Breaking the Boy Code - Because I Was Different： Boys and Homophobia

00:00:00.000 It's all because I was different. Like, I wasn't as big and I didn't have a deep voice or anything like that.

00:00:11.820 So they thought that I wasn't as good as them.

00:00:18.460 My name is Eli. You're listening to Breaking the Boy Code.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jonathan.

00:00:44.940 One of the reasons that I'm involved in this kind of work related to masculinity is Ronan Shimizu.

00:00:52.000 Ronan was a 12-year-old boy who suicided about four years ago,

00:00:56.440 And the reason that he stood out to me at the time is that he was a cheerleader.

00:01:01.940 And partly because of that, he faced constant bullying and homophobia, which eventually ended his life.

00:01:09.760 And that hit me four years ago because when I was his age, I was a cheerleader.

00:01:16.260 And I was bullied every single day.

00:01:20.580 So, yeah, it hit me.

00:01:23.280 And I think that's the moment I really aligned with this kind of stuff.

00:01:26.080 and obviously it stayed with me.

00:01:28.300 So as I was preparing for the first episode,

00:01:30.280 I knew that at the end of March was Trans Day of Visibility.

00:01:34.460 It's a day to recognize and celebrate transgender people

00:01:37.160 and to raise awareness about transphobia that they still face.

00:01:40.940 And so I knew that I wanted to center the first episode on Eli.

00:01:45.480 He's 14, and as a transgender boy,

00:01:48.400 he's part of one of the most vulnerable populations in our culture.

00:01:51.300 on this show we're going to hear eli's story as well as the story of a gender non-conforming boy

00:01:59.720 named cj then we're going to talk to two educators about a thing called soji education

00:02:05.660 inclusive education we'll talk to cj's mom about protecting her son and the last part of this

00:02:11.060 episode is going to be about how homophobia influences the lives of every single boy

00:02:17.040 regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation

00:02:20.640 but we're going to start with Eli

00:02:25.240 okay

00:02:27.820 so I'm transgender which means the gender that I was born with

00:02:36.260 is not the gender that I actually identify with

00:02:39.780 like when I was younger I always knew that there was something different

00:02:44.160 I just wasn't sure what it was, and I didn't want to wear girls' clothes, and I kept wanting to get my hair cut shorter and shorter, and I just wasn't happy with the body that I was born with.

00:03:00.320 One of the things that many trans people struggle with is gender dysphoria, essentially a feeling of being intensely uncomfortable in your own body.

00:03:09.360 It can become even worse, and it can become even worse during puberty because at that point your body starts developing all the wrong characteristics.

00:03:19.040 And one of the ways to prevent that for young trans people, parents and doctors will use hormone blockers, which delay the onset of puberty.

00:03:27.600 That's what Eli's taking. 0.99

00:03:29.740 Being transgender and going to the wrong puberty is like a slap in the face. 1.00

00:03:36.780 It's like you feel like you should be, like for me, I feel like I should be going into boy puberty, like getting a deeper voice and stuff, and I don't want to go into female puberty. 0.98

00:03:52.480 I went to a doctor and I was given like an implant with hormone blockers, which just kind of stops me from going into puberty until I'm actually ready. 0.96

00:04:12.280 Eventually I'll get testosterone, you know, that way I can go into a normal mellow puberty.

00:04:19.780 Well, it means for my size, like, most people my age have already started to go through puberty, but I haven't, so I'm a lot smaller than normal.

00:04:37.700 Like, I look like, I probably look like I'm like a 10 or 11-year-old when I should look like a 14-year-old.

00:04:47.880 So that's Eli. 0.92

00:04:49.200 He's transgender and he's on blockers. 0.98

00:04:51.460 So while he passes as a boy, he does look a lot younger than he is. 0.99

00:04:57.060 Now, starting high school is stressful for anybody.

00:05:02.500 But for him, it was even more intense because of that.

00:05:05.760 And it became even worse when he got outed by some boys from his old school.

00:05:10.100 This is what happened.

00:05:11.860 This year I'm in grade nine, and it's a new school.

00:05:18.680 I mean, I knew half of the kids that were in eighth grade, but most of them I did not know.

00:05:25.400 And I was really nervous because it's a lot bigger school, and I didn't know how the people were going to treat me

00:05:36.500 because, like, in junior high school, it wasn't that great of an experience.

00:05:43.440 Grade 9 is just a lot different.

00:05:47.220 I mean, most people have already went through puberty,

00:05:51.500 especially the guys.

00:05:52.580 They're, like, so much bigger than me.

00:05:54.980 It's kind of intimidating just to go into the school.

00:06:00.840 And the bus was really intimidating

00:06:02.640 because it was a lot of people there from grade 9 all the way up to grade 12.

00:06:09.860 So the second day of school, I rode the bus.

00:06:15.040 And, you know, I knew half of the people there from 8th grade,

00:06:20.420 but I didn't know the rest of them.

00:06:23.320 And I heard some of the kids that I did know talking to some of the older kids.

00:06:28.840 One of them was one of their brothers.

00:06:30.880 and they told them that I was trans which kind of made my heart sink I mean I started sweating

00:06:40.220 and I got really nervous and one of the guys like came back to the back of the bus where I was

00:06:48.400 and he asked if I was really a girl and I told him no but he didn't believe me so

00:06:57.980 another guy came over and the big guy that I was talking about before like held me down and the

00:07:04.720 other guy um started trying to take off my pants I was like kicking and yelling

00:07:12.240 um he was really big he was like a foot taller than me and he was really strong

00:07:22.880 the other guy was pretty big but he wasn't like him but still when I was fighting I couldn't

00:07:32.440 like get away from them and um they actually like took them off and like looked at my private and

00:07:43.420 kind of just threw me back down on this seat and then they were telling everybody

00:07:49.780 on the bus that I was a girl.

