By Emily Cheatham | Editorial editor, Staff writer
There is no definite image, no carbon copy, no exact, perfect idea of what one should wear or how they should act. There is no precedent to follow. Without even the slightest idea, these students still show up to school and force a smile even when they feel they’re surrounded by students who are disgusted just by their mere existence.
Indian Trail’s student body has an ever growing population of students with different sexual and gender identities, about 10 percent, and those students have no choice but to either hide who they are or face discrimination no matter where they go.
“The school itself is pretty accepting of other identities. The student body is a different story,” said a gay General Studies senior who requested anonymity.
“I have not met a faculty member who I could be open with. On the other hand, staff members that are aware of my sexuality have not treated me any differently and I have met great friends who show nothing but love for me,” he said.
Earlier in the year, he had an incident where he was harassed to the point that his phone was broken.
“Recently, I was harassed in the boy’s locker room for being gay, and at this point that is just unacceptable,” he said. “Youth are very impressionable, mostly by their parents/guardians, but our social climate is changing and this generation has to realize that.”
A female to male transitioning Communications senior who has requested anonymity has also been harassed.
“This was before I had cut my hair, and as a transmasculine individual, my hair was a big part of my gender dysphoria, so I hid it under my hat. The teacher didn’t mind at all, but another student felt the need to say it was against school regulations,” the student said. Later it was discovered that the bothered student posted on Twitter saying, “It’s stupid how gay kids can wear hats to hide their hair but the rest of us can’t.”
Sam, a General Studies senior, is a non-binary, demisexual who requested anonymity. That means this person doesn’t identify with male or female and is purely attracted to personality. “The students aren’t even close to tolerant. They don’t care, they’re ignorant and rude. They will ask you a million and one questions that you don’t want to answer so they can figure out what label to give you,” the student said.
The Gay Straight Alliance is a group at Indian Trail that exists to help those struggling with different sexual and gender orientations, and currently the group is struggling to gain and keep members, but despite that they are working on projects relating to Ally Week and The Day of Silence.
“We want people to feel comfortable, like they won’t be judged and can feel safe here. We just want everyone to know that GSA is a safe environment for dealing with issues,” said Skylar Vernezze, a General Studies freshman, who is a member of the GSA.
Indian Trail has begun to give teachers posters giving students other words to use than “gay” as an adjective to describe something bad, as well as handing out a green sticker for teachers to put on their doors to let students know that the room is a safe place. On top of that Indian Trail has worked with the Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools to help train teachers and staff on how to best help students with different gender and sexual orientations.
Starting next year, Indian Trail will put in place a program called the Safe School Ambassadors where students with problems can instead go to a student ambassador who they might be more comfortable with than a teacher or staff member.
“Well the school can’t force students what to think. They’re already trying to enforce policies on language but that doesn’t do much. I suppose kids will just have to learn for themselves how to tolerate other human beings,” said the gay General Studies senior first quoted.
Despite having an openly gay senator, Tammy Baldwin, and being the first state to ban sexual orientation discrimination in housing, employment, and education, Wisconsin still has a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and has no laws against gender identity hate crimes. There are no statistics on how Kenosha, or each high school, fairs on these matters, though some students do see improvement in the treatment of different sexual and gender orientation students.
“Indian Trail has a pretty well developed support for gay students, and out of all KUSD high schools, we probably have a significantly lower rate of bullying that’s based around sexuality,” said Cody Miilu, a gay Communications senior.