Every day that Sarah goes to school she is insulted.
She is told that she is hated. She is told that there is something wrong with her. She is told that she is inferior to her schoolmates. Others laugh at the insults, only making it worse.
The words hurt but they go unpunished. In fact, occasionally a teacher will slight her as well.
"Sometimes it feels like a gauntlet," the Burlington high school student says.
It's the type of environment the provincial safe schools policy was meant to eliminate. Yet it happens. Perhaps the reason it does is that Sarah's schoolmates don't even know they are insulting her -- although sometimes they do right to her face. That's because few of them know Sarah is a lesbian.
"It is very difficult to be openly gay in high school," she says. "I knew for more than two years before I told anyone, and I was terrified that the whole school would hate me."
Based on the comments she hears on a daily basis in the hallways, it only makes her wonder if that would be true if her sexuality was public knowledge. Would people stop making those hurtful statements if they knew? Or would it just give them a target?
That is why, apart from a few close friends, she keeps it a secret. It's also why the students you read about in this story are identified by a name other than their own.
"My identity does not revolve around my sexual orientation," Sarah says. "I am so many other things. But I worry that the world will never get past it."
High school is often described as the best years of your life. Even if you do subscribe to that belief, it usually takes many years to gain perspective and realize that. The truth is, while you're living through it, it isn't easy. There's pressure to dress a certain way, get good marks as well as temptations such as alcohol and drugs.
"Being a teenager is hard enough," says David, an Oakville high school graduate now going to college. "Sexuality complicates it so much more. Many people don't realize the amount of pressure, stress and hardship a gay teenager deals with on top of all the other difficulties the straight teenager faces."
Making friends is one thing, keeping them is even harder when you're not sure how they will react to the news that you're gay.
"Some people laughed when I told them, in an 'Are you serious?' way," said Amanda, a Burlington high school student. "Others said some pretty mean things about me behind my back when they didn't think I was listening."
"It's still nerve-racking and difficult to make new friends and tell them," Sarah says.
On top of all the other usual high school worries, there is the uncertainty and confusion of first relationships.
Amanda says she has a few friends she can talk to about relationships, or at least potential relationships, but wishes she could be as open as everyone else.
"I don't really feel comfortable talking to most of my friends about the huge crush I have on a girl in my class. They would probably freak out," she said. "I wish I could be completely honest about my feelings without feeling ostracized. I wish that at sleepovers, I could openly talk about my dreams of a 'Princess Charming' while all my friends are discussing their knights in shining armour."
She doesn't see why that has to be the case.
"Loving relationships are more or less all the same regardless of the genders (or) sexes of the people involved," she said. "They are all built on trust, honesty and love."
While younger generations are generally considered to be more accepting of gay classmates, it is still an older generation that runs the schools, coaches sports teams and hold the positions of authority. Even communities differ on their level of acceptance of gays.
"Burlington isn't a place with huge acceptance. Anyone who was gay either went to Hamilton or Toronto to be with people like them," said Brock Stacey, who came out when he was in Grade 10.
Stacey eventually transferred to Etobicoke School of Arts to finish high school. He made the move for two reasons: first, there were more courses that suited his interests; and two, he said he felt more welcome there.
Stacey felt he had it easier than most gay students when he attended Nelson High School. "I lucked out. People respected my dad," he said of his father, Bob, a phys-ed teacher at Nelson. "I think it could have been hell."
Bob Stacey said older generations seem more likely to react negatively to someone being gay.
"Even though they accepted (Brock at school), this isn't a community where it's accepted," he said. "That sounds like a hypocritical statement but the kids at school accepted him but the community didn't because there were adults that would say, 'You don't go near that kid. He's gay.'"
Stacey's wife, Joanne, founded the Halton chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) in 2005. As she found out, families and friends are in need of support as well. After her son told the family he was gay, she said the family lost several friends -- or acquaintances as she calls them "because you really find out who your friends are." The family also received anonymous e-mails that said things like "How's your faggot?"
"When a kid comes out, the dynamics of the family, your siblings, your parents, your grandparents, your neighbours -- it messes them up," she said. "People thought we should have kicked (Brock) out."
And many parents do, only confirming the fears about coming out and adding to the feelings of isolation that many gay teenagers feel. For many, those feelings of isolation become so great that they turn to suicide.
Marcus Logan, executive director of the Halton Organization for Pride and Education (HOPE), said he knows of six youths who have taken their own lives.
"We're losing some kids because of who they are," Bob Stacey said. "That's wrong."
And not all are by their own hand. Last month, Larry King, an openly-gay 15-year-old student in Los Angeles, who had been subjected to persistent taunts, was shot in the head in front of other students by a 14-year-old classmate.
Through sharing experiences, the Staceys hope to help other parents to be supportive. Amanda says her mom has been supportive but she regrets telling her father because it has become a source of tension between the two of them.
Bob said many parents qualify their support -- they are fine with their child being gay, as long as nobody else knows.
"Isn't that sad?" he said. "Your parents know who you really are -- and you're a person -- but they're not able to share in how proud they are of you as to who you really are."
"When I see how well Brock has done," adds Joanne, "and then I see other kids who don't have that opportunity, it breaks my heart."
See this Friday's Burlington Post Sports section for the second part in this series.
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