00:07:53.080 I started crying, and then they made fun of me

00:07:56.280 even more for crying.

00:07:59.820 It's worth pointing out that Eli was on a bus.

00:08:04.740 Like, this didn't happen in some back alley somewhere

00:08:08.080 or under the bleachers.

00:08:09.140 He was headed to school, theoretically surrounded by adults

00:08:13.180 who, depending on who you ask,

00:08:16.980 whose main job is keeping him safe.

00:08:19.780 So I asked him about that.

00:08:22.380 No, the bus driver was right there, and I think he saw, like, the whole thing, but he didn't do anything.

00:08:30.060 He didn't tell him to stop.

00:08:33.400 He didn't, like, tell any of the teachers afterwards or anything.

00:08:37.560 He just acted like it didn't happen.

00:08:41.200 I just wanted to disappear.

00:08:44.340 I mean, I didn't want to go to school anymore.

00:08:46.800 I actually think I kind of ran away that day because it was so hard to think about going back

00:08:56.640 to school yeah I tried to tell one of my teachers there and then they actually took the boys to the

00:09:05.200 side and they talked to them and they said that they were gonna stop but they never did I'd go

00:09:13.260 back to school and like all the time they would call me names and they would kick me they called

00:09:22.620 me like he she and it just they started screaming stuff in the hallway at me i felt like it couldn't

00:09:31.080 get away from them in the end eli switched schools and he's going to a school now where people don't

00:09:38.340 know that he's transgender, which on one hand is great that he can be in a new place, be in a safer 0.53

00:09:45.340 place. But on the other hand, it's kind of sad that his best chance of being safe means hiding 0.98

00:09:51.760 part of who he is. I do switch schools a lot, which is kind of an advantage because I can start

00:09:59.300 fresh and no one knows anything about me. The school I go to now isn't that bad. Nobody knows

00:10:07.260 me I actually just started going there like two weeks ago and nobody knows that I'm trans and it

00:10:16.100 feels like a huge relief because I can just go to school and not have to worry about being bullied

00:10:22.720 as much I can just be myself all gender expression is performance regardless of if you're cisgender

00:10:35.820 transgender, gender fluid, anywhere on the gender spectrum, it's performance. For some people,

00:10:41.160 sadly for a lot of LGBTQ young people, part of that performance means hiding pieces of their

00:10:46.820 identity. Whether it's from their friends or their parents or anyone in their lives,

00:10:53.920 it stays hidden because there's a perceived threat, whether implicit or explicit, that they

00:10:58.840 won't be accepted. They'll be targeted or hurt. For other young people, it's not perceived.

00:11:07.860 It's real and it's heavy. Because for whatever reason, they're not hiding who they are and they

00:11:13.580 have to carry that. So I asked Lori Durand to come on the podcast in order to talk about that weight

00:11:20.240 landing on the shoulders of her son. Lori and her husband Matt have two sons, a straight cisgender

00:11:27.720 14-year-old named Chase and a gender non-conforming 11-year-old named CJ. Now, every kid who breaks

00:11:34.800 or transgresses gender rules is going to face some kind of challenge or challenges, I guess you'd

00:11:41.060 say. It's kind of a given and CJ has faced challenges, but CJ is also the kind of a kid that

00:11:46.920 you feel like you can really believe he's going to be all right. Maybe it's the, you know, the

00:11:53.020 leadership, the protection of his mother. But I think it's also just within him. You know,

00:11:57.360 I remember seeing a picture of him at a pride event last summer. And you really kind of have

00:12:03.140 to see it. He's got like makeup and nail polish on. He's, you know, he's like wearing short shorts

00:12:07.840 and he's got rainbow accessories. He's twirling a hula hoop or something like that, you know,

00:12:13.000 in the sunshine. So I remember seeing this photo and just feeling like, all right, you know, he's

00:12:18.680 going to be okay. And that's almost where Lori's story picks up. CJ started grade five this year

00:12:25.080 and they thought he was okay. CJ has a group of great girlfriends and one friend in particular

00:12:32.500 he'd been best friends with since last year and they hung out in this group together. So we didn't

00:12:38.600 have any, I feel like this was one of the first school years where we really didn't have any fears

00:12:42.260 or worries about him as far as bullying goes, because we just felt like it was more of the

00:12:47.820 same same school same kids we felt really confident in the teacher that he was placed with so you know

00:12:55.620 the school year started out and Matt and I felt like everything was fine and was going you know

00:13:02.660 everything was normal in his school life all the way through about January and then we started to

00:13:10.400 notice little things and you know he typically wears t-shirts sometimes that have statements

00:13:15.320 on him like be kind or kind is cool and I realized he wasn't wearing those shirts anymore and I would

00:13:21.980 ask him why and he said his best friend Allie was making fun of them which to me I'm like if

00:13:26.900 someone's going to make fun of your shirt that says be kind like something's something's not

00:13:30.760 right here um and so that was just little things and I started to feel like maybe she wasn't being

00:13:38.420 kind and maybe the relationship wasn't for the best anymore but it wasn't until his birthday

00:13:44.060 party. Allie came and a group of his girlfriends came and I just noticed that something was off,

00:13:49.520 like they didn't want to be in any pictures with him. They were kind of seemed gossipy,

00:13:53.660 like they were whispering about him. It was really just a weird dynamic. And that's when my mom got

00:13:58.820 told me that something wasn't quite right. And so then two days later, he came home from school

00:14:06.780 and finally opened up and said that, you know, Allie said that she talked to her parents about

00:14:13.920 the fact that he was gay because CJ had come out to her a little bit earlier in the school year

00:14:18.580 and just said maybe he wasn't straight, but he did maybe have crushes on boys. And, um, and so

00:14:24.280 she, Allie had gone home from his birthday party and told her parents that, and that there was a

