The Piedmont Highlander

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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Disoriented about orientation

Disoriented+about+orientation

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Walking through the halls of the English building is an exercise in hypocrisy, according to senior Chloё Combes. Each door has a poster proclaiming the room to be a “safe space for anyone, regardless of gender or sexual identity.” However, this impression does not extend further than the walls due to the heteronormativity pervasive throughout the school, Combes said.

Heteronormativity is the belief, whether conscious or not, that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural sexuality, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Combes said many people at the school do not make an effort to understand their queer counterparts. Combes is pansexual, meaning that one’s gender does not factor into how attractive they are to her.

“They don’t understand why school might be difficult for people who don’t see themselves represented every day,” Combes said.

Freshman Gavan Dagnese, who is also pansexual, said that this lack of awareness manifests in multiple ways: people automatically assume she is straight and make insensitive jokes.

“With people here, unless they know that you’re not straight, they’ll always ask ‘Oh, do you have a boyfriend?’” she said. “The idea is that only straight people exist.”

Senior Tyler Ellis, who is gay, spoke to the idea of the “Gay Best Friend.”

“Quite frankly, the term ‘Gay Best Friend’ seems to almost suppress gay people from being any more than a superficial role in straight people’s lives,” Ellis said. “I think it’s a poor message and I think people are unaware of how degrading it is.”

Ellis also discussed the awkwardness faced by gay couples.

“I hope in the future there is exponentially more variety when it comes to couples at dances. I never had the courage to ask a guy to Winter Ball, and I regret not doing it. I hope it’s less of a scary thing in the future and simply more normal,” he said.

The lack of LGBT representation also exists in perhaps a more noticeable way at Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia, where Liam Kirchner is a senior.

“Everyone is very cookie cutter and shoehorned into different roles,” he said. “All the girls are into fashion, while the men say ‘No homo’ all the time.”

Kirchner also compared LGBT acceptance between what he’s observed in the South and the Bay Area, which he visited around two weeks ago.

“The city I live in, it’s a more conservative area, it’s not as open and free,” he said. “The Castro was really my first time in a gayborhood.”

Ellis agreed that the Bay Area is more accepting and said that PHS does a good job providing for its queer students.

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“I think (especially as of late) Piedmont High is making a valiant effort to make all people along the gender and sexuality spectrums comfortable,” Ellis said.

Dagnese said that other students make jokes about her being attracted to kitchenware.

“I don’t know if they mean it offensively, but I definitely take offense,” Dagnese said. “We’re not aliens. We do all the things heterosexual people do, we’re just not straight.”

According to PFLAG NYC, an organization dedicated to improving LGBT people’s civil rights, nearly a fifth of LGBT students have been physically assaulted due to their sexual orientation, while two thirds of the same population have been sexually harassed. In addition, queer students are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as their peers, according to the CDC.

No students have related incidents of this nature to the Piedmont Highlander, but Combes said that insensitivity, even when unintentional, alienates the LGBT population of the school.

“When people feel like they’re not represented at school and within their community, they’re bound to feel bad about themselves,” Combes said. “They feel like they can’t relate to anyone.

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