"Being a student at OSA, it’s very easy to notice that many people at this school identify as LBGTQIA+. However, just because the student body is so diverse doesn’t mean homophobia and transphobia are nonexistent. But how does the discreet homophobia here compare to other schools? What is the contrast between OSA and other schools when it comes to discrimination?" -- Alex Stullman, 6th grade
Three OSA students were interviewed about their experiences as queer people at OSA, plus their opinions on everything that’s going on in America.
Piper Stuip (She/He), an 8th grader in Literary Arts, said “If it was another place I would feel uncomfortable, but since there are a lot of other queer people here, [at OSA] it feels very natural. Most of my friends, I feel like, are queer.”
Of course, OSA’s diversity certainly doesn’t mean some people aren’t targeted, nor that it isn’t one of those things the school board sweeps under the carpet. When asked if they had ever experienced discrimination based on her identity, Bella Schainker (They/She), 8th grade, answered, “I feel like in any community, there’s always those people. There’s the people that make a big joke out of it, and they think they can use it as an insult. I have been affected by this very minimally in the school building, but some people at this school might think it’s funny to call you a slur as a joke, which isn’t great, but that’s really anywhere.”
And that’s the truth. Sadly, homophobia is everywhere. Any place where discrimination is more blatant, where it might be against a certain Floridian bill to even speak about sexual orientation to young students, it gives people here, even at a school so diverse, an absurd confidence to think that they can abuse other people based on who they are or who they love.
However, when homophobia does happen here, it is often overlooked by the administration. Proper consequences are tossed aside, replaced with a short day of detention. The ‘OSA Way’ says to respect others, but when that rule is broken, nothing happens except the harm that person causes. “I feel like there aren’t really good consequences, because OSA’s ideologies are more like, ‘learn from your mistakes,’” said Schainker, “Especially if it’s kind of like a mindset, I don’t think they can punish someone for that. It’s really sad, but honestly, I feel like my mindset is that ‘it happens anywhere,’ even though it shouldn’t. So I have been targeted, in multiple school instances. Here, and otherwise, I was majorly bullied, especially in elementary school. It’s funny, I’ve gotten so used to it that I just feel like no one cares if it hurts my feelings, it’s that normal, which is really sad.”
Though OSA, despite being very diverse, has homophobia , compared to some people’s experiences in elementary school, which were all out hell, it’s extremely minimal. “Kids were sneaky about it [bullying], but not sneaky enough to the point where I didn’t know,” said Schainker, who had to face a lot of discrimination at her old school, “I was excluded from any of the girls hanging out, because they thought I was weird. They would tell me to go play basketball and stuff, if I wanted to be a boy so bad, or whatever. I was put into the box of a tomboy because of my sexuality, even though that wasn’t what was going on. But teachers never really knew. I never reported it. I just thought, you know, ‘bullying is bullying.’ I never [brought] it up. It feels really isolating from other kids, because then you feel like you’re alone, even from people your own age, but also, it being by your peers, which are people [who] you’re supposed to feel like are on your own level, makes you feel like you can’t go to anyone higher, because if people that are on your level are against you, people above you would be even worse.”
And even if OSA’s repercussion system is flawed, the hate towards queers in other parts of America are just about a thousand times worse. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill is the most notable, which is a restriction based mostly in schools preventing teachers from speaking about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten to 3rd grade because apparently LGBTQ issues are “not age appropriate” for young students.
And though the bill affects mostly elementary schools, many teachers in middle and high schools still steer history lessons away from queer triumphs. At Winter Park High School, Florida, senior Will Larkins took it upon himself to orchestrate a lesson for his classmates about the Stonewall uprising, because his history teacher wasn’t planning on teaching anything about it. In fact, Larkins stated in an interview his teacher “didn’t know what it was.”
Piper Stuip (She/He), an 8th grader in Literary Arts, said “If it was another place I would feel uncomfortable, but since there are a lot of other queer people here, [at OSA] it feels very natural. Most of my friends, I feel like, are queer.”
