The class of 2006

...was born the year I graduated from high school. I'm now (well...almost) double the age of graduating seniors. This popped up for two different reasons: 1, I've recently been emailing back and forth with a high school friend, and, 2, I spoke at a high school the past two mornings.

The panel was organized by the Billy DeFrank center, and included the mother of a gay son, a gay man, and myself, plus two other transgender people yesterday. There was supposed to be a lesbian woman with us this morning, but she had to cancel.

This was my first time speaking with high school students, and I will admit, I was nervous. I've spoken at colleges, mainly since I feel comfortable, because they are a little more mature and are able to make decisions without their parents being involved. With high schoolers, they typically live at home and, once they hear that they had LGBT speakers in class, their parents might freak out a bit. One also has to watch their language with high schools, while with college I don't have to worry about accidentally or purposely saying a bad word.

The three classes actually went relatively well, though, so my nervousness was fairly unwarranted. High school students face a bit more peer pressure and stress than college students, though, so you can definitely see a difference in their reactions and questions. A lot of them just don't have any exposure to LGBT stuff, nor do they have a well developed security in their own sexuality, so some of them are still uncomfortable dealing with gay issues. I can remember.

Yesterday, the classes were a little shorter, but today's class was longer, so the teacher did an initial activity where the students guessed if we were gay/lesbian or straight. Only a handful thought the short-haired mom was a lesbian, with a majority of the class thinking the gay man was gay. I was kinda surprised that a majority of the class also thought I was a lesbian. There were only three of us, though, so they were pre-biased before voting...knowing that we would be chatting about LGBT subjects.

They really didn't have that many reasons for me to be a lesbian beyond my hair style being a little wild, because I didn't wear (that much) makeup, and because my hands were man-ish. Ahhh...the hands.

We went thru a number of the typical questions dealing with the voice, whether or not I have had surgery (although some school systems do not want us talking about surgeries), how much it cost, who I am attracted to, the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, why I didn't have an Adam's Apple, and a few others.

It seems like girls definitely outnumber guys in high school when it comes to being secure with who they are, with guys still running around beating on their chests and arguing over who has the larger penis. At least they don't smell as bad as they do in college.