Dear Trevor's Friends,

 

Thank you for your most recent response because I know while websites with inforamtion can be helpful, those websites can't compare to the real interaction of one human to another human. =) So thank you (Everyone in the Trevor Project) who volunteer their time to help people like me and all the other LGBT people. 

 

In your last response to me, you brought up the idea of educating my peers and classmates. I've liked the idea of educating the people around me about LGBT communities and people. Since I have always lived in a isolate, desolate area, LGBT people are hard to find and to make it even harder, most people sterotypes us (LGBT). Although, most people who do make sterotypes on us, have never either experienced the interaction of culture/people of the world or are just ignorant of other cultures/people. 

 

So, in conversations I have about politics, marriage, human rights, etc., I do my best to reinforce one, simple idea into my classmates thoughts, "You do not need to like LGBT people, you only need to give them respect because every human deserves respect. I'm not asking you to change your views on LGBT issues but to consider that they are people too, just like you. And they deserve the same, basic human rights as anyone else,  because they too have feelings. And as humans, we have to be considerate of everyone's feelings/emotions." 

 

In other words, I do not except everyone to like me when I come-out. The only I will respect it that people will give me the respect I've earned, because I am also just a human like everyone else in this world. That is what I try to educate to others in terms of everyone understanding another part of our social soceity (LGBT communities) 

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Last year, the Peer Outreach (PO) of my school, hosted the national Day of Silence. We did this to educate my high school about LGBT communities. Everyone in my PO group said it was, "Hard, and difficult to not talk to anyone." But I thought that not talking to anyone was easily done for myself, except for what happened. On that day, my butt got slapped by guys and they said, "Homo-Husson!" evertime they slapped my butt. So I fear if I was to come out, they would happen again...

 

So my question is, What are some ways to educate a high-school audience about LGBT communities? 

 
Signed,
Ashton, 16, Concord NH

 Dear Ashton,

 

Good to hear from you again. You seem to be really engaged in not only figuring out how to stake a claim to your own piece of humanity, but in helping other LGBT youth do the same. That's amazing! Your commitment both to yourself and to others is laudable.

 

Your question caught me a little off guard this time. The way you've phrased it suggests that you feel that there is no single LGBT community, but rather a loose alliance of communities (plural) made up of LGBT people. That's a great perception. Society as a whole (both gay and straight) tends to lump us together into a single thought that we all call "the gay community." But, in fact, we're all just individuals, with individual interests and aspirations. And that, I think, is what we really want to tell the world. We're just people. Some of us are left-handed, and some of us are blue-eyed. Some of us are mathematicians, and some are journalists. Some of us may "occasionally show more feminine gestures than masculine features," but that's almost incidental. At the end of the day, the "gay communities" are just another part of humanity.

 

That said, I think the best way "to educate a high-school audience about LGBT communities" is to keep doing what you've been doing -- to be yourself. Your response to in your Sociology class about how the general society views you was breathtakingly courageous in a quiet and inoffensive way. You made your point and planted a seed that I'm sure wasn't lost on your classmates. And in doing it the way you did, you didn't force them to take sides. You didn't force them oppose you. This is what the Day of Silence is all about: planting an idea in the minds of people who wouldn't otherwise think about the issue of being gay, and letting that idea take shape on its own. Yeah, you became "Homo-Husson" in the process, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. You have the comfort of knowing that the rest of your Peer Outreach classmates are in the same boat.

 

I guess what I'm suggesting is that best way to educate your classmates about LGBT issues is by showing them someone who cares about those issues. Lead by example. You don't even have to explicitly "come out" to do that. You just have to care, and be proud of that caring. And it sounds to me like that's exactly what you've done, what you're doing. You said in a previous note that'd come out to a best friend and your sister. That's a good start. And if, at some point, you feel comfortable about telling others that you're gay, great! But I wouldn't set myself a goal and a schedule for coming out to the world. And I wouldn't feel an obligation to "educate." Be true to yourself, and proud of who you are. The rest will flow from that.

 

I hope this helps, Ashton. You sound like you've made a great start both in  understanding who you are and in carving out a place for yourself among your peers. Bravo to you!