#JustStraightThings
Apr. 28th, 2019 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI am sick and tired of LGBTQ gatekeeping and the assumption that I'm unqualified to talk about queer sexuality because I'm straight, so I decided to create a post about the #JustStraightThings in my life.
Full disclosure: I am very fucking gay.
Okay, here goes. Part one!
Because I am a smart and special snowflake, I got accepted as a scholarship student to one of the most elite private schools in the United States, Woodward Academy. Woodward Academy is located just south of Atlanta, and it's one of the three big private schools in the area. Unlike the other two, Woodward Academy has historically accepted students who aren't white, so it's relatively diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and national origin. In other areas, however, Woodward Academy was extremely conservative, and it had a "zero tolerance" policy for just about everything you can imagine. People got kicked out all the time for what basically amounted to doing normal stupid things that normal stupid kids tend to do.
It should be said, however, that officials could be bribed to look the other way by means of "donations" to the school. To give an example, there was a kid in high school whom everyone called "[Name Redacted] the Date Rapist" because, well, he had a habit of inviting girls on dates after school, trapping them in his car, and raping them. His family was very wealthy, so it was the girls who came forward who were punished, not him; it was all very Brett Kavanaugh.
Anyway, I got kicked out of Woodward Academy during my junior year, a few months after I turned sixteen. What happened is that a friend of mine had a very stressful home life and smoked pot to help deal with her depression and anxiety. She was also in all Honors and AP classes, so she had to deal with that pressure as well; and, if you happen to be under the false impression that smoking pot turns kids into academic burnouts, I want to assure you that this girl was doing very well academically. My friend was also openly bisexual and something of a leader and mentor in the fledgling LGBTQ+ community at Woodward Academy. Under the pretense of cracking down on illegal drug use, the school administration decided to force this girl to leave school. Again, she was doing very well academically, and it's telling that it was her who got kicked out and not any of the kids who openly sold prescription stimulants and painkillers in the student center, openly advertised their raves, or openly did cocaine in one of the third-floor bathrooms (which had a raised shelf above the sinks that honestly felt like it was installed for no other purpose than to make it easy to do lines of coke).
Because I was friends with this girl - and yes, because I once bought pot from her - I also got kicked out after being randomly summoned to the Dean's Office in the middle of class in order to be subjected to a weird kangaroo court intended to induce panic and thereby pressure me into outing other students. I didn't handle it as well as I could have; but, to give myself credit, I quickly figured out what was happening and refused to submit.
You may be thinking that I probably had other problems, because it's not feasible that someone would be kicked out of school just for being suspected of being in a gay relationship. It's true that I had a difficult first year of high school, which is directly related to my own stressful home life, but I got my act together and, like my friend, was in all Honors and AP classes during my junior year. Despite enduring a ridiculously long commute, working several part-time jobs, and also managing a dysfunctional household more or less single-handedly, I got good grades and even managed to participate in a few extracurriculars and do volunteer work. (Also, after that one experiment with marijuana in the absence of access to actual mental health care, I most certainly didn’t do drugs.) I had a wide circle of friends and was generally liked, but I didn't hang out after school or go to parties; my hobby was sitting in the gorgeous school library and studying foreign languages. In fact, it's because I was doing so well academically that I was able to enter a top-ten school as a freshman during what should have been my senior year of high school.
In other words, I'm not the sort of person who would have been kicked out of school for not doing well academically. What I was, however, was friendly with a lot of gay kids. We had actually started to come out and identify ourselves as LGBTQ+, which several of my friends' parents later told me was a major topic of discussion in PTA meetings at the time.
I still love language and books, and now I'm a professor at a large international research university. My friend also turned out okay, and she's now living with her wife in beautiful rural California and operating a legal marijuana dispensary. We're mutuals on Instagram, and she is living her best life, which just so happens to be lovely and super wholesome.
