Teaching Tolerance to a generation raised by homophobes.
Good evening ladies and gents, friends and internet acquaintances.
(note: if you got ADD or get easily distracted or just get bored by seeing lots of print, you can just read the underlined text, thanks.)
Some of you know, and some don't but at the moment I am teaching Social Sciences at a private school in Mexico, I am also the Guidance Counselor for the school, I know what you think, with me as a counselor all those kids are gonna end up cynical, fucked up and with weird ideas of the world and probably keen on pills. I really don't mind about that, but one thing that is important to me is to get through to these kids and turn them into tolerant and respectful human beings.
Recently some of the kids have brought up the issues of homosexuality, and of course that being from a city in Mexico that is a tad north from the Capital, these kids were raised by old-school-homophobe-parents. Some of them by Macho types who would kick them out of home if their kids were to "turn gay." This of course is a damn problem for any kid who is frightened to come out and be true to him/herself as well as the rest of the kids who have a misguided idea on homosexuality.
Because of this, the school board has asked me to bring up the theme of homosexuality to the kids and teach them about homosexuality in reality and correct their askew ideas on the subject. Of course that I accepted the task and have been doing some good reading on the subject other than my real life experiences with my wonderful friends who taught me so much but still, I would love to hear other people's opinion on the subject and perhaps things you would like these kids to know about, or opinions/stories anything that could help me in dealing with these kids.
So I ask you for any sort of help you could bring to the subject. The class is in about a week and even tho I feel prepared I would very much appreciate anything you would like to add to the subject, any link, video, text, story. Your personal opinion being straight or gay. You can post on this comment or if you prefer to send me a private message, I would really appreciate it and of course keep your comments and stories anonymous.
And to break the ice I will give you a small story. I went to high school in a small town north of LA, the town only had one movie theater and they often played old movies that you could probably already rent. So I would drive to Ventura to watch movies, now don't be surprised when I tell you that Ventura has certain population of rednecks who proudly wear the confederate flag on their cars amongst other things. But back to the story, I would drive to Ventura, and in case you don't know I used to drive an Orange beetle convertible and I still dress in a style different than the California boy standard of cargo shorts, flip flops and shirts or hoodies, and of course I was thinner that I am now. To a redneck this means only one thing: gay. Any guy who is thin, dresses with style and rides around in an orange bug is obviously gay. So this time around a group of bored white supremacy kids followed me to my car right after my movie was over, soon came the standard salute of "hey fag!" along with other lines I wish not use because they are a waste of space on this note. Soon it became a bit more violent as the bros started pushing me around and finally left me on the floor and walked away laughing in victory. Of course this is nothing compared to what real homosexuals have to stand all over the world, but it gave me a taste of the ignorance of the people. Now, before I end the story and the note I will add that this happened again with the same group of kids in the same parking lot, but this time around I carried a Louisville Slugger hidden under my coat. They never bother me again.