|
©1999, The Age, 3rd August, 1999
250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000. Australia.
(Fax: + 61-3-9601-2414 ) (E-mail: [email protected] )(http://www.theage.com.au ) Growing up bent
By MAREE CURTIS
She didn't want to die, she just wanted to see herself bleed. She was only 12 the first time she took a razorblade to her wrists. Nicking, cutting, numb. The blood, she says, was a way to see the pain she couldn't feel and didn't understand.
There were many other times after that; she didn't stop until she was 19. Her years of hibernation, she calls them.
At first, Jess Langley didn't know why she was "different'' from the other girls at school, just that she was. For a while she thought she was just a slow learner when it came to boys. By 14, she was pretty sure she was a lesbian. She wasn't happy.
"I didn't want it to be that way. There was a lot of guilt around those feelings,'' says Langley, now 23. "I very much desexualised myself. A lot of girls were exploring their sexuality, talking about who they had crushes on, and I went completely the other way. "I felt like there was a cloud around my head that I couldn't remove. I felt numb and disconnected - from friends and from myself. All those things
other people my age were doing, I was forcing down. I was biding my time; it wasn't necessarily a happy experience.''
Very few young gay, lesbian and bisexual people find coming to grips with their sexuality a happy experience. As a group, they suffer higher rates of suicide, homelessness, harassment and drug abuse than adolescents generally. They feel isolated, lonely, depressed and guilty. They talk of living secret lives, terrified of rejection and repudiation by family and friends.
Two years ago, teacher and high school counsellor Erin Shale sat by the hospital bed of a young man who had attempted suicide and asked herself, why?
"Why, when he had the world at his feet, did life appear so unbearable?'' She didn't like the answer: "He was gay and had been abandoned by the very people he loved the most, his family.''
Looking for something to help him "hang in there'', Shale searched for motivational literature, stories of happy and successful gay people who had grappled with, and overcome, the same terrors that haunted the young man. Instead, she found a mission.
"There was little evidence that it was possible to be both gay and happy,'' she says. "I made a promise to this young man that I would do all I could to show him that he could have a life that was happy and fulfilling and that other young people struggling with issues of sexuality would not have to
do so in an atmosphere of hostility and silence.
"It is politically incorrect to be racist or sexist in our community but, when it comes to homophobia, it's open season. What is there to be afraid of? These are wonderful young people who want everything from life that everyone else wants, the only difference is that they want to love someone of the same sex.''
Inside Out, an anthology of stories written by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from a range of cultural backgrounds, is Shale's first step in fulfilling her promise. Contributions by musician Monique Brumby, Senator Bob Brown, rugby league player Ian Roberts and comedian and Today columnist SueAnn Post show it's possible also to be "famous'' and gay.
Finding people to share their stories was the easy part. Searching for a publisher, Shale got 30 knockbacks. They were, however, nice rejections, she says: "They all said that the book was positive and funny but, 'where's the market?'. Just look at the statistics.''
According to the National Report on Same Sex Attracted Young People conducted by the National Centre in HIV Social Research at La Trobe University, 11 per cent of young people are not "unequivocally heterosexual''.
The study of 750 males and females aged 14 to 21 revealed that young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are far more likely to be drinking alcohol and using illegal drugs than youths generally. Eleven per cent said they had injected drugs and 62 per cent smoked marijuana.
Overseas research has found as many as 30 per cent of youth suicides may be related to problems with sexuality. One US study found as many as 25 per cent of homeless youth were also from this group.
These young people feel isolated and suffer a dearth of reliable information about their emerging sexuality. They turn, instead, to less reliable sources such as friends and the media, which often present a limited range of misleading and negative stereotypes. Your proverbial "screaming queens'' and "dykesonbikes'', as Shale puts it.
Almost half the young people in the La Trobe study had suffered verbal and physical harassment, many from members of their own family. School was more of a hell than a haven for the 70 per cent of those young people who endured abuse there.
The head of the study, Dr Lynne Hillier, says there is silence in the formal school curriculum with regard to sexual diversity, with these issues relegated to the health and welfare subjects. She says a "wholeschool'' approach is needed to address the homophobia, harassment and abuse endemic in
the school system.
"For many of these young people, school is a very negative experience,'' she says. "Homophobia is much more out there for boys. The word gay has become the insult of the moment for anyone who doesn't perform their masculinity in a very narrow way.''
In this area alone, young women fare a little better. Being a "tomboy'' is still acceptable. For boys, however, if you're not a "jock'', forget it.
"Heterosexual young men who are not jocks are also suffering,'' says Hillier. "As a community, we have to ask ourselves if we want all our boys to be jocks - footballplaying, rowdy, beerswilling jocks; to deny their talents in literature and music and theatre.''
Travis Macfarlane was 13 when he realised he was gay. He was 14 when he first tried to kill himself: "I played football and did all the things guys are supposed to do. I was so good at being 'straight'. Every day I would think, 'am I walking straight, am I doing what straight guys do, is my hair
too gaylooking?'.''
He kissed girls, but only in public, and even joined in when the jocks taunted other students: "To myself I would be saying, 'I'm so sorry, I don't mean it'.''
But boys, he says, are like hawks, waiting for the first sign of difference. Macfarlane, now 23, was devastated the day, in the school corridor, when a friend started calling him gay.
"It still hurts me. I felt like I was being crucified. I was thinking, 'I know it's bad to be gay, but I didn't ask to be like this. You're my friends and you're doing this to me'. I was so angry with them, I was thinking, 'I'm trying to be straight, give me a chance'.
"I thought this gay thing must be so bad if even my friends feel like this. What would mum think?''
Like most of the young people in the La Trobe study, Langley and Macfarlane confided in friends first. The study found 75 per cent of female friends and 66 per cent of male friends were supportive.
While not all parents are ready to accept their child's sexuality, 66 per cent of the young people who spoke to their mothers and 50 per cent of those who talked to their fathers, found them supportive.
The difficulty for many parents, says Nan McGregor, president of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), is that the only knowledge they have of homosexuality is the stuff of myths and stereotypes.
"Many parents get caught up in the sex act, rather than the sexuality. But most parents don't think about what their heterosexual children do in bed,'' she says. "We try and design our kids' lives for them because we think that the only way to true happiness is if their lives replicate our own, but there are other ways of loving that are every bit as authentic and valid. It is as normal and natural for them to be gay or lesbian as it is for us to be heterosexual.''
She says parents also worry that their children will be subjected to discrimination and loneliness. Others are devastated that they will not have grandchildren: "When I said to (my son) Kieran that I was concerned about loneliness, he said, 'what guarantee can you give me that if I was heterosexual I wouldn't be lonely?'''
Likewise, she says, there's no guarantee these days that heterosexual children will choose to have children of their own.
"Society just doesn't prepare parents for the day when our sons meet Mr Right or our daughters meet a beautiful woman,'' says McGregor. "It's still acceptable to be homophobic, to see it as some kind of aberration, something to be made fun of.
"If only people could see the human face of the people they so outrageously condemn. They are human beings with feelings and hearts and minds. Human beings who hurt.''
��������������� . Inside Out, edited by Erin Shale, Bookman Press, rrp A$19.95.
Support groups:
. PFLAG, information and support for families and friends of gay and lesbian people. The group also runs Minus18, an alcohol free, under 18s disco ([email protected]), (03)-9511- 4083.
. Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, (03)-9510-5488 or 1800-631-493.(Free Call within Australia).
. Young and Gay, (03)-9865-6700.
. Victorian Network, (03)-9510-5569. |
|
