The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [116]
Even worse than the physical abuse, Liebeman says, was the constant harassment. “I was called ‘Pat’ a lot in middle school,” he says, referring to the ambiguously gendered character on Saturday Night Live. “I’ve been called butch, dyke, queer, homo, fag, and she-he-it (shit).” Students who knew him from middle school spread the word about Liebeman on the first day of high school, thus ensuring that he would be isolated and harassed there as well. “I had no friends,” he said. “No one would talk to me. I got really depressed. Normally I’m an outgoing person, but I got very withdrawn.” When he did find a friend in the high school gifted program, a boy who thought that he himself might be gay or bisexual, the two of them were together targeted by other students. “We wrote notes back and forth, and the kids I knew from middle school wrote stuff from the notes on the board.” Liebeman describes himself as “suicidal” during ninth grade.
His family became concerned when his report card came back with five Ds and an F, Liebeman says. At that point, he came out as a lesbian to his family and “built some allies” in the high school administration. He eventually founded a gay/straight alliance at his school. “We had five members in our first year,” he recalls, “and we literally met in a closet—ironic!” As a result of his leadership in the school group, Liebeman attended a queer student conference in Los Angeles. The conference proved to be a turning point for him. “It was the first time I ever met a transgendered person,” he says. “I already knew that I was trans, but I was confused and afraid to admit it. I talked to this guy at the meeting and went to a session called ‘Trans 101.’ On the way home, my mom asked me what sessions I attended, and when I told her about that one, she pulled the car over on the side of the road and basically freaked out.” After overcoming her denial, Liebeman’s mother and other family members, including his uncle and grandparents, eventually came around and supported him. “The only ones who don’t know about me now” are his ultra-Orthodox relatives in Israel, he says. This family support helped Liebeman get through the last years of high school. “In eleventh grade, socially it got better, though the emotional and verbal abuse was still pretty bad,” he says. On one occasion, the school’s gay/straight alliance created a display case during Pride Week. The case was vandalized, with swastikas scratched into the glass. Liebeman and other members of the alliance received intimidating notes from students and teachers. “Some of the right-wing born-again teachers actually signed their notes,” he marvels. “We got a lot of negative feedback from the faculty, but the administration was somewhat supportive. Their attitude is ‘We’re allowing you to be here, but we ‘re not going to do anything to protect you,’” he says.
A survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national organization that works to end harassment of LGBT kids in schools, found that 69 percent of LGBT youth (ages twelve to nineteen) reported having been victims of harassment or violence in their schools. Half of them said that they were subject to some form of harassment every day. Constant harassment and rejection put transgendered kids, like gay and lesbian youth, at high risk for depression, substance abuse, and other self-destructive activities. “Because isolation and ostracism are key components of transgender youth experience, it would be irresponsible to overlook the associated mental health concerns of substance abuse, self-abuse, depression, and suicide or suicidal ideation,” say Israel and Tarver. They note that “the difficulty these individuals face is evident when we consider that approximately