Conference aims to help students respond to homophobia at school
Most high school students don’t feel safe telling teachers about the slurs regularly directed toward gay or lesbian students, said a group of teenagers who attended a conference Wednesday.
Teachers, social workers, law enforcement workers and a pastor offered strategies to deal with conflicts and homophobia for high school students.
The Out-United-Together conference at Spokane Falls Community College drew about 50 high school students from three high schools from Spokane Public Schools. The college Gay/Straight Alliance hosted the event with a grant from the Pride Foundation.
“It’s good to see them engage in conversations our culture is too afraid … to have,” said organizer Barb Williamson, an English teacher at SFCC. Williamson said she planned to promote the event when Spokane Public Schools’ equity office director Vickie Countryman said she would handle publicity.
Spokane Public Schools also covered the cost of bus transportation for Ferris High School and Rogers High School. Two students from Lewis and Clark High School came on their own after a counselor told them about the event.
Most of the students who attended were not gay or lesbian, according to attendees.
“I came here to support our homosexual community,” said Ferris junior Lauren Viau, 16. “I have a lot of homosexual friends. I want to fight bigotry.”
Viau is part of her school’s gay-straight alliance.
Many students attended a session that promised tools to handle homophobic or ignorant teachers, who can make students feel more isolated, according to a conference flier.
Some teachers don’t seem to try to stop students when gay and lesbian slurs are used, one student said. Some teachers make faces when asked to sign permission slips that allow students to leave class for gay-straight alliance activities, students said. They were encouraged to identify those teachers they know could be trusted.
Spokane Police Officer Davida Zinkgraf, who investigates hate crimes, explained to students that she understands the fear of not knowing how people will respond to orientation. She’s been very open about her partner and has been treated very well by her department, Zinkgraf said.
“You have the right to be yourself, but you need to pay attention to your surroundings,” Zinkgraf said.
She advised students to avoid confronting people who walk up shouting insults. Instead, report the situation. Very few hate crimes are reported from the gay and lesbian community in Spokane. One was reported two weeks ago of a man who reported his car had been spray-painted with anti-gay slurs.
Rogers High School teacher Peter Perkins said he came out four years ago when a fellow teacher wanted to publish a letter in the student newspaper taking issue with gays and lesbians being included in a Martin Luther King Jr. assembly. The letter was never printed, but the issue was enough to encourage him to come out at school. He even posted the teacher’s letter and his response outside his classroom.
He expected a backlash.
“My fear has not matched reality,” Perkins told students.