I wanted to portray the range of sexuality and each student’s coming-out experience. I wanted to investigate the climate at our school, the struggles these students faced, and the reactions from their peers.

I imagined a story of four different students and their different experiences of coming out at MHS. Sounds simple, right?

I thought so, but while writing the story, I started with four sources and it soon dwindled to none. Two students dropped out in fear of their classmates’ reactions, two students dropped due to their parents’ concerns, and three different sets of parents called counselors.

Everyone had a different opinion, a different concern. Sources were dropping like flies. It’s sad to think we may live in a world where parents and students are afraid to speak – speak about coming out and discuss the LGBTQ community. So that is what I have aimed to do here.

It’s not only me. All across the nation, officials and activists are discussing LGBTQ rights and sexuality.
The Supreme Court was divided over the issue of same-sex marriage during a monumental argumental Tuesday, April 28.

Thirty-seven states have legalized same-sex marriage, and the rest are on their way.

In the 2015 State of the Union Address, President Obama praised same sex marriage as a civil right and condemned persecution of the LGBTQ community, becoming the first president to use the words transgender and bisexual in a State of the Union address.

I like to think of American society as accepting and a melting bowl of diversity. Society is progressing, and I like to think we are more open-minded. But are we really?

Coming Out

He loves me? He loves me not? He loves me? He loves me not? But for Nicole Torres, senior, theses questions were a little different.

I like her? I like her not? I like her? I like her not? I really do like her.

Torres first had an interest in girls in the beginning of middle school, but didn’t fully accept her sexuality until freshman year.

What Torres experienced, and the entire coming out process, has many psychological theories behind it, including “cognitive dissonance.”

“[Cognitive dissonance] is when a person experiences themselves in one way, but is seen by the world another way,” Dr. Goldman, staff psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis Student Health Services and co-owner of Psychological Services of St. Louis, said. “This creates a state of tension that can be very uncomfortable and even damaging.”

Then the individual experiences a process of noticing one’s feelings and reactions to various situations and creating a hypothesis about it and then lastly, experimenting with it.

“The idea might occur to them that they could be gay. Then they live with this possibility for a while before dipping a toe in, and if that feels like a fit, the rest develops naturally,” he said.

After this period of uncertainty, Torres now identifies herself as lesbian.

“I started out being bisexual because I was scared of people judging me and I didn’t really know what it meant to like girls and then it went back and forth from being gay and bisexual and then it finally ended at being gay,” Torres said.

When she did, there was no “coming out.” People just found out on their own and most accepted it. Growing up with two gay brothers, Torres didn’t feel the need to hide her feelings from her mom.

“She started having a girl friend over and they began to hang out a lot, and I asked her whether she was a friend or a girlfriend and she said girlfriend,” Shawn Medlin, Torres’s mom, said. “It wasn’t a big deal, it was just kind of shocking.”

Parents’ reactions can be very influential and integral to an individual’s coming out experience. Negative reactions be hurtful and even damaging, Dr. Goldman said.

“Families don’t necessarily have to support it, although it would be good, but they certainly must give the person the respect of taking them seriously,” Dr. Goldman said.

With the support of her immediate family, Torres told her friends, who were mostly supportive. But school is a different story for Torres.

Challenges

“I’ll walk by with my girlfriend and they’ll say ‘ew’ or they’ll make faces and stare,” she said.
While Torres and her girlfriend, Ashleigh Bibb, junior, feel the bullying and snickering, compared to previous generations, the stigma against the LGBTQ community in the younger generations has improved.

“Although there are some in the below-21 crowd who have extreme viewpoints, kids of today are a lot more accepting and even kind of blasé about LGBTQ stuff than kids were when I was growing up,” Dr. Goldman said. “Kids today have grown up in a world where being gay was featured in ways that weren’t necessarily disparaging.”

But there is still a long way to go, and it’s not just dirty looks Torres and Bibb have to deal with. Both Torres and her girlfriend attend South Technical High School, and on the bus from the technical school to MHS, they used to be able to sit together until the bus driver became involved.

“We held hands and the bus driver saw the tapes, so she won’t let us sit together,” Torres said. “But straight couples can sit together.”

They were banned from sitting together by the bus driver in the beginning of the year and they took it up to the administration. Torres discussed the issue with the Assistant South Technical High principal over the course of three months.

“We should have the opportunity to prove we don’t do anything wrong,” Torres said.

Bibb, Torres’s girlfriend, agreed but in general tries to move past any problems she faces.

