I was in the third grade the first time I heard the word 'faggot.'
I was carrying my violin to orchestra the day it first happened. I didn't know then that playing the violin was a telltale sign to my fellow classmates.
Where I went to school, it didn't just say nerd or square or misfit. It was a telltale sign that you were a queer.
So there I was, rather proudly carrying my half-size violin in its brown case, when an older girl, someone I didn't even know, scrunched up her face and screamed the word at me.
To be honest, at the time I didn't even know what 'faggot' meant. But I could tell from the hostile, even angry tone in the girl's voice, and the way she hurled the epithet at me, that it wasn't something pleasant.
Like a lot of young gay kids, I would hear that word frequently throughout my school days.
I was small and scrawny then, and I was an easy target for kids who wanted someone to beat up. At times, even some of the girls would join in.
Whenever I was the target of someone's need to prove they were tough and could overpower a mild-mannered weakling, along with the punches they would also throw out the word 'faggot,' too.
I was probably in junior high before I realized the full sexual implications of the word. Luckily, by then I had developed mechanisms of self-protection, and was no longer being physically taunted on the playground.
I learned to use my humor and intelligence to win over most of my classmates. I was still nerdy and square, and I still played the violin. And kids still sometimes called me a fag, mostly behind my back. But at least I wasn't getting hit with it in the face any more, literally or figuratively.
Most of us who are gay or lesbian have similar uneasy memories of our childhood school days. Being easily identified as gay or lesbian in school can be a difficult and trying experience.
There's no doubt that things have improved for many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth since most of us walked the halls of school with our books under our arms and our fears in our throats.
For one thing, there are now 1,864 student clubs or so-called 'gay/straight alliances' in schools all around the country, places where gay or questioning kids can go to find others and to create a 'safe space' for themselves. Those clubs exist in every single state in the country.
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has about 1,000 programs in place in schools around the country that educate teachers about how to identify and stop anti-gay harassment.
In the most progressive schools, homosexuality is even part of the sex education classes.
But even with all the improvements made in America's schools since I walked the halls carrying my violin, the bad news is that the majority of gay and lesbian students in schools today still often feel frightened or harassed.
In the first major study of all 50 states and the District of Columbia on life for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students in schools, 42 states [including Illinois] received a failing grade, or an 'F' when looking at how states protect gay youth at school.
The study was conducted by GLSEN, and the organization based its grading system on six criteria: the existence of state-wide safe school laws, statewide discrimination laws, support for education on sexual health and sexuality, local safe schools policies, the existence of laws that stigmatize gay people, and general education issues such as student-to-teacher ratios and school graduation rates.
The report found that only eight states and the District of Columbia have statewide legal protections based on sexual orientation. Only three states—California, Minnesota and New Jersey—have protections based on gender identity and expression.
Seven states—Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah—have laws that specifically prohibit any positive portrayal of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people or their issues in schools.
On a little bit of a bright side, the report did find that a growing number of schools are trying to curtail harassment and discrimination through school policy changes. But the report clearly demonstrates that in most places, despite the good-faith efforts of school teachers and administrators, the states are not providing schools with the policies or support they need to improve life for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.
Meanwhile, another GLSEN report shows that four out of five GLBT students continue to be verbally harassed by other students because of their sexual orientation.
Perhaps even more disturbing, 83 percent of those students who are harassed say that their school's faculty or staff never or rarely intervene when anti-gay remarks are made.
For all those little boys and girls carrying their sexuality in the open like a violin case, the halls of America's schools still teach a tough lesson to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids.
