I'm From Driftwood

by Desmond Kidney

Ah, first love. First heartbreak—and second. This story does not feature my fumbled makings-out while skipping chapel on the roof of the science building. This story is not about the boyfriend I acquired the night before Spring Break my sophomore year when slap-happiness and sleep-deprivation and a tickle-fight turned into kissing. This story will not detail any of the several straight guys I fell hard for, with gut-wrenching crushes that set down roots I could not bear to burn out without their help.

No. This was accidental. I was a senior, and he was a freshman. Telling it like this, it feels almost dirty—at least, in the way a reader well versed in tropes would expect it to go. Hell, my roommate was his new student week group leader. He’d arrived early for training and I moved back into the dorms upon my roommate’s return. So I was exposed to him sorta from the beginning, with a frisbee game that turned later—somehow—into a sword fight with my aikido buki. And that was how he joined up with the fairly-established social group that spent half its time in my room.

Well, not my room: I had the inner room of a two-room triple, and the common space was in my roommate’s portion. This is significant only because I spent most of that year playing DJ to study parties or playing video games in an effort to never be seen working (I wish I could still stay up until 5AM and not get jet lagged). That and because—while still maintaining he was straight—this freshman decided that my bed was his spot to hang out in the room. Whether or not I was in it. And when it became obvious that I wasn’t threatening and was contact-friendly, he became positively cuddly.

Some of my friends refer to this phase of things as The Longest Coming Out Story Ever, and it happened with all of the drama one might expect of these things. After all, coming out to yourself is hard, particularly if you’re a bit tightly strung and a bit repressed. So that happened, and somewhere in that fall we kissed as if it were an impossible thing. And while trying to resist reeked strongly of cradle-robbing, I got mugged in a dark alleyway by the cradle.

Winter break resulted in an official status delayed pending the end of break—this is one of those things it’s better to do in person. The best reception I’ve ever had at an airport was when I walked out of security into baggage claim and was nearly bowled over by this tall, skinny, adorable guy who leapt to hug me. My friend Matt chauffeured us down to school, studiously—almost pointedly—ignoring us as we made out in his back seat. Then we had to kick him out of my dorm room.

The relationship had a built-in expiration date, but we ignored that quite effectively as we cuddled our way across campus. We reached sickening heights of cute, and delayed discussion of what would happen to us when I graduated. It got harder to do, but in our bliss, we managed. Eventually, the last day arrived, and I broke down on the sidewalk outside his dorm as Matt drove him to the airport. We’d broken up by necessity, and not because either party really wanted it—that was what hurt the most.

Still head-over-hopeless for him, I spent the summer moping. We continued talking, through the infinite wonders of the internet. Sometime around my birthday the subject of trying things at a distance came up. We were both cautious about it, as I recall, because distance, frankly, sucks and pretty well everyone knows it. Young and stupid and desperate to mend a heartbreak in process, I jumped at it.

I went back several times that year to visit. The reunions were wonderful, and the departures always sucked. Somewhere along the line, physical distance became communication distance became emotional distance. He called me in tears one winter night, sobbing with guilt for having cheated on me—he’d made out with someone at a party. He hated himself for it. I brushed it off, although it did hurt a bit. We made plans for him to visit me for Spring Break.

Spring Break arrived, and so did he. I took time off work to show him around and to spend time with him. Something about my family made him uncomfortable. Maybe. To this day, I’m not sure what was up. The trip was not exactly a success from any standpoint. Among other things, this was when he gave me mono. I found out later that he’d cheated on me with another guy. The breakup, perhaps a month later, was by phone. After a tirade about my family, he realized his tone and told me I deserved better. I agreed, and hung up.

So there’s the end of it. The (second) heartbreak was the aftermath. You know the drill—music you can’t listen to for days or weeks or—for a handful of songs—months; friends treating you like you’re made of porcelain when you just want them to either ignore the obvious or else just ignore you; lots of existential moping and not knowing what to do with yourself. Also, in my case, there was the mono I’d mentioned, with an onset several weeks after the fact.

Knowing what I do now, you ask, would I go back and go through it again?

