New York City

By Kathleen Brady

Health class, Harvey Milk School: a male student in drag is talking about his last experience with alcohol. "A drunken butch queen was getting on my case, criticizing me and acting flamboyant, so I pulled a knife on her." A gay youth interjects, "If you consider yourself a woman, you should act like a woman 24 hours a day." So the boy in drag appeals to the only avowed straight girl in the school: "In this situation, are you going to use your knife or not?" She says, "You best believe I'll be using my knife."

In most classrooms, such a conversation might be cause for suspension. At Harvey Milk, it is typical. This is a high school for gays, lesbians, cross- dressers and transsexuals. At other schools, their mere presence was often disruptive. Many of them were verbally abused by teachers and counselors, physically attacked by classmates, thrown out of their homes. Unsurprisingly, many dropped out. At Harvey Milk, they fit in.

A fully accredited public high school, Harvey Milk was the subject of a short-lived controversy when it began classes four years ago. It was founded by the Hetrick-Martin Institute for Lesbian and Gay Youth, a ten-year-old organization established following the brutal gang rape of a gay teenager in a New York City bar. The school is named after Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco supervisor who was murdered with Mayor George Moscone by a disgruntled former city official in 1978.

Critics charged that the school was using city funds to subsidize homosexuality. Officials replied that they were trying to provide an education for young people who might otherwise be denied one. The school does not seek to reinforce homosexuality, although it stresses the solidarity of minorities and the contributions of gay role models. Says A. Damien Martin, co-founder of the institute: "At first most help came from straight professionals, because the gay and lesbian community was afraid that if they reached out to the young they would be considered child molesters. The greatest fear of a gay person is that they will be considered a perverter of youth."

In some cases, letting students be themselves can mean letting them discover that they are straight. Says Martin: "Several young men in the school were molested by male relatives and thought they must be gay. It was apparent to us that these boys were heterosexual, but we had to let them find out for themselves."

Located in Greenwich Village, which has a large gay community, Harvey Milk has some things in common with a frontier school. It has two full-time teachers, Beth Bomze and Fred Goldhaber, and two classrooms for 40 students, only a handful of whom show up at the three-story waterfront building on a given day.

The pupils are often in turmoil when they enroll. Most youths who suspect they are gay successfully hide their sexual leanings. Harvey Milk students are frequently in such conflict that as many as 30% of them have attempted suicide (compared with 11% of straight adolescents), according to director Joyce Hunter. Some students have suffered humiliating sexual contacts in gay bars and on the sordid streets of Times Square. They know that although society has grown more tolerant of divergent life-styles, homosexuals still endure widespread hostility and a marked threat of AIDS and violence. Some young homosexuals go to enormous lengths to deny their sexuality. Teenage lesbians have been known to become pregnant in order to prove they are "normal."

Critics of Harvey Milk suggest that children with special needs, particularly homosexuals, should not be segregated but should learn to accept themselves in the context of a larger society. "Harvey Milk might be a good intermediate approach, but I'm not sure these students learn to cope in a school that is exclusively homosexual," says Susan Forman, professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina.

Counters Hunter: "Our program is designed to mainstream them back into society, but some kids refuse to go back to a traditional setting. They say this is the first place to tell them their career of choice isn't necessarily hairdresser." Adds Stephen Phillips, superintendent of New York City's alternative schools and programs: "If 100% of the youngsters are to get the education they are entitled to, we have to adapt to them -- go to the kids rather than expecting them to come to us. Like the addicted or the handicapped, Harvey Milk kids couldn't or wouldn't fit in with the school system. Are they entitled to an education? Yes."

Each term students, most of whom are at a fifth-grade reading level, receive a course description and sign a contract stipulating that they understand what is expected of them. Most have a study plan designed just for them, which means teacher Goldhaber instructs five students in as many subjects at once. While the method appears old-fashioned, classroom dialogue seems drawn from experimental theater. At his right hand, Goldhaber pores over pictures with one student, saying, "Yes, this is an ion, but is it just an ion or a hydroxide ion? Think about it." He asks the student on his left, "Do you really believe 20 times 15 is 30,000?" As someone bursts into song, trilling "Don't make me over," the school's only heterosexual girl, who stays on because she says she likes Harvey Milk, strides to the board and writes I'M STRAIGHT in block letters.

Between classes, Goldhaber explains the helter-skelter atmosphere: "There is a misconception that order means quiet, means sitting in your seat. There is control here under the guise of chaos. If someone comes in in a fab outfit or makes a guest appearance after weeks of absence, we have to take time to make note. But kids don't get away with not learning here."

Like others at Harvey Milk, Goldhaber is angry about what public schools do to problem kids. "I had a girl who had been told she was stupid at math and refused to study it. I begged her. I said, 'Please, please, please,' until she agreed. Now math is the first thing she wants to do. Other teachers promoted them, but subject matter left them behind."

One who is catching up is a 20-year-old wearing a leather cross, dangling earrings and a black leather cap angled on a head that is shaved but for red tendrils over an ear. He sits in his jaunty outfit learning fractions and writing poems. The young man's mind is so keen that when a deaf student came to class, he learned to sign in half an hour. This makes him think he may eventually work with the handicapped, but until this year he was not a dedicated student. "I'm quicksilver," he says. "I need stability. Everything else has shifted, but this school is stabilizing."

Another student, who plans to be a fashion designer, observes, "We get along with each other as best we can. At least here we can be ourselves." The school clown, he has been at Harvey Milk for a year. "At my old school, everyone asked me why I didn't do sports. I wouldn't change for anyone, but I went to two at-home games. It was great to be with the gang, but it didn't really change anything. The kids hit me and pushed me around, and finally I stopped going. My parents support my being here because they support my being in school. They're handling my being gay, so I guess they're handling my being here." So far, eight students have graduated from Harvey Milk; a handful of others have returned to mainstream schools.

Harvey Milk students want to be accepted, especially the 15-year-old with cornrowed red hair, a fashionable rhinestone nose stud and doelike eyes outlined in blue. "She" seems to be an exquisite young girl but turns out to be a boy. "My cousin is a drag queen, and he told me about Harvey Milk," he says. "At my other school, some people didn't know I was a guy; others called me a faggot." He adds, "I used to fight them, and I hit first. At Harvey Milk I can wear what I want." The issue is learning, nothing more, nothing less.