Alkupra

Reading some answers about Harvey Milk School and thinking why some people trivialize "equality", "diversity" between hetero and homosexual people so nonchalantly like its an easy matter. Yes, I believe in ideal world, there's no need to build ONE school that caters the need of LGBTQ youth, yes I believe school is the place where we should mingled with any kind of people from any kind of background. And yes, LBTQ oriented school is sounds "exclusive", even though I wonder if they did know the fact that Harvey Milk School is not exclusively for LGBTQ students. They accept any sexuality/gender of students.

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We talk about school in America where the bullying could be so intense for the LGBTQ kids to endure, until the point they commit suicide or refuse to attend school ever again. I don't think its a problem to have an alternative school for them and give them a chance to have a normal high school years.

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My question is: If LGBTQ school deemed as exclusive and a hinder of "diversity" and "equality", then how about private schools that only accept boys or girls?

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"Equality" is always easier to talk, and its more like an eternal dream, hence why we're not really holding hands and singing Kumbaya in bonfire.

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So I just google it up, and somehow it reminds me with Xavier School of Mutant. It reflects the very same issue about a special designated academic place for certain group of people. Both are controversial in term its no doubt will face resistance from the conservative/religious people, yet it also gain some protest from the liberal and even by some of the gay rights activists that think its such a backward move for the gender & sexual equality that become our main objective since the beginning.

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Some people think its merely a segregation and sex-biased, but from what I read, most of the enrolled students (especially on the first year) are LGBTQ kids who get kicked out from their home, severely bullied in public school, and overall didn't get a chance to have a suitable environment to get education. I regard Harvey Milk School as some kind of refugee spot for those kids where the basic idea is to give them a place to study without worrying about their gender/sexuality matters. There's no guarantee there's no bullying or whatsoever, because school is always be school, with its power struggle and everything between peers, but I think it gives them a chance to be comfortable with themselves in public albeit in sheltered one. Not only for the students, but also for the teachers and staff that mostly are openly gay adults that functions on society. Beside, what really the difference about LGBTQ-oriented school and All-Boys/All-Girls private school?

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“Imagine waking up every day and having to be so safeguarded about the lisp in your voice or the way you hold your body, your mannerisms—every moment of your life in public—then suddenly coming into a building where that’s not as much of an issue. All those layers have to get unpeeled, all those defense mechanisms, all those levels, have to be worked out.” says Thomas Krever, associate executive director of the school.

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Back to my early remarks about Xavier School of Mutant, I found this entry on the Wikipedia page of Harvey Milk High School:

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In Marvel Comics' Ultimate X-Men series, Northstar, one of Marvel's most prominent homosexual mutant superheroes, mentions his coming out experience and his mother trying to enroll him in the Harvey Milk School. He refused due to his belief that enrolling would only promote segregation of hetero- and homosexual students. Consequently, he refuses an offer by the X-Men to enroll at Professor Xavier's mutant school, the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning for similar reasons

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And that's why Marvel Comics are better than DC's, they tackle real life issues.

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For me personally, I would enrolled myself to Harvey School if I have a chance, I mean... Vogue extra-curricular and throw some ball in cafeteria? Its everything.

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