Absolutely. But I’d try to make the first break-up stick.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Brent Roelofs

In light of the recent tragic suicides as a result of gay teens being bullied, it has brought back a lot of memories of the struggles and pain that I went through when people found out that I was gay.

I guess the bullying began when I was in the 1st grade when I preferred playing with the girls to the boys. I’ll never forget one cold winter day some of the boys in my class followed me home yelling “fag” at me and throwing snowballs at me with rocks in them. Then one summer day while at the public pool, one of them stepped on my head as I was trying to get out of the pool and held me under. When I tried to flee the pool they followed me out and beat me up while I was trying to get away on my bike. This was in Rock Valley, IA. My family then moved back to Minnesota where the happiest part of my childhood, the first 5 years, had happened.

I grew up most of my life in Raymond, MN. The population at the time was 750 people, and my family belonged to the Christian Reformed Church. It was after being called a “fag” when I was 6 or 7 that I realized I was different and that I liked boys not girls. But I heard in church on a regular basis that homosexuality was an “abomination” and “sinful.” So I would pray every day for God to change me. I didn’t want to be the “fag.” I didn’t want to get beat up or teased anymore for who I was. But it didn’t stop. It continued right through high school. Even the seniors picked on me when I was only in the 7th grade. Neighboring towns’ boys would follow our bus back to Raymond after games and try to beat me up as I got off the pep band bus.

But in 1989, I joined a Christian youth singing group called The Carpenter’s Tools affiliated with West Central Youth for Christ. I had an epiphany at that moment, that God must love me no matter who I was. So I told myself I would bide my time and come out when I was in college and spare myself the pain of rejection that I knew would occur.

Later that year, I met a 24 year-old man who was sort of a “groupie” of “The Tools” and I fell in love for the first time. I wrote him love notes; we had sex and began a romantic relationship. He would then tell me we were going to hell and said we both should just kill ourselves. This roller coaster ride went on for about 3-4 months. During the summer before my Senior year of high school I was supposed to be leaving for Africa on a trip with “The Tools” when the director of the group and a fellow member came to my house and told me that they had called my mother to come home to talk to me and that if I didn’t tell them that I was gay, that they would. Oh…and that I would not be joining them in Africa all because Shawn had told them what had been going on because “he felt so guilty.”

What ensued in the weeks/months after this encounter was nothing less than hell. I was thrust into a world where EVERYONE found out my secret. My church, my family and my school; everyone in my life just disappeared. I remember my Dad saying, “You will NOT be gay under my roof.” My mom said, “You’ll die of AIDS if you lead this lifestyle.” They made me go to counseling to try to change me. My parents made me go and get the love letters I had written Shawn and then told me to burn them on the grill. I considered suicide, and honestly am really unsure why I didn’t do it. But some amazing inner strength kept me going and a belief that God still loved me at the very least.

Weeks later I ran away, I moved in with a friend’s family in South Dakota. He was gay as well and they were very supportive, even if the whole situation was extremely uncomfortable for them. I owe them my life because I don’t think I would be alive right now if they hadn’t been there. Shortly before graduation, my family asked me to come home to graduate. I did, and the day after graduation I moved out and I never looked back. I don’t think I spoke with my family until 3 years later.

It has taken me years to heal from that time and those experiences. In fact I’m not sure if it will ever NOT hurt when I think of those times. But now I know…that things do get better. And I am so glad that I am alive to share at least some of my story. The only frustrating part is that 19 years later it is all still happening. Kids are killing themselves because they are gay or being bullied at school.

There were funny and crazy times in my childhood too, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

-(Share your story with us!)

by David Glick

“Why are you doing this? You’re not gay!” In the months since we announced our intentions to start GLBTQ Online High School, I’ve been asked this many times. I don’t mind the first part of the question; it’s the second half of that has always bothered me. Does one have to be from urban areas to want to create options for urban kids? Does one have to be homeless to have compassion for the homeless? Does one have to be queer to support safe, high quality education for queer kids? And why are they asking if I’m gay? Not a single person has ever asked if I’m bisexual or transgender. What biases does that reveal? However, for now, the “why” question is complicated enough.

