TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111389/11138900.063

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.2 KB | 159 lines

                                                                                AMERICAN SCENE, Page 21

New York City

A Place to Be Somebody


At Harvey Milk School, gays and lesbians are the norm

By Kathleen Brady


    Health class, Harvey Milk School: a male student in drag is
talking about his last experience with alcohol. "A drunken
butch queen was getting on my case, criticizing me and acting
flamboyant, so I pulled a knife on her." A gay youth interjects,
"If you consider yourself a woman, you should act like a woman
24 hours a day." So the boy in drag appeals to the only avowed
straight girl in the school: "In this situation, are you going
to use your knife or not?" She says, "You best believe I'll be
using my knife."

    In most classrooms, such a conversation might be cause for
suspension. At Harvey Milk, it is typical. This is a high
school for gays, lesbians, cross-dressers and transsexuals. At
other schools, their mere presence was often disruptive. Many
of them were verbally abused by teachers and counselors,
physically attacked by classmates, thrown out of their homes.
Unsurprisingly, many dropped out. At Harvey Milk, they fit in.

    A fully accredited public high school, Harvey Milk was the
subject of a short-lived controversy when it began classes four
years ago. It was founded by the Hetrick-Martin Institute for
Lesbian and Gay Youth, a ten-year-old organization established
following the brutal gang rape of a gay teenager in a New York
City bar. The school is named after Harvey Milk, the gay San
Francisco supervisor who was murdered with Mayor George Moscone
by a disgruntled former city official in 1978.

    Critics charged that the school was using city funds to
subsidize homosexuality. Officials replied that they were
trying to provide an education for young people who might
otherwise be denied one. The school does not seek to reinforce
homosexuality, although it stresses the solidarity of minorities
and the contributions of gay role models. Says A. Damien Martin,
co-founder of the institute: "At first most help came from
straight professionals, because the gay and lesbian community
was afraid that if they reached out to the young they would be
considered child molesters. The greatest fear of a gay person
is that they will be considered a perverter of youth."

    In some cases, letting students be themselves can mean
letting them discover that they are straight. Says Martin:
"Several young men in the school were molested by male relatives
and thought they must be gay. It was apparent to us that these
boys were heterosexual, but we had to let them find out for
themselves."

    Located in Greenwich Village, which has a large gay
community, Harvey Milk has some things in common with a frontier
school. It has two full-time teachers, Beth Bomze and Fred
Goldhaber, and two classrooms for 40 students, only a handful
of whom show up at the three-story waterfront building on a
given day.

    The pupils are often in turmoil when they enroll. Most
youths who suspect they are gay successfully hide their sexual
leanings. Harvey Milk students are frequently in such conflict
that as many as 30% of them have attempted suicide (compared
with 11% of straight adolescents), according to director Joyce
Hunter. Some students have suffered humiliating sexual contacts
in gay bars and on the sordid streets of Times Square. They know
that although society has grown more tolerant of divergent
life-styles, homosexuals still endure widespread hostility and
a marked threat of AIDS and violence. Some young homosexuals go
to enormous lengths to deny their sexuality. Teenage lesbians
have been known to become pregnant in order to prove they are
"normal."

    Critics of Harvey Milk suggest that children with special
needs, particularly homosexuals, should not be segregated but
should learn to accept themselves in the context of a larger
society. "Harvey Milk might be a good intermediate approach,
but I'm not sure these students learn to cope in a school that
is exclusively homosexual," says Susan Forman, professor of
psychology at the University of South Carolina.

    Counters Hunter: "Our program is designed to mainstream
them back into society, but some kids refuse to go back to a
traditional setting. They say this is the first place to tell
them their career of choice isn't necessarily hairdresser." Adds
Stephen Phillips, superintendent of New York City's alternative
schools and programs: "If 100% of the youngsters are to get the
education they are entitled to, we have to adapt to them -- go
to the kids rather than expecting them to come to us. Like the
addicted or the handicapped, Harvey Milk kids couldn't or
wouldn't fit in with the school system. Are they entitled to an
education? Yes."

    Each term students, most of whom are at a fifth-grade
reading level, receive a course description and sign a contract
stipulating that they understand what is expected of them. Most
have a study plan designed just for them, which means teacher
Goldhaber instructs five students in as many subjects at once.
While the method appears old-fashioned, classroom dialogue seems
drawn from experimental theater. At his right hand, Goldhaber
pores over pictures with one student, saying, "Yes, this is an
ion, but is it just an ion or a hydroxide ion? Think about it."
He asks the student on his left, "Do you really believe 20 times
15 is 30,000?" As someone bursts into song, trilling "Don't make
me over," the school's only heterosexual girl, who stays on
because she says she likes Harvey Milk, strides to the board and
writes I'M STRAIGHT in block letters.

    Between classes, Goldhaber explains the helter-skelter
atmosphere: "There is a misconception that order means quiet,
means sitting in your seat. There is control here under the
guise of chaos. If someone comes in in a fab outfit or makes a
guest appearance after weeks of absence, we have to take time
to make note. But kids don't get away with not learning here."

    Like others at Harvey Milk, Goldhaber is angry about what
public schools do to problem kids. "I had a girl who had been
told she was stupid at math and refused to study it. I begged
her. I said, `Please, please, please,' until she agreed. Now
math is the first thing she wants to do. Other teachers promoted
them, but subject matter left them behind."

    One who is catching up is a 20-year-old wearing a leather
cross, dangling earrings and a black leather cap angled on a
head that is shaved but for red tendrils over an ear. He sits
in his jaunty outfit learning fractions and writing poems. The
young man's mind is so keen that when a deaf student came to
class, he learned to sign in half an hour. This makes him think
he may eventually work with the handicapped, but until this year
he was not a dedicated student. "I'm quicksilver," he says. "I
need stability. Everything else has shifted, but this school is
stabilizing."

    Another student, who plans to be a fashion designer,
observes, "We get along with each other as best we can. At least
here we can be ourselves." The school clown, he has been at
Harvey Milk for a year. "At my old school, everyone asked me why
I didn't do sports. I wouldn't change for anyone, but I went to
two at-home games. It was great to be with the gang, but it
didn't really change anything. The kids hit me and pushed me
around, and finally I stopped going. My parents support my being
here because they support my being in school. They're handling
my being gay, so I guess they're handling my being here." So
far, eight students have graduated from Harvey Milk; a handful
of others have returned to mainstream schools.

    Harvey Milk students want to be accepted, especially the
15-year-old with cornrowed red hair, a fashionable rhinestone
nose stud and doelike eyes outlined in blue. "She" seems to be
an exquisite young girl but turns out to be a boy. "My cousin
is a drag queen, and he told me about Harvey Milk," he says. "At
my other school, some people didn't know I was a guy; others
called me a faggot." He adds, "I used to fight them, and I hit
first. At Harvey Milk I can wear what I want." The issue is
learning, nothing more, nothing less.