The first day of school. The first impressions. The first conversations. Establishing relationships and getting to know each other is a routine that English teacher Randy Holaday is familiar with. He starts the year with a presentation about himself so students can get insight about who he is. As he shows some slides about his personal life, he indirectly shows an important facet of himself.

 

“Day one of class, I come out to them,” Holaday said. “I always do an ‘about me’ slide presentation that has pictures from my life, pictures of things I'm interested in, and one of them is just me and my boyfriend at prom that we went to two years ago, and I have pictures of our vacations.”

 

Despite the different reactions from his students, hopes they understand a lesson on the first day of school: respect is the baseline expectation when students are interacting in his classroom.

 

“It's a very general statement saying like, ‘We will respect each other's viewpoints, regardless of the context and the person,’ so that this classroom is safe for all students to learn,” Holaday said.

 

GSA club advisor and Spanish teacher Joyce Fortuna has a similar approach to making students in the LGBTQ+ community feel more safe in the classroom by using gender neutral words with students.

 

“Instead of saying to a girl, ‘Are you going to go with your boyfriend to the prom?’ I might say, ‘Are you going with someone to the prom?’” Fortune said. “Or, ‘Are you interested in someone?’”

 

Holaday and Fortuna both say they try to establish a safe environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community in their classrooms, and students like sophomore Ritu Karivaradasamy says her experiences at MVHS as a member of the LGBTQ+ community have been mostly positive.

 

“For the most part, I haven’t seen any students make fun of the LGBT community, whether it be online or in person,” Karivaradasamy said. “Obviously, I sometimes hear the occasional ‘that’s so gay!’ from an ignorant classmate, but that can hardly be counted as bullying, and small comments like that don’t really bother me. All in all, the kids at our school are pretty great when it comes to kindness and tolerance, and I feel so lucky to be in this environment.”

 

However, in some instances, the environment for some isn't always positive, as Holaday has heard about some situations his past LBGTQ+ students have gone through outside the classroom.

 

“There are microaggressions that occurred in the language used, particularly the ones I've heard most about are females identifying as lesbian and the over sexualization of lesbians by men,” Holaday said. “Then, the use of the word f-----. I've never experienced it [microaggressions] directly, I've only ever heard it secondhand from students, so I've never known the students that were saying that to be able to address [the usage of microagressions] in any official way.”

 

Kimber Leigh Shelton at Niagara University explains the possible negative psychological effects of individuals of the LGBTQ+ community being impacted by a microaggression. In her study, individuals felt “wrong, abnormal, or inferior” to others when they are affected by microaggressions, an example being  that non LGBTQ+ members are “making stereotypical assumptions” about members of the community.

 

According to Merriam-Webster, a stereotype is a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude or uncritical judgment. Fortuna says the microaggression of making stereotypical assumptions are solely stemmed from the fact that society generalizes a certain stereotype to a group of people. She also believes that these stereotypes may hold a bit of truth, but it doesn’t apply to everyone in the community.

 

“For example, the gay male community has taken on a certain way of talking and carrying themselves,” Fortuna said. “It's kind of a marker and sort of a way to kind of say to people, ‘this is who I am.’ Certain people do that as [a] kind of a as a message, but it doesn't mean that everybody fits that stereotype. Some people have chosen to do that, so you shouldn't generalize to everybody.”

 

In regards to making assumptions, Fortuna believes it’s inevitable. When one makes the wrong assumption, she adds that one must realize that they made a mistake and just move on.

 

“Well, we all assume. We have to. We can't go through the world being completely open,” Fortuna said. “When we see people, we just sort of assume a certain reality, because that's how we work our brains. I think assuming gives us a certain stability and a groundedness in our lives.”

 

With reference to a different perspective, Karivaradasamy says assumptions do not bother her too much.

 

“I don’t think it’s offensive at all when people assume my sexuality because it’s understandable,” Karivaradasamy said. “Statistically most people are straight. I don’t feel affected by others’ assumption because being gay isn’t a defining characteristic of my personality; there are so many more important things about me that matter more than my sexuality.”

 

Through her experiences, the responses from other students about her being part of the LGBTQ+ community have been positive. However, she believes it varies depending on one’s social environment.

 

“I do understand that one’s environment is very important,” Karivaradasamy said. “For example, in a prejudiced environment, a straight person who is perceived as gay could be ridiculed and possibly bullied by his or her peers, for no reason at all.”

 

When Holaday was growing up, he states that the feeling of fear was present as someone would assume his sexuality, because he believes that the social environment he was disclosed in, at the time, was adverse.

 

“I think normally I am assumed straight. It did create fear because, what would happen if I corrected someone?” Holaday said. “Or, if I was having a conversation with a super masculine man, who stereotypically would be uncomfortable with a gay man, it created fear that changing his mind and saying something that would ruin the relationship would cause a distinct lack of comfort.”

 

Karivaradasamy, alongside Fortuna, believes that assumptions are a normal thing that people do everyday, and there is no way to stop people from making assumptions, but to focus on correcting whoever did and move on.

 

“I think it’s impossible to police what we assume about each other,” Karivaradasamy said. “Everyone is constantly making subconscious judgements about others, whether it be about personality, intelligence ... We need to accept that judging each other is part of human nature, and only thing we can do about implicit assumption is to politely correct each other and move on.”

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