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144 We Are Who We Are: Theatre to Confront Homophobia and Transform Education into Social Praxis Tr acey Calhoun During my first year teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School, I was asked to sponsor a new club—the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). A small group of students had been working to form this club for some time but had been unable to secure faculty support. Being young, progressive, and naive, I immediately agreed to work with these youth, although none of us had much of an idea of who we were or what we wanted to accomplish. When an opportunity arose for our group to work with a local theatre company, we jumped at the chance. I had long been familiar with Fringe Benefits’ unique brand of community-based social justice theatre and felt that a collaboration with that group might help my GSA students develop a sense of identity and purpose while inspiring a positive change in attitudes and behavior toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)1 issues on campus. In October, when we began work in the Theatre for Social Justice Institute as part of a semester-long Fringe Benefits residency to create and present an original play about homophobia, I thought our main purpose would be to address homophobia and homophobic behavior on our school campus. However, as the process moved on, I realized how important the residency had become as a space for students to build a strong sense of self and purpose that runs counter to the narrative of the troubled and suicidal LGBT youth, a reality that has been documented in much of the research done on this population. One student, a young man named Bobby2 who was also in my first period English class, joined the residency at the very beginning but sat on the outskirts of our storytelling circles in the first two weeks. Then, during the third session, he “came out” to the group and shared We Are Who We Are 145 a story about his own experience with discrimination. Several weeks earlier, Bobby explained, he had confided in a friend about a crush he had on another male student. Bobby’s friend apparently had betrayed his confidence because a few days later, word had spread and students in Bobby’s first period class were asking him, “Are you gay? Is it true you’re a fag?” Although he denied the rumors, Bobby said his peers were persistent and had begun openly heckling him. It hit me then that Bobby was speaking about an incident that had occurred in my classroom. And, I realized with a sinking stomach, I had had no idea this was going on. I was shocked by Bobby’s disclosure, or rather by what his story implied about my teaching practice—my own classroom had been a site of anti-LGBT hate and harassment. After all, I am an openly gay educator. I am the faculty sponsor of the GSA. And I am vigilant about acknowledging and responding to all acts of bias and discrimination in my classroom and do my best to turn these instances into “teachable moments.” Considering my personal philosophy of education and my professional experience, I did not want to believe the truths that Bobby’s experience unmasked. Bobby’s disclosure highlighted a persistent need to be aware of and confront anti-LGBT bias in the classroom. An emerging body of research vividly demonstrates the prevalence and seriousness of victimization of and violence toward youth who are or are perceived to be LGBT. The National Mental Health Association reported in a survey of twelve- to seventeen-year-olds that 93 percent hear other kids at school or in their neighborhood use words like “fag,” “homo,” “dyke,” “queer,” or “gay” at least once in a while, with 51 percent hearing such words every day, and 78 percent reporting that kids who are gay or thought to be gay are teased or bullied in their schools and communities. At Wilson and other area schools, despite the passage of the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, which amended the state’s education code to prohibit harassment and discrimination in public schools on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, anti-LGBT harassment and violence remains an embedded part of school life.3 In its 2001 “Understanding the Social Environment” survey, the Los Angeles Unified School District found that sexual orientation was the second most likely trigger for bias...

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