“I was really frustrated. We get picked on at school and I don’t need this on the bus too,” Bibb said. “It was the first time I got targeted by an adult, which was kind of weird because it is usually teenagers.”

Finally, on Thursday, Jan. 14, South Technical Assistant Principal Nick Detering, informed Torres and Bibb he would talk to the bus driver to give them a “trial run.”

“Our approach at South Tech is to treat everyone as individuals and to treat them with respect,” Detering said. “If I get word that there is any kind of bullying or mistreatment based on sexual identity, I take it seriously and I address it.”

Detering followed consistent protocol: he received statements from the victims, read them carefully and then interviewed anyone mentioned in the statements.

“Policies on buses are that any teenagers, regardless of their sexuality, cannot be engaging in any inappropriate sexual behavior on a bus,” Detering said. “I had to make sure it wasn’t specifically because of their choice to be together. Once I was sure that wasn’t the case, I followed the same policy I would for anybody.”

After following protocol, Detering was able to mediate a solution and now Torres and Bibb sit together.
“I don’t feel these students were being singled out because of their sexuality,” he said. “I do believe the report was made to me based on code of conduct on the bus.”

While Torres and Bibb might disagree with Detering, Robin Ray, the South Garage manager for the Special School District said bus policy includes separating boys and girls.

“Typically, once the students reach adolescence age, we don’t let boys and girls sit together,” she said. “We have high seats so the bus drivers can’t see.”

So, when girlfriends Torres and Bibb sat together, it became a matter of bus policy.
“We’re just applying that rule to everyone on that bus,” Ray said.

Coming Out Early

Even though coming out may result in bullying, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry led by University of Arizona researcher Dr. Stephen Russell, in the long run students who come out in high school fare better than those who don’t.

“The thing is – we know from lots of studies of LGBT adults that coming out is good – that being authentic about who you are is associated with positive well-being,” Dr. Russell said. “So – it is very encouraging to know that even though you may experience more bullying, coming out is associated positive outcomes in the long run.”

While it may be beneficial in the long term, coming out can be a long and terrifying process with many challenges.

“The biggest is fear of rejection –and for some, actual rejection – from friends, families, peers,” Dr. Russell. “It’s also a challenge when they feel that they are a burden to others.”

The best way to overcome this challenge, Dr. Russell said, is through support of family and friends.

“The implications are pretty clear that adults in the world – parents, teachers, school administrators, policy makers – should work to make every school and every community safe and accepting, so that we don’t even have to worry about whether youth feel safe to be who they are,” Dr. Russell said.

Positive Experience

Coming out is a unique process for every individual, and some face more positive experiences. For Chris Howell, senior, the coming out happened at school.

It was just like any other school morning. Howell, who at the time was a freshman, found his usual table in the Commons and sat down with his friends. Wild gestures, loud laughs and just another pointless conversation.

“I just love snow so much,” Howell whimsically said.

“I think it would be so romantic if the first snow of the year happened right after I kissed my boyfriend,” said a girl at the table.

“Yeah, I would love if that happened with my boyfriend too,” Howell said as he tilted his head and smiled.

A few seconds later, he looked back around and noticed his friends’ shocked expressions – eyes wide and gaping mouths.

“Oh, cool!” they managed to stutter, struggling to remain calm. Howell, their best friend, had just ‘come out’, totally by accident.

“They were really cool with it,” Howell said. “I’ve had minimal issues with it in the past three to four years.”

Howell was asked whether he was gay twice during freshman year. The first time Howell said no, and the second time he said yes. For a while, Howell kept his feelings under the wraps. It wasn’t that Howell thought people would disapprove. It was that he wasn’t entirely sure of his feelings.

“At first I wasn’t 100 percent sure if I was or if it was just a passing thing,” he said. “I knew that once I came out, I would never be able to back track.”

Howell came from a much smaller school, so coming to MHS gave him an opportunity to grow and develop. It was during this time, when he realized he did like boys. Fortunately for Howell, everyone has been accepting – friends, family and the school.

“I am fortunate enough to go to a school where nobody really cares,” he said. “I’ve had a couple instances where people want the gay best friend, and they actually try to be friends with me.”

It’s like a hip thing now, to have a gay best friend, he said.

Although Howell hasn’t faced any discrimination, Howell realizes “coming out” can be terrifying.
“It’s okay to be afraid, that’s a natural reaction.” he said. “But you should never let fear stop you from being who you are, and if anybody thinks less of you because of who you love, then they’re not the kind of person you want in your life anyway.”