Acceptance focus of GLBT forum

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
   ROBBINSVILLE — About 300 people attended workshops focused on the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students at the fifth annual New Jersey Gay-Straight Alliance Forum last week at Robbinsville High School.
   The Oct. 18 event, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network of Central New Jersey (GLSEN CNJ) and HiTops of Princeton, brought together about 200 students and 100 adults from throughout the state to discuss the issues gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students face.
   The forum came just five days after the Board of Education voted to accept the resignation of board member Joseph Armenti, who was widely criticized for using the slur “faggot” at a board meeting Sept. 23.
   Robbinsville juniors and GSA leaders Laura Williams and Laura Sanders said they got many new ideas for their school’s club as a result of the event, and also learned a lot about how things are for GLBT students elsewhere.
   ”The issues are so different throughout the state,” Laura Williams said, ranging from harassment in the hallways in some schools to violent crimes in others.
   Reactions to these forms of treatment also differ, she added.
   ”Some people get up in (their offender’s) face and others don’t know what to do.”
   Only a handful of Robbinsville students attended last year’s forum, but this year about 40 came, said RHS teacher and GSA advisor Alison Sussman. Most were from the GSA, which itself has about 40 members, while others are involved in other GLBT-related issues.
   Ms. Sussman characterized the administration at the school as very supportive of the club, now in its second year, but said students themselves were concerned with making the school environment more accepting.
   ”There’s a lot of bullying that goes on if a student is openly gay,” she said.
   According to statistics provided by GLSEN, four out of five GLBT students report being verbally harassed for their sexual orientation, and 80 percent say faculty and staff do not intervene when they are present and overhear homophobic remarks. And over 75 percent of students hear anti-gay slurs used in school, while nearly 90 percent heard “gay” used as a synonym for “bad” or “stupid.”
   Ms. Sussman said that kind of language is a major concern for the club because it “dehumanizes a group of people.
   ”(The words have) become part of teenage slang, and without realizing what they’re doing, students who use them are making people who identify as GBLT feel very unhappy and bad about themselves… So (the GSA) really wants to change that climate here, and change the language that students use on a day-to-day basis.”
   But despite the current climate in most schools, she said, she was happy with how everything turned out on Saturday.
   ”A lot of really positive connections were made that day between students and advisors, in addition to all the resources we were able to gather throughout the event,” she said.
   Students and adults alike attended a full day of speakers and small seminars devoted to different topics, including expectations of those who are GLBT and understanding civil rights laws, as well as roundtables for students and GSA advisors.
   In a session titled “Youth of Color—Reaching Our Dreams,” facilitated by Newark Public Schools supervisor Christine Hamlett, students discussed problems they themselves face at home.
   Toward the end of the session, Ms. Hamlett asked students what they thought about the way children are taught to think of others. One boy said treating other people of any group with respect is something that should be taught at home.
   ”I don’t really have a family,” he said, describing how he was adopted by his godparents as a child and then readopted by his biological parents at age 7. A Catholic, he said he was raised with the idea that it’s OK to be gay, but not to judge others.
   Several students said their parents think their sexual orientation is a phase, a common complaint among GLBT youth.
   One girl said her mother has been calling her sexuality something she’ll grow out of since the sixth grade.
   ”I grew out of the ‘fact’ that I was straight,” she said.