*sniff*

[emmagrant01]

You may have seen this already, but it was new to me. It's a video in which which a high school student comes out to her entire school at an assembly.

I went to high school more than 20 years ago now, and I can't imagine something like this happening at my school when I was a teenager. I had a couple of gay friends, but they were only out to their friends and we all knew it was important to keep their secret.

I've since learned that quite a few more people I knew in school were gay, and I've even become friends via Facebook with one classmate who is a transwoman, who hid her identity very well in school. Most of these people were closeted in high school because they didn't have much of a choice. It would have been unthinkable for one of them to do what this young woman did, in the late 1980s in the Bible belt.

I know we have a long way to go, but wow -- we've really come a long way. :-)

Comments

[elements.livejournal.com]

It struck me as rehearsed but sincere - and there were a few points where her voice wasn't completely strong and sure. She does mention performing, singing and acting (including what sounds like a community theater production of RENT, as opposed to just a high school production, so she must be pretty darn good). I think she prepared and practiced for this speech, and used all her skills as a performer to help her deliver it without looking nervous.

It also seems to me that she's likely one of the more popular kids at this school. She's a senior, and active in theater and clearly very good, clearly an excellent writer & public speaker and so probably a good student, and she's cute, etc. So she also likely has a certain amount of social confidence that for one thing let her even consider doing this speech, when apparently no-one else is out at the school, and for another lets her know that she's unlikely to be seriously ostracized. Her family and close friends already know and support her, and if her friends are also popular, it'll be harder for people to bully her. She's very well placed to be the one doing this, and she knows it. So it didn't strike me as less real as much as carefully thought about. She knew exactly what she was doing, and that she could do it well, and so even though I don't think she was lying about being nervous, she also knew on a gut level that she was going to be OK.