00:14:31.600 gay couple at his birthday party and so she came to school the next day and told CJ my family

00:14:38.540 doesn't hang out with gay people and so I can't hang out with you anymore and if I hang out with

00:14:43.180 you I can't be popular and so see I mean that broke his heart and so he came home and was just

00:14:51.600 crying and it was horrible and he felt like he was being hated and couldn't be best friends with his

00:14:58.900 best friends just because of who he was and identifying as a member of the LGBTQ community

00:15:04.040 and, and identifying, I guess at this point is not a hundred percent heterosexual. We don't know

00:15:10.380 what his future holds, but he felt like that's something that he can't change. And that was

00:15:14.080 something that his best friend was saying they couldn't be friends because of. And then slowly,

00:15:20.420 as we were talking and having conversations, we realized that one of Allie's friends, Rachel was

00:15:26.360 being mean to, was bullying CJ in a physical way and was causing him physical harm. So she was 0.99

00:15:33.600 pushing him, kicking him, stabbing him with pens, stealing his lunch. At lunchtime, she would either

00:15:39.940 take his lunch or her lunch or someone else's lunch and like rub it all over him while they

00:15:43.480 were sitting at the lunch benches, telling him that he was invisible, that no one would notice

00:15:48.460 if he wasn't there. When I hear this, it's like an, it's like taking a burden off CJ's

00:15:56.180 shoulders. You know, it's all, it all comes out. This is what's been going on for the last while.

00:16:01.060 This is what I've been struggling with. This is what I'm holding in. And when I experienced this

00:16:07.080 myself, I always have a part of me that goes, why didn't you tell me sooner? Why did you keep this

00:16:12.720 to yourself? So I'm just going to pull this aside for a moment and say, yeah, this is something that

00:16:19.080 boys and men struggle with this well-entrenched notion that man, you really shouldn't be asking

00:16:24.840 for help you got to be tough you got to be independent it's sort of it's actually it's a

00:16:30.760 lot like the the man up rhetoric but a little more indirect the message being that you should

00:16:35.400 be able to handle yourself but sometimes you get pinned down on a school bus by guys twice your

00:16:41.320 size for example you can't handle that and that's what it all comes out but it's still not easy to

00:16:49.800 ask for help you can see that in Eli's story and you can see that with CJ as well so he was telling

00:16:56.140 us this at first and when he was first opening up was saying like please don't tell my teacher

00:17:00.480 please don't tell my principal please don't tell anyone I mean that's what's was so hard he wrote

00:17:06.680 a letter and I posted that on my on my blog the letter that he wrote to his teacher and principal

00:17:12.440 when he'd finally had enough and he knew it was going to be a long letter and so he asked if I

00:17:17.920 would type it while he dictated it and this it's two pages long and it's absolutely heartbreaking

00:17:25.600 because he details all of these things like being stabbed with a pen repeatedly and being pushed

00:17:30.980 and having his lunch stolen and um you know I'm sitting there and I'm trying to just type and not

00:17:37.160 fly into a rage so pissed off at these girls and then asking myself you know not getting mad at him

00:17:44.740 for not telling me sooner. Like I was feeling all of these emotions and then just wanting to like

00:17:49.840 wrap my arms around him as he's sitting there and dictating this letter and crying and not

00:17:53.620 making eye contact with me. And in thinking like, had he told me sooner, it wouldn't have got to

00:18:00.720 this point. I think a lot of them felt there is the portion of it that has to do with gender.

00:18:07.600 And he is a boy and these were girls who were doing this to him. Um, and feeling like he

00:18:13.520 couldn't defend himself against girls and then you know he did think that he could handle it on his

00:18:19.000 own and when that didn't work I think he just felt helpless and like if he couldn't handle it

00:18:23.780 on his own then nobody could so there's all these these different emotions and then and now it's

00:18:30.100 like teaching him and I think now he realizes like don't you can't just let the little things

00:18:35.000 go and go and go until they become big things and bigger things but then also there's the fine line

00:18:41.300 and the balance of this isn't his fault it's not he could have he may have been able to do things

00:18:47.940 to stop this sooner but overall this isn't his fault this isn't about him this is about them

00:18:54.180 this is about their choices and what they did to him so I mean there's all I feel like I'm on a

00:19:00.120 tightrope like there's all these fine lines I'm trying to walk to teach him what to do in the

00:19:05.620 future so that his situation doesn't get to be like this but also making it it's not his fault

00:19:10.900 So kids get hurt all the time, but I still think a pretty natural reaction to a kid in pain is

00:19:18.660 thinking, how are they going to heal from this? Or what can I do to help them recover from what's

00:19:24.460 happened? That made it sound a lot more, you know, usually it's a lot more instinctive than that.

00:19:28.300 You just want to help them. But I think it's, I guess it's worth saying for a lot of kids,

00:19:32.900 For some things, you never heal completely.

00:19:37.320 I mean, I'm not a doctor, but okay, so there's scar tissue, right?

00:19:43.220 I have a scar from where I fell playing basketball in grade seven.

00:19:46.060 That's still with me.

00:19:49.200 So you carry hurt with you, either physically, but especially emotionally or mentally,

00:19:55.200 especially if the hurt is connected to who you are as a person.

00:19:58.820 You can carry that with you possibly forever.

