS crisis. The debate over gays in the military. The fatal beating of a gay college student in Wyoming, and President Clinton's subsequent call to expand the federal hate-crimes law to include crimes based on a person's sexual orientation. Jon has grown up hearing people debating homosexuality. He has also sensed things that don't always make headlines, like an increasing intolerance among high school students, and he has learned that gay youths are frequently harassed and are more prone to suicide and other destructive behaviors than other students. This month, Jon hopes to start what may be the only gay and straight student club at a Virginia high school. He wants the club to teach tolerance. He believes that it is a risky venture, that he might get hurt. But he believes more strongly that the harassment must stop and the healing must start. He thinks that his club can do that. In fact, at his school, he thinks it's already happening. But that optimism blossomed only after months of turmoil. In March, Jon got some news that terrified him. His best friend told him that one of his closest female friends wanted to be more than pals. It won't happen, he said. What's wrong? his best friend asked, laughing. Are you gay? By the time he was a teen-ager, Jon knew the answer to that question. The time had come, he decided, to tell someone else. The way Jon saw it, the stakes were high. If he removed the mask, he risked it all -- his family, his friends, the security of his home, his plans to study microbiology and drama in college. Still, he had to do it. Jon loves to write. He is editor-in-chief of Wilson's school newspaper, The Blue View. His specialty is editorials, and when he needs to express feelings, he usually turns to paper and pen. In his desk at home, he saved drafts of explanations that he had been working on for months in preparation for the dreaded day. He unfolded the papers, picked up a red pen and began writing, first to his best friend, who was upset at the news. Then, hardest of all, to his mother. ``I've known it for a long time,'' he wrote. ``Being gay is as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes. I'm always going to be this way. All I ask is your love and your respect.'' He scrawled ``Mom'' on the envelope and propped it up on the microwave. At school that day, algebra II, mass media, honors biology and French IV were all a blur. That afternoon, as he stepped off the bus, the fears welled up inside him. Where will I live, he wondered, if my family no longer wants me? What if I've lost everything? In his bedroom was a letter. ``You are beautiful no matter what you are and I will love you no matter what,'' his mother wrote. ``I sort of expected it for a while now. The only thing I'm upset about is that you have kept it a secret for so long.'' Jon hasn't yet mustered the courage to tell his father, who lives out of state. But to this day, the carefully folded letter from his mother is almost always tucked inside his wallet. For males, the acknowledgment of homosexual orientation usually comes by the time they are 16, said Scott E. King, an Old Dominion University expert on sexual orientation issues. Jon knew when he was 15. But he told few others about his sexuality. He sensed that little good would come from telling everyone. Statistically, his risk of peer discrimination is much higher than among adults. An October 1998 Time/CNN poll found that the number of adults who consider homosexuality unacceptable dropped from 59 percent in 1978 to 33 percent two decades later. But among high school students, intolerance is much higher. A 1998 Who's Who Among American High School Students survey found that prejudice against homosexuals among the country's top high school students rose from 29 percent in 1997 to 48 percent in 1998. Most cited religious reasons for their feelings. When he entered his junior year this fall, Jon kept his mask on at school. He didn't want to be asked, and he didn't want to tell. But, as it does at every high school, gossip bounced off Wilson's lockers like basketballs. By September, the word was out. ``Faggot!'' ``Queer!'' ``Who's your boyfriend?'' Jon let most of the incidents slide. He thought that telling school officials would only make things worse. Jon reported the harassment once, but didn't have a name. The second time, he did, and the student was disciplined, said Wilson Principal Rosa M. Wells-Garris. She describes herself as a hard- liner against any type of intimidation at her school. One morning, a group of boys cornered Jon near his locker. One boy balled up his fist and smacked it into his palm an inch from Jon's head. ``Bring it on, faggot,'' he said. Jon had become a miserable, breathing statistic. While there are no national figures on the lives of gay youths, regional and state studies show that they face steady verbal, physical and psychological abuse. In a 1996 Pennsylvania State University study, 80 percent of gay youths reported having been verbally abused, 44 percent faced physical threats, and 17 percent were physically harmed. When people question whether teens can really know they are gay at such a young age, or suspect that youths are acting out to get attention or to follow a fad, experts on gay issues point to the statistics. Why, they ask, would young people subject themselves to such abuse? But the damage goes deeper. Nearly half -- 46 percent -- of gay youths surveyed had attempted suicide, compared with 9 percent of other youths, according to a 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Study by the Massachusetts Department of Education and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Nearly one-quarter had received medical attention because of suicide attempts, compared with 3 percent of other youths. And while only 4 percent of straight students had skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe en route to or at school, 22 percent of gay youths had stayed away. On Oct. 9, two days after two 21-year-old men fatally attacked University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, Jon walked out of Wilson High School with no intention of returning. Forget graduating fourth in his class. Forget college. Just forget it. He spent the next four days in seclusion, unleashing his emotions in letters to Del. Johnny S. Joannou and Portsmouth Mayor James W. Holley III. He searched the Internet for information about gay youth support groups. He explored the possibility of transferring to Churchland or some other high school. His mother, Marianne Wyatt, told him, ``Either you are going to have to face it and handle it and go through it or you will have to drop everything you have worked your whole life for.'' Finally, Jon got mad and decided to try to change the status quo. If he gets approval, he'll soon be handing out fliers and taping up posters around school announcing the new club, the Gay-Straight Alliance. The club's goal will be to foster understanding and tolerance among all of Wilson's 1,476 students. Jon also wants to raise awareness among teachers who may not realize what some students experience. When a Salt Lake City, Utah, student wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance in 1995, the School Board moved quickly to quash the idea by banning all non-academic clubs. Three years later, most of the school's clubs have disbanded because members can't find adult sponsors, can't pay the rent or can't pay insurance premiums. In Portsmouth, school officials have taken a quieter approach. Wilson's principal handled Jon's request the same way she would any other. Wells-Garris told him to prepare a written proposal, to state the purpose and the benefits to the students and the activities of the club. Then to find a teacher to sponsor the group. The superintendent has informed the School Board of the request, and its attorney is researching the legal issues involved. Jon hopes to have his application completed next week. Already, about 20 students have expressed interest in joining (although they'll first have to secure permission from their parents). Most, Jon said, are straight. Many are his friends who want to show their support. In fact, since he has returned to school without the mask, it seems that he has more friends than ever. Even some of the boys who harassed him in the fall have decided that he's OK after all. Jon believes it is because he is taking a stand for his beliefs. Some students interviewed last week said there's no way they would join the club. People would think weird things about them, they said. And this week, before his alliance has even been considered for approval, Jon has heard rumors about that new ``fag club'' at school. He's worried that some people both inside and outside of school might not like it, that there might be a backlash. Then he thinks about Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming college student. And he thinks, ``If I don't do something, it could go that far here, too.'' ================================================================================ Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) CHECK OUT OUR INFO-LOADED WEB PAGE AT: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/