Of course, OSA’s diversity certainly doesn’t mean some people aren’t targeted, nor that it isn’t one of those things the school board sweeps under the carpet. When asked if they had ever experienced discrimination based on her identity, Bella Schainker (They/She), 8th grade, answered, “I feel like in any community, there’s always those people. There’s the people that make a big joke out of it, and they think they can use it as an insult. I have been affected by this very minimally in the school building, but some people at this school might think it’s funny to call you a slur as a joke, which isn’t great, but that’s really anywhere.”
And that’s the truth. Sadly, homophobia is everywhere. Any place where discrimination is more blatant, where it might be against a certain Floridian bill to even speak about sexual orientation to young students, it gives people here, even at a school so diverse, an absurd confidence to think that they can abuse other people based on who they are or who they love.
However, when homophobia does happen here, it is often overlooked by the administration. Proper consequences are tossed aside, replaced with a short day of detention. The ‘OSA Way’ says to respect others, but when that rule is broken, nothing happens except the harm that person causes. “I feel like there aren’t really good consequences, because OSA’s ideologies are more like, ‘learn from your mistakes,’” said Schainker, “Especially if it’s kind of like a mindset, I don’t think they can punish someone for that. It’s really sad, but honestly, I feel like my mindset is that ‘it happens anywhere,’ even though it shouldn’t. So I have been targeted, in multiple school instances. Here, and otherwise, I was majorly bullied, especially in elementary school. It’s funny, I’ve gotten so used to it that I just feel like no one cares if it hurts my feelings, it’s that normal, which is really sad.”
Though OSA, despite being very diverse, has homophobia , compared to some people’s experiences in elementary school, which were all out hell, it’s extremely minimal. “Kids were sneaky about it [bullying], but not sneaky enough to the point where I didn’t know,” said Schainker, who had to face a lot of discrimination at her old school, “I was excluded from any of the girls hanging out, because they thought I was weird. They would tell me to go play basketball and stuff, if I wanted to be a boy so bad, or whatever. I was put into the box of a tomboy because of my sexuality, even though that wasn’t what was going on. But teachers never really knew. I never reported it. I just thought, you know, ‘bullying is bullying.’ I never [brought] it up. It feels really isolating from other kids, because then you feel like you’re alone, even from people your own age, but also, it being by your peers, which are people [who] you’re supposed to feel like are on your own level, makes you feel like you can’t go to anyone higher, because if people that are on your level are against you, people above you would be even worse.”
And even if OSA’s repercussion system is flawed, the hate towards queers in other parts of America are just about a thousand times worse. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill is the most notable, which is a restriction based mostly in schools preventing teachers from speaking about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten to 3rd grade because apparently LGBTQ issues are “not age appropriate” for young students.
And though the bill affects mostly elementary schools, many teachers in middle and high schools still steer history lessons away from queer triumphs. At Winter Park High School, Florida, senior Will Larkins took it upon himself to orchestrate a lesson for his classmates about the Stonewall uprising, because his history teacher wasn’t planning on teaching anything about it. In fact, Larkins stated in an interview his teacher “didn’t know what it was.”
(And for those who don’t know, the Stonewall uprising was a multi-day, LGBTQ-rights protest in front of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. The uprising started after patrons decided to fight back following a routine police raid on the bar.)
Stuip said, addressing the bill (and homophobia in America in general), “I think it’s really gross that we are still fighting over whether we should have basic human rights. I just really don’t understand. It’s like they think that being queer automatically means, like there’s so many stigmas, there’s almost this censorship that happens with young children, it puts this idea into their brain at a very young age, ‘You’re a danger,’ It’s just really disgusting.”
Stuip said, addressing the bill (and homophobia in America in general), “I think it’s really gross that we are still fighting over whether we should have basic human rights. I just really don’t understand. It’s like they think that being queer automatically means, like there’s so many stigmas, there’s almost this censorship that happens with young children, it puts this idea into their brain at a very young age, ‘You’re a danger,’ It’s just really disgusting.”