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Ignorance Leads to Hostile Atmosphere for Gay
Students
University of Wisconsin Badger Herald
April 5, 2000
Reprinted with permission
By J. Nels Bjorkquist
In an unpublicized basketball Cinderella story, my intramural
hoops team made it to the campus Final Four, only to lose last week to a team
peppering us with homophobic epithets. After my opponent flagrantly
body-slammed me, to which the referees in their wisdom turned a blind eye, he and I
lined up next to one another while somebody shot a free throw. In my jovial
manner, I jokingly congratulated him on his “nice body throw” a few plays
earlier. And that's when all hell broke loose.
“Whatever. Shut up, faggot!” he shot back.
I was stunned. Is this the most intelligent insult the guy could muster? Ouch. I feared he
might start telling “Your mama” jokes next. Seriously, though, did I hear him
right? Did he honestly call me a faggot in a juvenile attempt to assert his
“manliness” over me?
“You heard me,” he cryptically clarified. “Too bad you're
losing.”
OK, is that it? The fact that my team was losing somehow made me weaker
than this big strong basketball gladiator, and therefore I clearly must be
a homosexual. Class act, pal. Nice logical leap. Anger festered within over
his comment and the arrogance he displayed in repeatedly defending such
ignorant name-calling. His homophobia sickened me, and I told him so.
I wonder if he would have punched me had we been at State Street Brats
having the same conversation. More importantly, I wonder if he'll punch me
after he reads this column.
Sipping beers after the game, my teammates all agreed such
anti-gay harassment is unacceptable, but I noticed a few of them questioning
why I got so much more upset about it than they did. My opponent also probably
wondered why I got so bent out of shape over an offhand insult that he
throws around at his (in-the-closet) friends everyday. The obvious thought
that pops to mind is “Maybe Nels is gay why else would he be so upset?”
But the question of my sexuality will not be resolved in this
column because it doesn't deserve an answer. Whether I date women or fall in
love with men is irrelevant to this example of unbridled homophobia making
university facilities unsafe for the queer community. And it's
curious how, just as rape victims are asked accusingly what they were wearing, the
attention in homophobic harassment turns so quickly to blame or minimize the
victim.
What difference does it make if I'm queer or a breeder? Either
way, some ignorant guy playing for the intramural championship is going around
creating a hostile, unsafe learning environment for other UW students. We need
to ask not who I date, but rather what to do to stomp out homophobia and
other intolerance on campus.
Many years have passed since I was last called a faggot, homo or
gaywad. Back in high school, though, such epithets were personally insulting
because nobody wanted to be associated with gay people. Queerness was shameful in our sheltered, prejudiced minds.
Nobody in Pewaukee was openly gay, and we didn't have an open forum of vigorous
debate created by segregated fees to expose us to the insidious evil of
homophobia. My, how things change.
Now the name-calling is offensive, not because I find it personally
insulting but rather because I can appreciate the severe problems such
hostility causes for members of the queer community. Twenty-six percent of
gay or lesbian children are kicked out of the family home, and homophobic
harassment is cited by experts as causing social, cognitive and emotional
isolation in 80 percent of queer high schoolers. This isolation may
be to blame for the 28 percent high school dropout rate for queer students
nationally.
Beyond the social and financial implications of harassment,
intolerance
can literally put queer students' physical well-being at great risk.
The
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that queer students are
more than four times more likely than their heterosexual peers to be
depressed, they disproportionately turn to alcohol and drug use, and
are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide. Last year's torture and murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student,
demonstrates the logical endgame of hatred and intolerance which is allowed to
proceed unchecked.
After many years of students battling administrators, UW-Madison
is actually taking steps in the right direction to stop xenophobic hatred.
Making A Respectful Campus, the new harassment reporting system with
complaint forms available in campus bathrooms, should make people more
comfortable about speaking out when they are threatened by sexual, racial or
homophobic harassment. The university has also recently hired more
professional staff to focus on serving the needs of specific student
populations.
My homophobic basketball opponent will cringe to read that UW
also employs a nonacademic misconduct disciplinary procedure that can mete
out punishments ranging from reprimand to denial of specific university
privileges (like intramurals) to suspension or even expulsion. Even
the Associated Students of Madison is working with many other student
groups to eliminate intolerance by organizing events like the upcoming Day of
Silence action that illustrates the censorship homophobia can impose on queer
students.
I hope the guy who called me a faggot will submit to The Badger
Herald either an apology or his perspective on the incident. Maybe he'll
even agree to volunteer for a few hours with some queer student organizations to
educate himself and the campus community on the perils of intolerance.
He may learn that using the word “faggot” to demean another Badger is no
different than casually throwing around the “n” word at students of
color or using any of a number of epithets to attack women.
All oppressions are connected by a web woven of hatred and ignorance, and I invite my
“tough guy” basketball opponent to step up like a real man to face his cowardly
ignorance in a genuine effort to erase it.
• J. Nels Bjorkquist is a columnist for the Badger Herald.
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