00:20:02.900 because it changes you. He's always really had this sparkle about him. And I definitely have

00:20:10.560 seen this dull his sparkle. And I feel like there's a part of that will that will never

00:20:19.680 be healed fully. And I've seen some healing take place. In some ways, I've seen him get stronger

00:20:26.680 because of it. And to realize that he doesn't want to spend his time and energy on people who

00:20:32.280 treat him the way that Allie and Rachel have treated him. And so I've seen him grow in a lot

00:20:37.500 of ways and mature in a lot of ways. But I think that with growth and with maturing, sometimes you

00:20:43.200 lose that innocence of childhood. You're never quite the same. So I feel like for sure, I mean,

00:20:49.300 he's felt his first hate. Someone hated him because of who he is and who he may love and

00:20:54.400 who he may be attracted to and what he wears and how he identifies when it comes to gender or how

00:21:01.380 he expresses himself like he's felt that really truly for the first time and I feel like

00:21:08.160 you know that's going to there's some he can't fully repair he'll never fully be the same and

00:21:15.760 that's what's heartbreaking you know the first few nights when he was coming home and just crying and

00:21:20.220 distraught because of everything that was happening like I was holding him on the couch and he was

00:21:25.360 crying and i was thinking like this is why some lgbtq kids kill themselves or you know the

00:21:32.520 statistics of self-harm um substance abuse unsafe sexual behaviors like all these statistics just

00:21:39.100 came flooding in to my head and i'm like this is what does it like this is part of what can drive

00:21:45.720 an lgbtq kid to not feel safe at school to drop out of school like all the statistics were just

00:21:51.880 flooding my head I'm like this is why this happens so it breaks my heart you know that's

00:21:57.380 one of the things I thought the many nights that I sat there holding CJ while he cried was there

00:22:02.060 are kids who are going through this who go home and don't feel safe enough to say anything and

00:22:08.340 like if my kid didn't say anything for months or weeks like imagine they these kids are going years

00:22:15.540 and not saying anything and it's just escalating and getting worse and worse and worse and they're

00:22:19.660 feeling like this on the inside, but they can't let it out. And that, I mean, that's another thing

00:22:24.520 that broke my heart as I laid there with him. Matt and I have always felt like our home is the

00:22:30.420 absolute safest place is like a haven for our family and for our friends. And we would not

00:22:38.580 be our kids first bully. And so for parents, when I deal and I talk with other parents that I meet

00:22:45.880 through my blog or through social media. I always try to convey that. And then if that doesn't get

00:22:51.660 through to them, I encourage them to look up the statistics for kids like theirs. Because if that

00:22:58.860 doesn't shock a parent into wanting to be better for their kid and wanting their kid to not be one

00:23:06.880 of those statistics, I don't know what will. Seeing it firsthand, this is the kind of culture

00:23:12.380 that leads to poor mental health, to self-harm, to suicide among LGBTQ kids. 1.00

00:23:19.280 Obviously, or maybe not obviously,

00:23:22.460 but obviously there are other pieces to the fact that

00:23:24.680 those kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide.

00:23:27.960 But if you think that school experiences like those of Eli and CJ

00:23:31.140 aren't possible breaking points,

00:23:33.420 then I think you're not listening carefully enough.

00:23:40.400 Those are hard stories.

00:23:42.380 And the good news, if you can call it that, is that as powerful as high school seniors on the bus are, as powerful as popular girls in grade five are, they aren't in charge of culture at school.

00:23:56.700 obviously they you know play a part in in what that culture is as socially powerful kids but

00:24:03.980 depending on the school and the school board some schools have very skilled very dedicated people

00:24:09.920 leading the way on confronting the culture of homophobia and transphobia in schools

00:24:15.080 people people like Alyssa and Victoria as an aside this really sucks but when I was talking

00:24:23.580 with them the microphone wasn't actually recording correctly and I was in a bit of a rush because we

00:24:27.960 all had classes that we were teaching um coming up so I didn't actually check and so it cuts out

00:24:35.000 every now and then and I know it's super annoying to listen to um and I won't do it again uh but

00:24:43.220 yeah chalk that one up to experience anyways what they what they have to say is still super valuable

00:24:46.440 And I'm just sorry that it's not as fun to listen to you.

00:24:50.040 So my name is Alyssa Amos, and I'm a teacher here at the middle school in Cranbrook.

00:24:56.740 I'm also one of the Soji Lee within the school, and I co-lee the Parkland Pride Alliance Club.

00:25:06.760 And I am Victoria Larson, and I'm happy to work with Alyssa.

00:25:10.880 And we started this club this year and have been working to create a little bit of momentum.

00:25:21.680 It's an alliance to create support for people in the LGBT community.

00:25:30.140 And their allies.

00:25:31.280 Yeah, and their allies.

00:25:33.000 Welcome.

00:25:34.240 It's a safe place for them to meet.

00:25:37.580 sometimes we have goals like shirt day trying to support inclusivity they have helped with a lot

00:25:47.440 of that and they've taken the lead but it's also a space just for them to have their conversation

00:25:54.360 and express their concerns they've also had changes they wanted to see around the sun we've

00:26:03.280 helped facilitate that without doing it for giving them the power to make change uh such as

00:26:11.480 our foyer has the flags of all the provinces the metis and tunaha people and they believed they

00:26:19.780 needed to be seen as well as members of this school and so they put proposal to the administrators

00:26:25.880 which was accepted, and we now have a flag hanging in our foyer, and they are thrilled.

00:26:35.020 And so we're just trying to empower them to make change and have a voice and a safe place to have that.

00:26:42.000 The group led Pink Shirt Day in February, and it was phenomenal.

00:26:48.860 It was absolutely exciting.

00:26:50.520 And the thing that was so exciting about it was that it felt like a collaboration with all types of different students.

00:27:00.620 So the focus is about the LGBTQ community.

00:27:05.060 It was definitely a theme that was part of that day.

00:27:08.560 But the messages that came up were, you need to celebrate yourself, whoever you are, whatever type of person you are, celebrate you.

