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owlectomyThe "Don't Say Gay" law coming up in Tennessee reminded me -- and made me curious -- about my own high school days in North Carolina, when my 8th grade English teacher told the class, "I'm not allowed to tell you that Walt Whitman might have been gay," and my 12th grade French teacher told the class, "I'm not allowed to tell you that Arthur Rimbaud was gay BUT LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE ANGST BETWEEN HIM AND PAUL VERLAINE." (Let me tell you, that class was hard for me because it was the only high school French class I didn't sail through without having to do any work, but I STILL like Rimbaud a bunch.)
I can't actually find any evidence of this rule.
My sister, at the same high school, was assigned to read "The Color Purple," which seems an odd choice to assign if you're not allowed to talk about gayness.
It is actually possible that my teachers only pretended this rule existed so that we wouldn't mention what we'd learned in school to our parents, which would also be an odd choice because I didn't know anyone who told their parents more than a syllable about what had happened in school on any given day.
But my reading did lead me to the specific law outlining the "abstinence-only education" we had. Personally, I wasn't harmed by a lack of information. There was always the internet. I was angry because there just wasn't much to teach in sex ed once you took all the sex out. We had to do assignments like writing about family traditions and planning a date where you would be chaperoned 100% of the time. I had such a bad attitude that I wrote about the family tradition of everybody yelling at each other while driving up to Canada. My teacher wanted to talk to me about it. I no longer remember how that went. But... I don't really feel bad about my bad attitude. You can forbid sex, drugs, and alcohol; you can force me to walk briskly in a loop every day; but let me have the right to at least be angry and cynical about it!
(I have to say, 9th grade was so much about me declaring my own right to be angry, it's not surprising I discovered Joanna Russ then...)
I can't actually find any evidence of this rule.
My sister, at the same high school, was assigned to read "The Color Purple," which seems an odd choice to assign if you're not allowed to talk about gayness.
It is actually possible that my teachers only pretended this rule existed so that we wouldn't mention what we'd learned in school to our parents, which would also be an odd choice because I didn't know anyone who told their parents more than a syllable about what had happened in school on any given day.
But my reading did lead me to the specific law outlining the "abstinence-only education" we had. Personally, I wasn't harmed by a lack of information. There was always the internet. I was angry because there just wasn't much to teach in sex ed once you took all the sex out. We had to do assignments like writing about family traditions and planning a date where you would be chaperoned 100% of the time. I had such a bad attitude that I wrote about the family tradition of everybody yelling at each other while driving up to Canada. My teacher wanted to talk to me about it. I no longer remember how that went. But... I don't really feel bad about my bad attitude. You can forbid sex, drugs, and alcohol; you can force me to walk briskly in a loop every day; but let me have the right to at least be angry and cynical about it!
(I have to say, 9th grade was so much about me declaring my own right to be angry, it's not surprising I discovered Joanna Russ then...)