One of the great challenges of our time is to make the transition from the end of a taboo in society to the end of the same taboo in schools. It is clear that an objective discussion of homosexuality is needed in educational establishments from a very early age if we are to help the children of homosexuals to succeed, to help young gays and lesbians construct their identity without interference or pain, and to fight against the impact of homophobia outside of school. English-speaking countries have shown the way, but not without difficulty, because the growing need for cultural integration of sexual minorities encounters hostility from conservatives of all stripes (and often with strong Christian roots). In Great Britain, Clause 28 (now repealed) had its genesis in the uproar caused by the picture book
Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin,
a Danish book translated into English in 1983, in which little Jenny lives with her father and his male partner. The very homophobic Baroness Young (the British equivalent to France’s Christine
Boutin
) then launched a crusade to save children and
families
(that is, Christian, heterosexual families) resulting in the approval of Clause 28 in 1988 and the subsequent restriction on purchasing gay and lesbian books for public libraries. In the US, resistance to teaching about homosexuality in the classroom or school library can be strong. In 1995, the school board in Merrimack, New Hampshire, banned any teaching of gay and lesbian issues “as a positive lifestyle alternative,” taking its inspiration almost word for word from a proposed homophobic amendment by Senator Jesse Helms, which had been rejected by Congress the year before. This tougher stance nonetheless also elicited an adverse reaction: though gay and lesbian literature was excluded from most schools, one heterosexual New Hampshire teacher, Penny Culliton, had her rights upheld by the courts (1996–98) to use literary works containing homosexual characters in her classroom. Her case established jurisprudence and she became a national star.
The writing is on the wall: the fight is on over exactly what can be said about homosexuality to students in elementary, middle, and high schools. The exact question is this: should school be a place where heterosexist prejudice is challenged, or a place where a heterosexual symbolic order (that is, the specific prejudice of one sexuality as superior to the other) is imposed? The answer to this question will determine the extent of the fight against homophobia in schools (including the locker room and playing field). Bear in mind that, to conservatives, homophobic insults allow the heterosexual majority to “establish its identity” (and the sense of superiority that goes with it). Also worthy of debate is the place of homosexual issues in the educational curriculum.To the homophobic right wing, the simple act of talking about homosexuality without condemning it constitutes a sort of “homosexual
proselytism
.” According to the British Christian Institute, teachers may bring up homosexuality in the classroom, but only on the condition that they first tell students that “most people disapprove of homosexuality.” What the homophobes suspect is that the inclusion of the vast homosexual cultural heritage in the curriculum (from Plato’s
Banquet
to Virginia Woolf’s
To the Lighthouse
; from Proust’s
In Search of Lost Time
to Thomas Mann’s
Death in Venice
) could have the effect of demonstrating that homosexuality is a large part of human history (including some of the most beautiful things ever created), that it poses no danger to civilization, and that it is possible to be proud of being gay and lesbian. To anyone who fears the homosexual “
contagion
,” this represents a terrible threat: if adolescent homosexuals no longer suffer for being what they are, if they no longer make any effort to try to be heterosexual, then homosexuality will sweep over all of society and carry away everything in its path. Almost everywhere, traditionalists are fighting to keep sex education classes strictly heterosexist; that is, that they equate sexuality with heterosexuality only, without regard for alternative forms of parenthood and procreation. With this in mind, pro-family groups in the United States have often successfully lobbied school boards not to bring up the question of sexual orientation at all in sex-education classes. In France, a circular from 1998 on “the education of sexuality” (as part of the fight against
AIDS
) at least sought to avoid biologism and
heterosexism
; at the same time, it should be pointed out that the same circular never once identified homosexuality as such and that, in these matters, a text is worth far less until it is practically applied. This only goes to show, in retrospect, how important it is that gay and lesbian issues and the interdiction of homophobia be explicitly included in school curricula—a fact of which authorities have finally become aware. It is only in this way that respect for the invisible coeducation of heterosexuals and homosexuals can be added to the respect for the visible coeducation of girls and boys. In 2007, the slogan of the IDAHO Committee (International Day Against Homophobia) was “No to homophobia, yes to education.” In that context, IDAHO President Louis-Georges Tin asked UNESCO to include the fight against homophobia in its international agenda, as education is one of its main objectives. Unfortunately, this request remains unaddressed.
