‘Out’ students feel Lab accepts them
Compared to past experiences, Lab provides comfort.
April 4, 2019
The process of accepting his sexual orientation was gradual, but once he knew, senior Ryan Lee wanted to be out immediately.
“It was gradual to accept the fact that. ‘Oh, I’m gay’ and I came to terms with the fact like, this is a part of my own identity,” Ryan said. “And then after that, it was kind of just sharp, like, now I can come out to everybody.”
Last spring’s health and wellness survey showed that about 17 percent of boys at U-High identified interest other than only heterosexual. However, a much smaller number of male students has shared this identity widely within the U-High community. But those male students who are out find Lab to be an accepting community, partly because they believe their peers see them as whole people — their sexual orientation is just one aspect of their identity. They also say they did not experience significant negative repercussions for being out.
Ryan, who joined Lab in seventh grade, said during his freshman year, he saw many people come out and observed as they were accepted by the wider community.
“Part of it was, first seeing how much support there was when someone else came out. And then once I saw that — especially considering the stark difference with my past school — that helped me gain a lot of trust really fast,” Ryan said, referring to his previous suburban public middle school.
For Ryan, the process of coming out publicly was slow. Ryan explained that having a few people he could trust went a long way to helping him be comfortable.
“It’s always nice to find one or two people that you can really confide in,” Ryan said, “even if they aren’t your family, and come out to them and find a support group and then start building outwards from there.”
The process of coming out was different for senior Robert Coats, who had already come out when he joined U-High as a freshman.
“It was another process of coming out, but I didn’t want to go through high school pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” Robert said.
Robert said that the reason he sees Lab as such an accepting community is that he is not defined by his sexual orientation, but instead just as himself.
“I think Lab sees the whole person not just one individual part of your identity,” Robert said.
Both Ryan and Robert expressed that their experience in U-High has been better than experiences outside school.
“I feel very accepted here, especially compared to the school I went to before,” Ryan said.
Robert, a Boy Scout, felt uncomfortable with this aspect of his identity until the Boy Scouts of America allowed its members to be openly gay beginning in 2015. But, even then, he did not feel fully comfortable being in the organization.
“I definitely feel like outside of Lab is where is where I’ve had most of my experiences for people that are a little bit less comfortable with non-straight people,” Robert said.
Although their experiences coming out differed, both Ryan and Robert say that aspects of U-High help to make accepting community.
“I mean, having Spectrum really helped just to, like, have a place where I could talk about it and understand that I’m not the only one that was confused at first — and then everyone’s just very open about it,” Ryan said. “So it’s a lot easier to just be gay than I thought it would be.”