LGBTQ clubs at schools build community

WINSTED — Lena Teixiera started her senior year at The Gilbert School this fall. After transferring from Housatonic Regional High School as a sophomore, she has settled right in at the school. Known to her teachers as a diligent, engaged student, Lena is deeply involved in school clubs and activities, including membership in the Leo Club, working as a student ambassador and as a peer leader. She hopes to follow a passion for biology as she starts looking at colleges later this year and plans to remain active politically wherever she goes, using a strong voice and earnest attitude that has already earned her the respect of her community in Winsted.

Lena is also, as a member of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community, statistically at a much higher risk for a variety of negative health and social outcomes. Youth who identify as gay or bisexual are almost twice as likely to be bullied at school nationwide, according to a 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study. The same study found that one in ten gay and bisexual students have reported missing school during the past month due to safety concerns. More than half of all transgender and queer youth in the United States will attempt suicide by their 20th birthday, according to the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, with the vast majority of those having reported rejection or discrimination in their families and peer groups.

Clubs offer support

Progress has been made at the national level in providing resources and support for young LGBTQ people, and court cases and legislation have disallowed some discriminatory practices and laws, but ignorance and numerous other structural factors continue to harm gay and transgender kids in communities across the country.

“I think if somebody needed help [at Gilbert] I think they would be able to get it,” Lena said. “I think everyone might be a little nervous, they might not know where to go at first, whether to go to a teacher, or to a counselor, or where exactly to go. But I think once they find that person to talk to, they’ll be okay.”

Lena has support from her family, as well as a network of encouraging peers through Gilbert’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), which she is the president of. She says that for the most part, she feels safe and accepted in her school and in her community. For others, though, who don’t have access to a support structure like Lena’s, or whose needs outstrip the scope or expertise of family members and teachers, finding help can be hard. 

Looks for support

As far as looking for support outside of the school or her family, Lena said she has never considered where she would go, or who she would talk to.

Robin McHaelen is the executive director of True Colors, a nonprofit based in New Britain whose mission is to provide mentoring, counseling and other resources to LGBTQ youth in Connecticut, while advocating and educating other community organizations on how best to provide for LGBTQ people. She has spent the last two decades working with gay, transgender and queer youth, and says that while a lot of things have changed for the better, many communities still fall short of providing appropriate help and resources.

“People who provide services to youth have to make sure that their policies are in place,” McHaelen said. “In terms of non-discrimination, they need to look at each program, and look at the places where it includes LGBT folks, and [where it] leaves them out,” McHaelen said.

While Connecticut state law for the most part protects the rights of LGBTQ people, McHaelen said, schools and other organizations still lag behind in providing training for staff or making their services affirming and inclusive.

“If I come to you, your organization for example, and your form only says my legal name, if I’m a trans person who has changed my name but not legally yet, and the form only says ‘sex,’ that was assigned at birth, what if your sex is different than your gender, where does that go?” McHaelen said. “All of those little things send messages that you’re not welcome here, that they don’t know what to do with you.”

 True Colors, which has operated in Connecticut since 1994, sends its members around the state to provide training and help rectify these omissions that serve to create an environment that is unwelcome and unsafe for vulnerable LGBTQ youth.

“You have to work from the top down and the bottom up,” McHaelen said.

Positive legislation

“Top down” means legislation, McHaelen said, which in Connecticut has been mostly positive in providing needed protections for LGBTQ people, though enforcement of these laws continues to lag. In 2011, Governor Dannel Malloy  signed a bill that outlaws discrimination based on gender identity or expression, adding transgender and gender non-conforming people to a 1991 law that bars discriminatory practices against gays and lesbians.

But schools “often don’t know what they’re supposed to do, by law” for transgender students specifically, according to McHaelen, a problem that True Colors continues to address in its work.

“It’s been five years, and you would think people would get it by now, but they don’t,” said McHaelen.

True Colors has not encompassed Litchfield County in recent outreach efforts, but McHaelen said they will in the near future.

Shortcomings and

 opportunities

Lena’s experience reflects some of the structural shortcomings. While she said she has never had a bad experience with Gilbert staff, she said most of her support comes through unofficial channels, including teachers and peers, who might not be directly involved in the LGBTQ movement or community but still provide understanding and empathy.

“I talk more to teachers than I do to administrators or guidance counselors,” Lena said. “There are a lot of young [teachers], and young people are typically more accepting, more liberal.”

With an issues related to her identity, Lena said she “probably wouldn’t” first go to an administrator or guidance counselor. She said the GSA faculty advisory, Peggy Steinway, or her biology teacher, Lauren Golden, were two adults she felt most comfortable talking to.

Organizations like the Gilbert GSA are part of the bottom-up  aspect of McHaelen and True Colors’ work. Visibility, and community and peer support are tremendously important in creating positive outcomes for LGBTQ young people, McHaelen said, with acceptance by family and peers being the number-one indicator.

The mere presence of a GSA in a school is enough to significantly reduce the risk of suicide for gay and transgender students, according to McHaelen.

Karen Hunter, a biology professor at Northwest Connecticut Community College (NCCC), leads another LGBTQ organizations. The “REAL Club” brings LGBTQ students at the college together for community service projects and to support each other in an inclusive environment. Hunter began working with the club about five years ago, she said.

“I’m...attracted to people who are brave, and strong enough to say, ‘Hey, this is me,’” Hunter said. “And members of the LGBTQ community have a lot of courage to do that.”

High school vs. college

The experience of an LGBTQ person at college is very different from that of students at high school age and younger, Hunter said, though there are some much more difficult decisions and struggles that go along with increased independence.

“Even before they can choose a place to live, they have to go and do the research, about how many people lose their lives because [they are LGBTQ]. ”

As an educator, Hunter said what she hopes to change is what people in the community understand about LGBTQ people. Ignorance, whether willful or incidental, and failure to understand one’s privilege are factors that contribute to marginalization and discrimination, she said.

“You have the person who is transgender, a student, person of color who is also female,” said Hunter. “So they have biases compounded in many different areas. So it’s hard for the typical middle-class white straight American to understand their struggles, because...we don’t realize it, we’re born and we’re privileged.” 

Hunter and the REAL club think that some of the best work they can do is simply go out and be visible, engage in their community and “poke the bear,” as Hunter put it, meaning challenge some of the larger biases and societal prejudices directly, through conversations and continuing to live fearlessly. 

“I think the root of it is ignorance,” said Lena. “I think that if people took the time to talk to someone they may not understand, and educate them, and kind of enlighten it, and make it not so scary and taboo.”

Hunter said she is continuing to network with various groups in the area, including the Gilbert GSA and True Colors, to create more opportunities for young LGBTQ people to meet, support and learn about each other.