you know michele's site today (small victory link to the left) raised some interesting points on her part about her fears concerning the first gay public high school in nyc
the harvey milk school
hmm i did think it was around for years so i dont know what the story is
maybe it was private and now its public? can one of my queer experts fill me in here??
well michele who i adore
is concerned about how this school might lead to segration of gays
or lead to principals getting lazy about stopping gay bashing
well you know
i wrote this to her
and ill tell you
i see her points and lord knows michele
is a champion of gay rights
but i have a different point entirely
i see this school as a chance to save lives
you see its one thing if you were like i was in high school
i was a bad ass rock and roll mama
who dated boys and girls
i didnt know i was gay
i thought i was a bisexual bitch from hell
never mind that i loved loved loved the girls i dated
and the boys were just to put on a huge show for everyone
well very few people outside of my theatre friends
who were all AC/DC or queer or anything goes anyway
knew i dated girls
but i made sure to french kiss every guy i dated in front of as many kids as humanly possible
i wasn't even aware of what i was doing
but thinking back about it
i was putting on a huge show
so no one would ask about my women
i'd seen what happened to the gay kids
to poor little craig mure
who later died of aids
i think this tender little girlish boy
was harrassed and abused every day of his school life
i was harrassed too in grammar school not high school
in the 7th and 8th grade
honey ill be 39 on thursday
yes i know dears i look fabulous for my age
but let me tell the scars from the wounds inflicted on me age 12 and 13
still run deep
there was a bully
billy gangemi
he was a huge fat walrus of a brute
and he used to throw a metal lunch box at my head
and throw pennies at me and scream
pick them up jew
he told everyone i was a fat ugly dyke
honey i didnt even know
i was a woman yet
i didnt even know what dyke meant
but to this day
i cant keep pennies
i have to give them away or throw them away
by the time i went to high school
i had somehow channeled my pain
into a fierce janis joplin sort of exterior
i basically tore into high school
and made sure that everyone either loved me or feared me
i think ive been living my life like that ever since
but i digress
the point is
that what i suffered over two years in my youth
still makes my heart ache
and it was a one on a scale of 100 of what some of these kids suffer
transgender kids
kids who are obviously OBVIOUSLY gay
and who can look forward to being so harrassed and abused that they might and often do end their own lives
so i support The Harvey Milk School
as a place to go when you're at the end of the harrassment road
but as to all the kids who are not gay
or who are but cant or wont go there
we must find a way to stop this horror that happens in our schools
or Columbine will become
even more common
i have experienced many terrible things in my life
i have had known murderers..yep believe it or not i have
thiefs
con-artists
i have been robbed
cheated
oh you name it
honey in 22 years of NYC
ive seen it all
but i tell you without a shadow of a doubt
that the cruelest things i ever witnessed
the most horrific
acts of evil
were done by kids
i ran into billy gangemi FYI years back
at my 10 year high school reunion
he told me
he was a born again christian now
and wanted forgiveness for how he had treated me and so many other kids in grammar school
he said he was being beaten every day by his father and went to school looking for someone to take it out on
and he started to cry
id like to tell you i forgave him
i would but i just couldnt
he had gone so far past the line of normal bullying
i just wasnt ready to forgive and forget based on one apology
but i begged him to get to therapy fast before he turned his son into the monster that he had been
then he hugged me
and i well sort of let him
and i guess it was somewhat healing for us both
but i left realizing that it was not billy who had abused me and so many other kids
it was his parents
his father who turned him into a monster
his mother who let him
and so once again
we return
to the acts of cruelty done by kids
and to the obvious fact
that those kids might have been turned around
by parents who taught them
that gay is okay
and white and black and equal
by teachers and principals who took them aside
and tried to show them the path towards a better life
but until the world changes
and parents change
and schools change
and kids somehow transcend all this
terrible behavior towards each other
we need a band-aid
a huge ass band-aid
and thats what the harvey milk school is
it is the last stop
on the road to despair
it is a oasis
and life saver
for 100 kids
with no where else to go