00:27:19.060 we are not afraid to be selves and therefore we want you to be yourselves that was the strong

00:27:26.820 it was great so if i go back a couple weeks actually if i go back a couple months at this

00:27:32.560 point i was in a school and the principal showed me a gender neutral washroom it was a middle

00:27:37.720 school he mentioned supporting a couple different transgender students so when i was working on

00:27:42.440 this episode i decided to reach out to him and he referred me to alissa and victoria

00:27:46.300 uh whom he said were the school soji reps and uh in my head i was you know my response was like

00:27:56.060 oh good you know soji reps what the heck is a soji rep um so it stands for sexual orientation

00:28:03.500 gender identity and i might be missing something i don't really know what to call it

00:28:08.620 uh a program an initiative a collaboration it's i guess it's sort of just a set of resources

00:28:16.000 or a framework for shifting the status quo

00:28:19.160 on LGBTQ issues within public schools.

00:28:23.040 So SOGI stands for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

00:28:28.380 There is a website, sogeeducation.org.

00:28:33.380 This website has been phenomenal for information

00:28:39.700 for educators, parents, student administrators,

00:28:43.320 just one of the things they say is it's it's there's three parts it's called SOGI one two

00:28:51.540 three and SOGI is in education number one what are the policies and procedures looking at and

00:28:59.360 changing and and making number two what are the inclusive environments within our school and how

00:29:06.940 sure that our schools and districts are inclusive and inclusive curriculum. So are our educators

00:29:15.160 including teaching diversity and respect and look how we present our information in a more

00:29:26.400 inclusive way. Currently there's 51 of 60 schools in BC are part of the SOGI 123 initiative.

00:29:36.940 This is kind of like, for me, it was exactly to go for my information, and they have PowerPoints,

00:29:45.020 pamphlets, they have vocabulary, you know, things on there, videos that you can show students.

00:29:52.920 It's just a great place to go for information on how to provide inclusive education for students.

00:30:02.160 Not just students of the LGBTQ community, but all students, because it has to do with sexual orientation and gender identity, all fit in there.

00:30:13.480 If you missed it, there's three lines of approach.

00:30:16.740 Number one is focused on creating school policies that explicitly reference LGBTQ students.

00:30:21.800 Number two is about the learning environments.

00:30:24.400 Things like bathrooms, signs, extracurriculars.

00:30:27.440 And number three is about the curriculum and teaching diversity and respect explicitly in the classroom itself.

00:30:34.480 If you're wondering, does this really matter?

00:30:39.440 Like, you know, all kids get bullied or there's other things that teachers should be focusing on.

00:30:44.440 I would suggest that you ask yourself, would Eli have gotten his pants ripped off on a school bus?

00:30:50.580 if those high schoolers had had things like gender, diversity,

00:30:57.960 and respect part of their learning experience when they were younger.

00:31:01.620 Or would CJ have lost his best friend?

00:31:04.860 I talked to some other trans and gender nonconforming kids about this,

00:31:07.900 and every single one of them had stories. 1.00

00:31:13.420 And, I mean, to put it bluntly, they suck. 0.99

00:31:16.600 Like, the stories suck. 0.99

00:31:17.740 they talked about other kids using the wrong names 0.98

00:31:22.020 using pronouns that were the wrong pronouns on purpose

00:31:24.860 verbally and physically attacking them

00:31:26.380 just having to show up and hide who they were

00:31:29.540 like you just can't be yourself

00:31:36.260 because it's not safe

00:31:38.420 the statistics are scary

00:31:43.260 64% of LGBTQ plus students feel unsafe at school.

00:31:49.840 That is not okay.

00:31:51.500 This is somewhere every day.

00:31:53.160 It's a second home for them.

00:31:54.780 It's where we should be making them feel safe.

00:31:57.800 And if the majority are not, it needs to change. 0.82

00:32:02.540 74% of transgender students and 5% of the LGBTQ youth

00:32:07.980 report being verbally harassed about their gender.

00:32:11.560 Again, it is hard for these students to be themselves, feel like they can be themselves at the school.

00:32:20.520 And then when they're being harassed, that leads to a lot of problems for these students that are not.

00:32:27.200 Well, I think that going back to that concept of safe, if students who are identifying as part of the LGBTQ plus community are being safe,

00:32:38.820 then nobody's feeling safe in the school, right? 1.00

00:32:45.000 Even if they appear to be conforming to whatever normal is that day.

00:32:52.660 It is, by creating a safe school for the SOGI community,

00:33:00.800 we're going to be creating a safer school for everybody.

00:33:04.020 Everybody is benefiting from this.

00:33:05.700 And I also need to say, not just the students,

00:33:08.820 it's educators that are members of this. We also have families. It's bigger than just the

00:33:17.420 students in the school. And it's time. It's past time. We are so late on. And so I'm very happy to

00:33:25.640 see the steps that are being taken. The other challenge was that 60% of Bachelor of Education

00:33:33.720 graduates, so those of us out to be educators, over the past five years, they were not prepared

00:33:41.020 in SOGI inclusive education. So we want this, but we also have to now do it in how we teach our

00:33:49.180 educators. And if there's educator feel like they want to do this, they want to be more inclusive,

00:33:55.840 they want to be supportive, but they kind of are like, well, where do I start? SoGI is one,

00:34:02.840 123 site is really great information.

00:34:07.580 Check your district seats.

00:34:09.480 We have a very new inclusive policy within our district.

00:34:16.560 Ask questions.

00:34:17.880 You know, you cannot be afraid to ask questions.

00:34:21.540 That's the most important thing.

00:34:23.600 I think we're addressing the issues as they come up.

00:34:25.540 We're having challenges as sports teams, change rooms, shrooms, gender preferences.

00:34:37.960 So we're learning.

00:34:40.340 We don't have it perfect.

00:34:42.700 No, but we're learning and we address the problems.

00:34:46.360 I think that's a big one is you may not have it figured out day one.