—Pierre Albertini
[Original essay updated by Arsenal Pulp Press]
Caron, Jean-Claude.
A l’école de la violence, châtiments et sévices dans l’institution scolaire au XIXe siècle
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Clauzard, Philippe.
Conversations sur l’homophobie, l’éducation comme rempart contre l’exclusion
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Corlett, William.
Now and Then
. London: Abacus, 1995.
Eribon, Didier.
Réflexions sur la question gay
. Paris: Fayard, 1999. [Published in the US as
Insult and the Making of the Gay Self
. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2004.]
———.
Michel Foucault
. Paris: Flammarion, 1989. [Published in the US as
Michel Foucault
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991.]
———, ed.
Les Etudes gay et lesbiennes
. Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1998.
Fernandez, Dominique.
L’Etoile rose
. Paris: Grasset, 1978.
Gathorne-Hardy, Jonathan.
The Public-School Phenomenon
. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977.
Harbeck, Karen, ed.
Coming out of the Classroom Closet: Gay and Lesbian Students, Teachers and Curricula
. New York: Haworth Press, 1992.
———.
Gay and Lesbian Educators: Personal Freedom, Public Constraints
. Malden: Amethyst Publications, 1997.
Harris, Simon.
Lesbian and Gay Issues in the English Classroom: The Importance of Being Honest
. Milton Keynes: Open Univ. Press, 1990.
Jennings, Kevin, ed.
One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories
. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1994.
McNaron, Toni.
Poisoned Ivy: Lesbian and Gay Academics Confronting
Homophobia. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1997.
Monette, Paul.
Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story
. London: Abacus, 1994.
Musil, Robert.
Les Désarrois de l’élève Torless
. Vienna: Wiener Verlag, 1906. [Published in the US as
Confusions of the Young Torliss
. New York: Penguin, 2001.]
Peyrefitte, Roger.
Les Amitiés particulières
. Marseille: J. Vigneau, 1943. [Published in the US as
Secret Friendships
. Clarence, NY: West-Art, 2000.]
Tamagne, Florence.
Histoire de l’homosexualité en Europe, Berlin, Londres, Paris, 1919–
1939. Paris: Le Seuil, 2000. [Published in the US as
A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919–1939
. New York: Algora, 2004.]
Thierce, Agnès.
Histoire de l’adolescence (1850–1914)
. Paris: Belin, 1999.
—Censorship; Contagion; Heterosexism; History; Literature; Pedophilia; Sports; Suicide.
SELF-HATRED.
See
Shame
SEXUAL PERVERSIONS.
See
Perversions
SHAME
Like other stigmatized groups, gays and lesbians are, in many respects, “children of shame.” Many of their personal stories are marked by periods of uneasiness and discomfort that show the difficulty of living in a heterosexual world consisting of repeated abasements, sometimes real, sometimes imagined; sometimes open, sometimes secret. Whether before they come out or long after, gays and lesbians face a relentless and cruel treatment by society, and the growing knowledge of belonging to a class of “unsuitable” people whom society does not want, which they are reminded of on a daily basis. Shame is a feeling of vulnerability that is universal, but not experienced equally across all categories of individuals. In theory, we are all equal in face of shame, but in the real social world, some are more “equal” than others. It is this inequality of fragility and vulnerability among social groups where a clearly political analysis of shame can be identified, as well as its strategic function in the heterosexist economy.
