I've Learned the Most From Cruel People

By Maddy Van Horn
Cato-Meridian High School

I approached my locker cautiously, as I do everyday. The hall was crowded with its usual cliques - a few girls giggling about the new boy and what to wear to impress him, some guys tossing a football around, a couple making out a few lockers down from me. The boy next to me moved out of my way as I drew near and smiled at me weakly before he walked away. I could hear snickers and felt eyes on the back of my neck as I opened my locker.

“Just be strong, be better than them,” I muttered to myself. I saw the words scrawled across the locker's metal door. They've been there for nearly a month, but no one's said anything. It's sort of a rule of thumb - if no one says anything, it doesn't exist.

I told myself to be strong, but it was not easy to be strong when every day I faced those scribbled words, like “dyke” and “dirty lesbian.” These are words that people walk by and see every day, but no one ever says anything.

I know that I have to take it and go on with my life as if it's all OK. When people say “be strong in the face of your adversaries,” what it really means at school is to ignore it, let it go.

This is especially true if you're a queer teen in central New York. Queer teens like me everywhere know that in order to be safe from the slurs, they have to pretend the words don't exist - or matter.

Things have changed over the years. So many spiteful words targeting certain minorities are “banned” in our school systems. African-Americans and people of the Jewish faith don't have to take those words in school (at least not like they used to).

But queer kids still do.

It's just the way things are.

So I took out some tape, a piece of paper and a few markers, script out a ballad by my favorite poet, S. Bear Bergman, and posted it on my locker, covering the degrading words and speaking proudly. It's a poem about liberation and death, one that celebrates those who have survived hatred and mourns those killed for being gay, people like Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard.

My classmates might be able to deface my locker, but how can they spit in the face of the victims of such hateful crimes?

I returned to my locker several times throughout the day with my head held high. I still felt the eyes on the back of my neck, but no longer was I ashamed of it. I smiled at the boy at the locker next to mine, and I saw him smile in return. A small smile, subtle, but it told me that he approved of my newfound pride.

The next morning, as I headed toward my locker, I noticed a slight bustle down the hallway where my locker is located. I watched warily as I approached, knowing that something was going on. Although I was nervous to see what it was, I was not at all surprised.

The word “DYKE” was scrawled out across the poem I posted. People were watching, seeing if I would react. I looked over them carefully, wondering if the culprit was still around to admire his or her work. I fumbled with my combination, shoved my coat in my locker and walked away.

I left the poem up for several days. I suppose I didn't want people to know that it bothered me, so like everyone else, I ignored it. The boy at the locker next to me smiled at me, again with a slight shake of his head. I know this meant “forget about it,” but I couldn't.

So I took out my markers again, but not my creativity. On my poem, underneath the filthy word, I wrote in big bold letters, “and proud!” As simple as that, I put the cap on my marker and walked away.

By the end of the day the poem was gone and I was called down to the office. An administrator said the poster was inappropriate and that I would be getting a new locker.

I agreed, and mentioned that my gym locker had the same words on it. He said he would do something about it, and continued to say that if I didn't want people to write these things, I shouldn't hang posters “advertising” my sexuality.

In other words, if I don't want people to bother me, I should pretend I'm something I'm not. I told him that the only thing I was advertising by hanging up this poem was the ignorance that some people have.

My gym locker still has the defamatory words scribbled across in permanent marker. My new locker has not been defaced. I've avoided using my locker at all in hopes that people would not notice that I've moved. I don't hang posters of poems or rainbows, and I tend to carry around what I need in my back pack or leave it in my car. I still hear the words, but mostly the culprits have stayed undercover.

But I haven't.

I've learned a lot since I came out in seventh grade, and I learned the most from the people who have been cruel to me. I can't make them stop taunting me, I can't make them like me, and I can't make their words stop hurting. But maybe, if I work at it, some gay teen after me won't have to deal with the words. Maybe he or she will be able to bring a date to the prom with no problem, and be looked at as a regular student instead of some queer freak.

Just be strong, if not for myself, for someone after me.