00:34:50.560 as victoria is talking you can hear the students gathering in the hall outside which is kind of

00:34:57.500 neat i mean like i said like that meeting was if i could do it differently now i would have it was

00:35:04.400 still a great conversation was kind of neat you can hear the kids outside because yeah there's

00:35:07.900 three educators here talking about lgbtq youth directly embedded in that culture

00:35:13.040 where are the ones who are going to change the narrative it's exciting stuff

00:35:19.020 if i could break down three main cultures uh or communities in a young person's life i would say

00:35:26.700 school friends uh and home or parents if you're into psychology this is kind of related to

00:35:36.340 bronfen browner's ecological systems theory of child development lgbtq kids can face different

00:35:42.720 levels of support and acceptance or bullying and discrimination in each of those spaces

00:35:47.420 so as a teacher you have a role to play as a friend

00:35:51.100 you have a role to play and as a parent you have a role to play

00:35:54.560 within these spaces it's sort of

00:35:59.340 taken as a given that LGBTQ youth are going to face some more challenges

00:36:02.860 and have a harder time than straight cisgender kids

00:36:05.600 but the fact is that transgender children

00:36:09.800 who are supported in their identities show positive mental health

00:36:12.960 fact

00:36:15.600 When trans youth are supported by their parents, the percentage you consider suicide drops by more than half.

00:36:23.220 Fact.

00:36:25.540 So as a parent, you can help them meet homophobia or transphobia with resilience and self-love.

00:36:34.920 Back to Lori Duran, whose 11-year-old son lost his best friend because of his gender expression and sexual orientation.

00:36:42.620 so the first thing I would tell parents or a primary caregiver adult is like just listen

00:36:50.280 and ask questions so that you can get as much information as possible and then we were really

00:36:57.120 focused on letting CJ know that he's safe at home that we're here to help him in any way that we can

00:37:03.520 and that this isn't his fault so and then encouraging him because we do still like we

00:37:10.300 want him to be the same child we don't want this to affect him for the rest of his life and change

00:37:15.480 who he is so that was a big part and then another part was he was feeling really unsafe at school

00:37:20.680 he missed more days than were typically comfortable with him missing at school but it was important

00:37:27.320 for us to find him a safe place where he could go he just so happened at that time to be injured so

00:37:33.920 he wasn't competing in gymnastics and going to the gym as much as he was that was another big change

00:37:39.180 that was going on around that time so oddly enough he loves Sephora and he loves makeup

00:37:45.380 and so I contacted our local Sephora and they happened to have free makeup classes and so we

00:37:49.960 were there like two to three nights a week with him doing makeup classes somewhere that he felt

00:37:53.860 safe and he could express himself and that he felt really welcomed so I guess it's listen offer

00:38:02.280 your support and your love unconditionally find them a place where they feel safe and let them

00:38:07.840 know that this isn't their fault. It's fine for me to give advice to teachers and for teachers to

00:38:16.180 say what they would do in the classroom. What really helps us, and it depends on where you live,

00:38:22.380 what country you live in and what state you live in, that there are laws that prohibit bullying

00:38:28.720 based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, whether that be perceived or

00:38:35.600 confirmed. So for us, that's another thing, you know, I can give all my advice for dealing with

00:38:41.780 bullying, but also when it came down to it with us dealing with the teacher and principal,

00:38:46.400 I also reminded them that this is illegal in our state. So I can talk a lot about how to comfort

00:38:56.180 a child and what we did, but also I encourage parents and primary caregiver adults to really

00:39:01.280 know what laws protect their child and all family members because of the gender identity,

00:39:08.660 gender expression and sexual orientation. So and I encourage the adults in this situation

00:39:14.840 to be really educated and not expect that a teacher or the administration will know about

00:39:20.800 the laws and be educated as much as I wish that they were. It really falls upon the parent or

00:39:27.640 the caregiver. The other main element of youth culture that I mentioned is between friends.

00:39:34.160 So we're going to start talking about straight cisgender boys and how they fit into

00:39:37.600 this discussion of homophobia and transphobia. And CJ with his beautiful makeup and nail polish

00:39:44.980 and femininity is going to be our pivot point to talk deeper about masculinity.

00:39:49.480 masculinity in girls is seen as a strength but femininity in boys is seen as a weakness

00:39:57.880 I was a tomboy growing up and I remember you know if I was wearing a sports jersey or climbing a

00:40:04.580 tree or doing something that's considered masculine people were like you go girl and I felt

00:40:10.160 so empowered I mean my third grade class picture school picture I was wearing a cardigan and a tie

00:40:18.140 like a men's tie with a collared shirt and I was just beaming so proud like I felt such strength

00:40:25.480 but when my son wears a French braid in his school picture with a necklace and maybe a headband

00:40:31.580 people have a much different reaction and that infuriates me that it's not equal and that

00:40:39.540 femininity in boys is seen as such a weakness so that's something that we've really struggled with

00:40:45.240 over the years. And it's just really annoying to me because, you know, a girl goes to school 0.99

00:40:49.840 in a full, you know, basketball shorts and a basketball jersey. And people are like,

00:40:55.180 that is a strong, strong girl. But my son, you know, goes in wearing girl clothes and he's, 1.00

00:41:01.660 or makeup. And they're like, that's a very weak boy. That makes him a target. I can't stand that. 1.00

00:41:07.300 So watch this. Lori's talking about CJ being a gender nonconforming boy 0.84

00:41:12.100 with what are considered feminine characteristics

00:41:14.400 and that making him a target.

00:41:18.980 But if we talk about societal expectations of masculinity,

00:41:22.380 those are, you know, physicality, sexual dominance,

00:41:25.440 being rough, not showing emotion, that kind of thing.

00:41:27.060 So if a boy is gentle or respectful or soft or emotional,

00:41:33.640 doesn't that make him in one way or another gender non-conforming? 0.73

00:41:38.120 And just like Eli or CJ, doesn't that make him a target?

00:41:46.940 That's the pivot.