Now that the majority of states have statewide virtual schools and it’s very easy for any school district to get all sorts of commercial courses relatively inexpensively, the need for new all-purpose virtual schools is decreasing even while enrollments in such schools grows. As a result, new virtual schools are becoming increasingly focused and targeted on specific populations. There are Christian online schools, Native American online schools, and now an all-girls online school under development. The Catholic Archdiocese just announced their intent to start a nationwide Catholic online school to provide education to all of those students who lost the opportunity due to declining enrollments and resulting school closures. The virtual school world strives to provide educational opportunities that traditional schools have failed to provide and serve certain populations that traditional schools have failed to serve. Starting this school is merely a logical extension of my work with virtual schools and my understanding of the trends in the industry.

That’s one answer.

Over the last couple years, I’ve been reading about Chicago Public School’s efforts to start a bricks & mortar school for GLBTQ youth. They failed. Politics, homophobia, and splits even within the queer community led to that failure, and the kids that wanted or needed their own school in order to be among their peers were denied the opportunity. It was obvious to me that the time was right for an online school for queer kids. This school could serve not only the kids in urban areas like Chicago that have no such schools, but it could also serve kids in rural areas that have few local peers and no way to connect to other queer kids – at least not in a safe, academic environment. This school could even serve kids around the world in countries where homosexuality and queerness are crimes. It was also obvious that we would need to be independent of local politics and the whims of a school board. Anything that relied on tax dollars was subject to major objections, so creating an online private school was the obvious choice.

That’s another answer.

Since at least the sixth grade, I have memories of thinking homophobia made no sense. So what if that teacher was gay? Why do those kids always pick on the one they call “sissy?” In high school, if I knew I was straight and my girlfriend knew I was straight, what did I care if someone misinterpreted a comment I made and might think I was gay? “Accused of being gay.” Like that was a bad thing? When I was a young teacher and that brave young man requested to speak to the entire student body to come out and describe how that school’s environment was hostile to gay students, why did the head of the school refuse to attend the meeting? Why did some of that student’s teachers start making nasty comments in class? As a teacher in rural Minnesota when I witnessed some of the comments heard all too often in schools, I put a stop to it as best I could. Why did the kids respond by saying that none of the other teachers ever objected to that kind of language? When I worked for the Department of Education and someone put a box of Humans Unafraid of Gays (HUG) buttons out and available for staff, why did the department leaders take that box away within minutes? How would these incidents make me feel?

That’s another answer.

My first year of teaching in Minnesota was in a small, rural district. It was hell. Students and parents objected to my teaching to the high standards I had come to expect from my previous school. Teachers who had been in the district looked at me with suspicion because I didn’t always use the cookie-cutter approach promoted by the textbooks. And then, when it became known that I was (gasp!) Jewish, the real hell began. Swastikas on my chalkboard and carved into my desk. Taunting in the hallways. Ineffective disciplinary response from the administration. Public humiliation at the required-attendance Christmas assembly held during school. A school board who criticized me for being too sensitive. People who called themselves my friends asking, “Isn’t it like this everywhere?” or “Shouldn’t you just get used to it?” Or even trying to lighten the mood by telling Jewish jokes. The loneliness of isolation in the midst of a community I couldn’t call my own.

That’s another answer.

In the “old days” before the Internet, we were able to and required to live largely in our own neighborhoods. We may have been bused across town for school as I was, but that’s as far as we had to go. As kids, our options were limited by what and who was within the distance we could ride our bikes. We had three television stations. Relatively speaking, we were isolated by geography and limited in our contacts to the people we saw.

Now there’s Facebook and Twitter and virtual schools and a 24-hour news cycle and hundreds of television channels specializing in our every interest. We have more choices. Nowhere does anyone’s life have to revolve around just the limited people in their immediate vicinity. We have tools and techniques to connect on a world-wide basis with the entire range of humanity. We can create communities in which each and every individual can thrive.

So why create GLBTQ Online High School? Because it is needed and because we can.

And that’s the only answer we really need.

-(Share your story with us!)

NOTE: David Glick is the Executive Director of GLBTQ Online High School. IFD founder, Nathan, saw a post onTowleroad about the school and contacted David, who graciously took the time to write a story for IFD. You can find out more about David here as well as learn more about the school here. Students can enroll now and class will be in session starting January 2010.