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Eli hoped classmates didn’t interpret his answer to mean that he didn’t like them. “That’s not necessarily true,” he later explained. “I know everyone always talks about how senior year is ‘the greatest year of your life,’ but I just want to get through it as quickly as possible.”

After school, Eli looked at his Chinese grade report. He had earned a 101.

REGAN, GEORGIA | THE WEIRD GIRL

In first period, Regan heard a guy say, “Man, you such a faggot.”

Regan was so incensed that her hands quavered. She hated that word. It didn’t matter that no one in the room knew she was gay. “What did you just call him?!”

The student repeated himself.

“Pick a different word,” Regan said. He did.

“What’s wrong with that word?” another student asked.

Regan was fed up with the ignorance of people at Johnson. She had heard them use that word—and “That’s gay” as an insult—too often. “Let me tell you a little story. Back in the day, they used to burn witches. You know that, right? Have you also heard that ‘faggot’ really means ‘a bundle of sticks’? See, when women were being burned at the stake for witchcraft, sometimes law officials and townspeople would round up the gay men and women and use them as faggots to light the stake. So when you call someone a faggot, you’re saying that person deserves to be burned alive. So stop.”

Her explanation caused an uproar. “The Bible says it’s wrong, so it’s wrong,” a guy said. Another student stood up and gave him a high five.

“The Bible also says not to eat shrimp, so I hope you don’t like seafood,” Regan retorted, still trembling with anger.

“If someone a faggot, he a faggot,” the high-fiver said. “S’okay to call someone out on what they is.”

“That means I can call you the N-word then, right?” Regan asked.

“Well, you could, but then me and you is gonna have a problem.”

“But that’s just calling you out on what you are, isn’t it?” she pressed. Regan was glad she stood up for herself, but as class began, the discussion ebbed without resolution.

Regan felt better during second period, when her class finished reading Oedipus the King, one of her favorites. Even though she knew the end lines by heart, she still got what she called “literary chills” when, once Oedipus finally sees the truth, he is blind.

But the homophobic slur stuck with her throughout the day. Outside of school, Regan’s friends, family, and theater castmates were wholly supportive of her and her sexuality. Inside school, where she spent most of her waking hours, she hated having to hide her gayness. Regan regularly volunteered at a local LGBT youth center, which was a bright spot in her life. The stories of the kids at the center sometimes broke her heart.

When Regan vented to Crystal, who had come out only recently, how much it crushed her that gay people didn’t have the same rights as heteros, Crystal asked, “Is there anyone fighting for those rights?”

“Well, yeah, of course there are people fighting,” Regan replied. “The Human Rights Campaign, for instance. I donate to them. And gay people have marches, petitions, sit-ins, and things like that. They say gay is the new black. And it is. It’s the new civil rights movement.”

Regan later explained, “Being gay sucks because you’re forced into silence. People assume that straight people fall in love and gay people have sex. Even my mother says, ‘I don’t understand why gay people have to come out. It’s none of anyone’s business what you do in bed,’ as if being gay is a fetish or something and only pertains to the bedroom. It’s hard to be gay at school mostly because I don’t want to lie.” She tried never to lie.

Regan didn’t have the energy to constantly battle homophobia. One day she was dawdling in a classroom while her friend Josiah discussed video games with an assistant principal. Regan sighed dramatically a few times, bored because the topic precluded her from participating in the conversation.

Finally the administrator said facetiously, “Well, let’s talk about something that Davis can talk about. Let’s see,