00:41:48.480 If we're talking about homophobic bullying based on gender expression and behavior,

00:41:53.060 it turns out we've got to talk about straight cisgender boys too.

00:41:57.840 A few years ago, a group of Canadian researchers studied the impact of gay-straight alliances

00:42:02.840 and anti-homophobia practices in schools in British Columbia.

00:42:06.520 And what they found was that for schools with gay-straight alliances, suicide attempts were reduced by more than half for lesbian, gay, bisexual youth and heterosexual boys.

00:42:20.880 Based on other observational research, they suggested this had to do with the connection between homophobia and the enforcement of dominant norms of masculinity among boys.

00:42:30.780 i i don't you know i don't know what your reaction to that is but my reaction is man

00:42:37.780 i've been researching i've been researching this stuff for years and that still blew my mind

00:42:42.900 although if you're listening to this and i lost you like what's the connection between 1.00

00:42:48.120 homophobia and heterosexual boys let me back up a bit that's so gay no homo you're a fag 0.99

00:42:55.980 it might sound quaint but these are phrases that are ubiquitous among boys 0.99

00:43:01.040 still they were when i was a kid i've seen them directed you know even in the last year towards

00:43:06.980 a dancer towards a boy's outfit back in the summer a 10 year old texted me from his mom's phone and

00:43:11.780 said i love you followed by a text that said you know he meant as a friend and he wasn't gay

00:43:17.160 a lot of people know that this kind of thing is pervasive but the anti-homophobia practices that

00:43:24.660 i learned as a young educator um and i still see our we're kind of based on the premise that

00:43:29.620 homophobic language is directed at sexuality you know like we we talk that well say for example

00:43:36.780 dance can't technically be gay because it's an activity or it's a sport so it can't have a

00:43:41.180 sexuality or uh you shouldn't say that because you know there could it could you know my uncle's gay

00:43:46.800 or things like that ignoring the fact that this language really has a lot to do with ensuring that

00:43:53.540 other boys are performing masculinity correctly. CJ Pascoe started researching boy culture in the

00:44:00.660 late 1990s, and she wrote a book that, in my opinion, is still one of the best analyses of

00:44:06.260 homophobic culture. So forgive me for the length of this quote, but I think it really does a good

00:44:11.740 job of explaining what homophobia among boys, like, really entails. She said,

00:44:20.780 fag talk and fag imitation serve as a discourse with which boys discipline themselves and each 0.98

00:44:26.020 other through joking relationships. Any boy can temporarily become a fag in a given social space 0.99

00:44:31.580 or interaction. This does not mean that boys who identify as or are perceived to be homosexual 0.97

00:44:36.540 aren't subject to intense harassment. Many are. But becoming a fag has as much to do with failing

00:44:42.340 at the masculine tasks of competence, heterosexual prowess, and strength, or in any way revealing 0.99

00:44:48.240 weakness or femininity as it does with a sexual identity. This fluidity of the fag identity is 1.00

00:44:54.420 what makes the specter of the fag such a powerful disciplinary mechanism. It's fluid enough that 1.00

00:44:59.340 boys police their behaviors out of fear of having the fag identity permanently adhere to them, 1.00

00:45:03.680 and definitive enough so that boys recognize a fag behavior and strive to avoid it. 0.99

00:45:09.420 Basically, she's saying homophobia is directed towards boys who don't measure up. 0.93

00:45:13.520 it's about failing at masculinity and sure it can be related to boys who actually do

00:45:20.240 experience same-sex attraction but at its heart homophobia is a tool to enforce

00:45:25.280 to quote Stephen Frosh now narrow and constraining discourses of gender identity

00:45:29.900 in my conversations with Eli for example I know that he's faced homophobic bullying in nearly

00:45:36.080 every school that he's been to even when no one knows that he's transgender well it's not because 0.91

00:45:41.000 other teenagers actually think he's gay, it's because he's not measuring up to the ideal of 0.67

00:45:47.040 traditional masculinity. He's quiet, he's shy, he doesn't have a physically dominant body.

00:45:53.100 So with that in mind, how I would confront homophobia with a group of boys or in a classroom

00:45:59.280 has more to do with masculinity than it has to do necessarily with bullying. I think you're never

00:46:05.540 going to win if you just try to shut it down or you try to stay focused on sexuality because

00:46:11.280 they're just going to be homophobic in their own spaces when you're not listening.

00:46:18.120 What it comes down to for me is creating a culture or community in which boys feel safe

00:46:26.540 enough, they feel valid enough, or they feel, you could say masculine enough that they don't

00:46:33.780 need to prove themselves they don't need to pull other boys down to try to put themselves up

00:46:38.060 it comes down to their own emotional well-being

00:46:43.220 rather than my own control of their actions and what this means according to cj pasco

00:46:53.780 is that we have to look at homophobic bullying differently when we talk about bullying it seems

00:47:00.300 incidental that many times when we hear stories about young people taking their lives due to

00:47:05.540 homophobic bullying, that those kids are boys and primarily straight-identified boys. Yet when we

00:47:11.940 look at the statistics about who is being bullied, it's often straight-identified boys harassing

00:47:17.420 other straight-identified boys for being gay. So what is this about? What boys are trying to do

00:47:22.680 as they bully one another is shore up contemporary definitions of masculinity. That is, boys will

00:47:29.020 target other boys when they exhibit behaviors that are considered feminine, behaviors that

00:47:34.280 are considered incompetent, when they are too touchy, when they are too emotional, and

00:47:39.160 yes, when they exhibit any type of same-sex desire.

00:47:42.140 When I talk to boys about the sorts of homophobic taunts that they deploy, they continually 1.00

00:47:47.720 tell me that gay, fag, homo, queer are the worst insults you could deploy. 0.99

00:47:55.200 But they simultaneously tell me that they're not actually about sexuality. 1.00

00:47:58.920 For the most part, when I speak to young men and teenagers about gay rights and gay marriage,

00:48:07.500 they support, the vast majority of them support gay rights, gay marriage, legal protections for gays.