So that's an experience I'm sure a lot of straight kids have, being kicked out of school for having friendships with other straight kids and thus possibly being nascent leaders of an underground straight community.
I'm being sarcastic, obviously, but I do want to say that a lot of straight kids actually do have to leave high school because of their harmless sexual activity. This is one of the reasons why I'm such a strong supporter of collaboration between intersectional feminists and LGBTQ+ activism - because no one should be denied the right to an education for expressing healthy teenage sexuality.
Full disclosure: I am very fucking gay.
Okay, here goes. Part one!
Because I am a smart and special snowflake, I got accepted as a scholarship student to one of the most elite private schools in the United States, Woodward Academy. Woodward Academy is located just south of Atlanta, and it's one of the three big private schools in the area. Unlike the other two, Woodward Academy has historically accepted students who aren't white, so it's relatively diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and national origin. In other areas, however, Woodward Academy was extremely conservative, and it had a "zero tolerance" policy for just about everything you can imagine. People got kicked out all the time for what basically amounted to doing normal stupid things that normal stupid kids tend to do.
It should be said, however, that officials could be bribed to look the other way by means of "donations" to the school. To give an example, there was a kid in high school whom everyone called "[Name Redacted] the Date Rapist" because, well, he had a habit of inviting girls on dates after school, trapping them in his car, and raping them. His family was very wealthy, so it was the girls who came forward who were punished, not him; it was all very Brett Kavanaugh.
Anyway, I got kicked out of Woodward Academy during my junior year, a few months after I turned sixteen. What happened is that a friend of mine had a very stressful home life and smoked pot to help deal with her depression and anxiety. She was also in all Honors and AP classes, so she had to deal with that pressure as well; and, if you happen to be under the false impression that smoking pot turns kids into academic burnouts, I want to assure you that this girl was doing very well academically. My friend was also openly bisexual and something of a leader and mentor in the fledgling LGBTQ+ community at Woodward Academy. Under the pretense of cracking down on illegal drug use, the school administration decided to force this girl to leave school. Again, she was doing very well academically, and it's telling that it was her who got kicked out and not any of the kids who openly sold prescription stimulants and painkillers in the student center, openly advertised their raves, or openly did cocaine in one of the third-floor bathrooms (which had a raised shelf above the sinks that honestly felt like it was installed for no other purpose than to make it easy to do lines of coke).
Because I was friends with this girl - and yes, because I once bought pot from her - I also got kicked out after being randomly summoned to the Dean's Office in the middle of class in order to be subjected to a weird kangaroo court intended to induce panic and thereby pressure me into outing other students. I didn't handle it as well as I could have; but, to give myself credit, I quickly figured out what was happening and refused to submit.
You may be thinking that I probably had other problems, because it's not feasible that someone would be kicked out of school just for being suspected of being in a gay relationship. It's true that I had a difficult first year of high school, which is directly related to my own stressful home life, but I got my act together and, like my friend, was in all Honors and AP classes during my junior year. Despite enduring a ridiculously long commute, working several part-time jobs, and also managing a dysfunctional household more or less single-handedly, I got good grades and even managed to participate in a few extracurriculars and do volunteer work. (Also, after that one experiment with marijuana in the absence of access to actual mental health care, I most certainly didn’t do drugs.) I had a wide circle of friends and was generally liked, but I didn't hang out after school or go to parties; my hobby was sitting in the gorgeous school library and studying foreign languages. In fact, it's because I was doing so well academically that I was able to enter a top-ten school as a freshman during what should have been my senior year of high school.
In other words, I'm not the sort of person who would have been kicked out of school for not doing well academically. What I was, however, was friendly with a lot of gay kids. We had actually started to come out and identify ourselves as LGBTQ+, which several of my friends' parents later told me was a major topic of discussion in PTA meetings at the time.
I still love language and books, and now I'm a professor at a large international research university. My friend also turned out okay, and she's now living with her wife in beautiful rural California and operating a legal marijuana dispensary. We're mutuals on Instagram, and she is living her best life, which just so happens to be lovely and super wholesome.