Shame is one of the most powerful mechanisms by which social order holds us in our presumed place in society, either by preventing “normal people” from straying from the “right path,” or by provoking “abnormal people” to hide and remain out of sight by not publicly acknowledging their membership in a socially undesirable category. Even amongst the most happy and proud of being out, homosexual shame can exist in those afflicted for a long time, resurfacing at the most unexpected moments when one thought it had been long overcome (and staying with them until their death). As Didier Eribon writes: “There always is, at the turn of every sentence, a wound that can reopen; a new shame that can submerge me, or the old shame coming back to the surface.” As the political result of the collective oppression, reproduced in a series of daily interactions, the shame suffered by gays and lesbians cannot be opposed except collectively in turn: it is a mechanism often too well anchored in our bodies, our subjectivities and in the objective structures of heterosexist society, to be simply revoked individually.
Shame: The Political Result of Oppression
As in any sentiment, even the most personal and intimate, shame does not drop out of the sky: it is part of a corporal economy which is a
political
economy. To “persist in its being,” any economic and social order (whether capitalist, racist, sexist or homophobic) must make itself be recognized as legitimate, and to persist over time it must be internalized by those whom it subjugates. The heterosexist order exists according to this rule; it would have little impact if it were based purely on intellectual and rhetorical grounds. Through shame, the “objective” power of homophobia is in fact based on concrete reality: human beings are not pure spirits floating above society, but flesh and blood, socialized bodies composed of acquired reflexes and conscious dispositions, rendering them more or less controllable. It is this fundamental “corporality” that allows homophobia to function. In this way, in shame or in fear, in imposed or self-imposed
discretion
, or even the feeling of ridiculousness of inappropriateness, one’s submission to the heterosexist order can take place against one’s will, without having any power to change it. All of these social emotions can arise in us and take action against us seemingly against our will, exploiting the “subterranean complicities” (to use French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept) that our conditioned bodies maintain with the consistencies and hierarchies of the dominant society. There is no need to imagine a homophobic conspiracy or a cynical orchestration of the oppression to understand how this phenomenon is possible. In fact, having been instructed in the inequality of the world, homosexuals are predisposed mentally and physically to recognize its social divisions and structures of authority, thereby (paradoxically) conferring upon homophobia part of the power that it exercises on them. In shame, the body in a sense “betrays” the soul by forcing the gay subject to perceive himself through the eyes of others (whether real or supposed) that is, in the end, through the heterosexist vision of the world. What is revealed by the durable power of shame in the lives of gays and lesbians is that their bodies often remain in the closet a lot longer than their will does. The human body, which allows us to open up to the world in order to understand it and act within it, is also the organ that at the same time makes us vulnerable to it: it is through this assumption that I give in to the prevailing social order (“It’s stronger than me”), giving the structures and agents of homophobia the power to awaken my shame in the most ill-timed fashion, while at the same time I know so well that I “should not be ashamed” more than I “should not be ashamed anymore.”
Shame feeds on a self-hatred that goes beyond its gay subjects because it is never completely individual nor completely conscious; it refers back to the incorporation of the original slights directed toward them by others. But this homophobia interiorized as “fear of the other within oneself” is not limited to fueling the shame in the social and psychological fire: it is often also projected into a “hate of oneself in the other,” that is, a rejection of homosexuals other than oneself, in spite of common stigma (or rather because of it). Shame does not only “discipline” those who are dominated one by one, by isolating them from “sacred” society, it can also divide them
among themselves
by making their mutual identification, and thus their political mobilization, more difficult. Shame promotes isolation, which in turn promotes shame: without consciously meaning to do so, the heterosexist world is surprisingly efficient.
Michael Warner, in his book
The Trouble with Normal
, he distinguishes between shame (which concerned only acts) and stigma (which touched on the essential being of individuals, according to the definition of their social essence). To ignore this would blur the distinction between the voluntary transgression of the normal, universal individual who is satisfied with living within his social or sexual limit, and the abjection of the stigmatized individual beyond the very acts that he committed or was accused of committing and who accepts the infamous identity that is imposed on him, sometimes for life. Stigma is a form of fundamental and permanent shame which taints acts before they even really exist; there is as much political distance between transgression and abjection as there is between free communication with the unchaste and the mere fact of being
identified
with the unchaste by society.