Allies

There's an interesting article in the Miami Herald (via Towleroad) about Florida gay-straight alliance clubs, 80 or so of the approximately 3,000 GSAs nationwide. The whole thing is worth a read, but I just wanted to highlight one of the arguments being used by opponents of the clubs:

Okeechobee High Principal Toni Wiersma told [17-year-old lesbian Yasmin Gonzalez] that her club was unwelcome. Yasmin sued the Okeechobee School Board.

''The objection is not to a GSA, per se. The objection is to the premature sexualization of the students. If this had been a heterosexual club, it would have been denied,'' said attorney David Gibbs of Seminole County, who represents the Okeechobee schools.

Okeechobee has an abstinence-only policy. The GSA would violate that, said Gibbs, who became well known in 2005 representing the parents of late coma patient Terri Schiavo in their fight to keep her alive.

Apparently, no one has informed Gibbs that GSA meetings aren't actually orgies.

There are a couple things I find amusing here about Gibbs' (and, via his representation, the Okeechobee School System's) position. In suggesting that a GSA "sexualizes" students, the implication is, of course, that being gay is only about having sex with a person of the same sex—that there's nothing else they could possibly be discussing, because there's nothing else to "being gay" than that. Yet, these same people would no doubt refer to being gay as "the homosexual lifestyle" and talk about a "gay agenda." So, on one hand, the GSA must necessarily violate the abstinence-only policy because it couldn't possibly be about anything but sex, and on the other hand, homosexuality is an entire lifestyle with its own agenda. Oy gevalt.

Realistically, the differences between being gay and straight are only about more than the sex of who you fuck because of bigotry. The actual substantive differences between Spudy's relationship with his husband and my relationship with Mr. Shakes are down to our being four unique people, not our being a gay couple and a straight couple. That makes for practical differences, like legal status and how strangers may regard us—and it is within those difference, the result of prejudice, that the necessity for GSAs lie.

In a very real way, people like Gibbs provide the raison d'être for GSAs as and because they object to them.

The other bit that just amuses me endlessly is that worrying about the premature sexualization of students in American high schools is fucking laughable. These are the same American high schools that have things called proms, with as much pomp and fevered expectation as the community can afford, overseen by the ultimate high school hetero duo, the prom king and queen? The same American high schools that have things called football games, where alpha guys essentially beat each other up and are cheered on by scantily clad alpha girls, and whose biggest game of the year is overseen by another proverbial hetero duo, the homecoming king and queen? The same American high schools who put on Back-to-School dances, and Halloween dances, and Christmas dances, and Sadie Hawkins dances, and spring formals, and junior proms? The same American high schools who teach abstinence-only until marriage, but sponsor mini-weddings like the prom every fricking year, feigning ignorance to the widespread tradition of "losing it" on prom night?

Those American high schools?

Yeah. I thought so.

Meanwhile, I'm reminded of a comment RachelPhilPa left, about funding "an increasingly large and vocal queer-identified (as opposed to gay/lesbian identified) community that is very supportive of trans folk—along with many third-wave feminists," which I've been thinking about for awhile. I've been meaning to write a whole post about her comment, and I still intend to, but for now, I wanted to mention it because these GSAs are both reflective of that community and an indicator that it will only increase. In spite of their rather restrictive nomenclature, gay-straight alliances at high schools are more than just what their name suggests and are increasing in numbers, I think, precisely because there is a recognition among young progressives that pro-choice, pro-recreational, third-wave feminist hets (in particular) have more in common with the queer community than not.