So that's an experience I'm sure a lot of straight kids have, being kicked out of school for having friendships with other straight kids and thus possibly being nascent leaders of an underground straight community.
I'm being sarcastic, obviously, but I do want to say that a lot of straight kids actually do have to leave high school because of their harmless sexual activity. This is one of the reasons why I'm such a strong supporter of collaboration between intersectional feminists and LGBTQ+ activism - because no one should be denied the right to an education for expressing healthy teenage sexuality.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-28 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-29 01:50 pm (UTC)The best revenge is living well, and my high school friends and I are all living very well.
Sometimes I wonder if 95% of all social media use by adults is intended to show the people who were mean to us in high school that we're still out there living our best lives. If that's indeed the case, then so be it, honestly.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-30 03:14 am (UTC)My high school (Catholic) quietly, after seven girls (~5%) of the graduating class crossed the stage visibly pregnant, updated the handbook to say that student mothers would be asked to find another school as it wasn't the right environment for them there. I don't think LGBTQ was even on the radar (although a few of my classmates came out later, and most of the girls I knew have been enthusiastically supportive and loving, so I guess the Sisters' "God loves you just as you are" was more effective than the Pope's "you are bad and should feel bad.")
The things we do to teenagers in the name of control sicken me.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 07:36 pm (UTC)The few times I've had people roll their eyes and pull the You're Not Queer Enough card on me, I just go into full rage mode. And usually cite my experiences from high school. Because if being targeted DUE TO BEING FUCKING BI for four years isn't queer enough, then go fuck yourselves. I'm sorry I don't shit rainbow membership cards to prove my worth to people I clearly never want to associate with.
Speaking of rainbows, I snagged myself this fucking gorgeous iced mug from Starbucks that's covered in a metallic, pinstripe, rainbow gradient while also spelling out LOVE. I've never booked it to a cash register so fast in my life, lemme tell ya. Can't wait to spend summer sipping my dragon drinks out of that bad boi.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-04 05:57 pm (UTC)What the fuck. That is some anime-level shit right there.
You know, I'm starting to get more and more annoyed at bi erasure. I used to have the experience of people "diagnosing" the fact that I dated people of different genders as some sort of personality disorder, like I was desperate for attention or not properly self-actualized or something, but I thought that would get better with increased awareness and tolerance of queer sexuality. Instead, it's 2019 and there's biphobia both from mainstream straight communities and from LGBTQ+ communities, fun times.
It's like, but what does the "B" stand for? WHAT DOES THE "B" STAND FOR.
Anyway. Thank you for sharing your own experience with this nonsense. It's an incredible comfort not to feel so alone, really it is.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-04 09:25 pm (UTC)Dude, same. I hate being quiet about anything in my life anymore, you know :( especially when I know younger!me bit back their tongue in hopes to survive. That's not ok.
And yeah, the stairs incident was brushed off by the administration, too. There were no cameras to prove anything and all the kids who were in the area and saw what happened said it didn't happen. Plus those girls had Important Parents who contributed to the school, so they got away with whatever the fuck they wanted. Nothing broke, thankfully, but I was not good after that. I lied to my mom about it, too, because she was already stressed about a million other things at the time and I didn't want her to worry about me.
ANYHOW.
Yeah, I fucking hate gatekeepers and the rampant bi erasure that's everywhere still, both among straight and queer groups. Like the fuck :\ well, at least know I'll always have your back with these kinds of things ♥
no subject
Date: 2019-05-06 02:55 pm (UTC)Bisexual youth are the most likely to be bullied & consider suicide
Almost half of bisexual youth considered suicide as an option within the past 12 months.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/03/bisexual-youth-likely-bullied-consider-suicide/
no subject
Date: 2019-05-07 11:29 am (UTC)Shit like this is why I keep making bi headcanons. And making my original characters bi. Anything to normalize it.