00:48:15.540 They aren't homophobic on a sort of structural level.

00:48:19.680 So what they're actually afraid of and what they're policing in one another 0.99

00:48:22.520 is this, what I come to call the specter of the fag, right? 1.00

00:48:27.440 This profoundly unmasculine man 1.00

00:48:30.080 strikes fear in the heart of these boys, right?

00:48:33.900 Because there's no way for them to

00:48:36.260 solidly prove that they are not that man, right?

00:48:41.240 So that the way they prove they're masculine

00:48:43.200 is this continual rejection

00:48:45.240 of the specter of the unmasculine man,

00:48:48.500 which takes the form of homophobic taunts and epithets.

00:48:52.520 A lot of this type of harassment takes place in boys' joking relationships,

00:48:56.060 as they're joking back and forth is not necessarily policing heterosexuality,

00:49:00.540 but policing masculinity.

00:49:02.460 And I would say the particularly interesting thing

00:49:05.040 is that it doesn't look like they're policing anything,

00:49:07.240 because they're just making jokes.

00:49:09.240 And indeed, when we look at homophobic harassment among boys,

00:49:12.580 a lot of that type of harassment happens in these joking relationships.

00:49:17.160 And in some ways, I would actually say this is even more serious

00:49:19.620 than the aggressive taunting we see happening,

00:49:21.980 because the joking itself hides the seriousness of the deployment of these insults.

00:49:27.760 Homophobia, whether it's violent or cloaked in joking language, affects all boys.

00:49:33.300 It affects LGBTQ youth, and we've talked about that.

00:49:36.500 It also affects boys who are isolated or targeted within their school communities.

00:49:41.060 Michael Kimmel and Matthew Maller found that in nearly all accounts of random school shootings from 1982 to 2001,

00:49:47.220 The male shooters, and they were all male shooters, reported having been harassed for, quote, inadequate gender performance.

00:49:55.500 They were different from other boys.

00:49:57.540 Shy, bookish, honor students, artistic, musical, theatrical, non-athletic, geeks, or weird.

00:50:05.060 They also found that these shootings took place in primarily white, middle-class, rural, or suburban schools.

00:50:10.580 Like, not inner cities, which are more associated with violence, which suggests...

00:50:17.220 how significant that gender policing really is.

00:50:20.260 It also affects boys who have close friendships

00:50:23.300 and healthy experiences of masculinity.

00:50:25.620 One of the most impactful stories I ever read

00:50:27.780 was in an article by Debbie Eipstein

00:50:29.240 who described a 10-year-old named Michael

00:50:31.740 who made close friends with another boy named Alan

00:50:34.540 and they got caught holding hands.

00:50:38.900 And all the other people in the class started shouting, 0.99

00:50:41.760 homo, homo. 0.98

00:50:43.320 So then later, there was a joke going around 0.94

00:50:45.640 and someone came up to Michael and said,

00:50:47.220 are you a homo sapien and he heard the word homo and he said no no I'm not and everyone laughed

00:50:53.960 her conclusion of course is that homophobia-based verbal harassment affected the friendship 0.65

00:51:00.160 between Michael and Alan and ultimately put Michael into a situation where in order to

00:51:04.260 refuse a label of transgressive sexuality he also had to deny his humanity there's no winners there

00:51:12.160 like with 11 year old cj and his broken heart he's lost his best friend and she's got the

00:51:20.120 weight of knowing that when she was in grade five she turned her back on the boy with the hula hoop

00:51:23.880 or with eli and the school bus i mean he struggles to show up at school let alone learn 0.79

00:51:31.040 but also that senior with the strong muscles if he grows up thinking lgbtq youth deserve to be 0.97

00:51:36.400 humiliated, and he has a gay or a trans kid, he's going to lose them. Straight up. 0.99

00:51:45.520 Homophobia is a cycle. It doesn't stand still. A quote that I like to keep in mind,

00:51:52.980 and I'll probably bring up multiple times, is that boys will not be boys. Boys will be men.

00:51:59.080 So the homophobia and transphobia in our schools, in our homes, in our friendships,

00:52:03.740 they matter

00:52:04.940 I mean they mattered on international trans

00:52:07.540 visibility a month ago and they matter

00:52:09.160 now

00:52:09.980 this is the story

00:52:13.840 of a kid on a school bus

00:52:16.040 but it's also a story of loss

00:52:17.920 and hurt, it's about teachers trying to

00:52:19.880 create supportive schools that they never had

00:52:21.800 it's about parents trying to protect kids from

00:52:23.800 hatred they never knew

00:52:24.880 and it's about the heart of every

00:52:27.680 single boy

00:52:29.160 this podcast is supported by

00:52:33.500 Next Gen Men, an organization that engages with boys and men to create lasting change

00:52:37.400 within cultures of masculinity. They talk about homophobia within their programs as they practice

00:52:41.560 empathy and emotional intelligence and they explore how to be a good friend. You can learn

00:52:45.660 more about Next Gen Men at nextgenmen.ca. I'll be adding

00:52:49.580 links to SOGI and other resources for teaching and raising LGBTQ youth in the

00:52:53.620 show notes at breakingtheboycode.com. If you want to get in touch

00:52:57.800 I'm at breakingtheboycode at gmail.com and on social media

00:53:01.160 at boy podcast you'll be happy to know i'm well underway for episode two 0.95

00:53:06.060 if there's any gay or trans kids listening to this keep your head up we've got you 0.95

00:53:31.160 Thank you. 0.98

Breaking the Boy Code - April 23, 2018

Because I Was Different： Boys and Homophobia

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