By Colleen Creamer, The Dickson Herald
As neighboring Midstate counties deal with the issue of sexual identity and bullying in schools, some Dickson County students hope to heighten awareness of the same concerns locally. 

In September, students at Dickson County High School attempted to start a group called the Gay Straight Alliance and wanted to meet on school grounds. Like all school groups, they needed a teacher sponsor. The group initially found a sponsor but that person later decided against the sponsorship.

The group then created a countywide GSA, a group that now meets at the Dickson County Public Library.

Some of Nashville’s surrounding counties have been in discussions over the issue for months. A student’s request to form a gay and lesbian support group at school in Wilson County raised objections from officials there. In Cheatham and in Sumner counties recently, school boards have been presented with proposals by students and residents hoping to toughen their anti-bullying policy with specific language about gays and lesbians. Cheatham County’s effort grew out of the fallout from the suicide of student Jacob Rogers in Cheatham County whose family and friends say was bullied because he was gay.

Sponsorship

“We started with a petition back in September, and I got over 80 signatures from people from all over the school, and I heard that there was a counter petition about it, but I don’t think those evened out,” said GSA Dickson President Judy Hall, a junior at Dickson County High School.

Hall said the group checked with several DCHS teachers for sponsorship. One teacher seemed interested, Hall said, but later said she wanted the club “to be more of an anti-bullying club.”

Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project, a non-profit advocacy organization that advocates for GLBTQ rights in Tennessee issues, said this is often the case.

“A faculty member may be initially eager to do it, and then suddenly there is pressure from some unknown source and one by one the faculty members who were interested back away,” he said.

Current efforts

Dickson High School Principal Ed Littleton said he recalls being approached by the group and had no objections other than making sure the students went through the right channels.

“They came to me and I told them they needed a sponsor, and then we talked about the reasons why they wanted to have the club,” Littleton said. “They said, basically, that they felt like there were folks or students who were not getting a fair chance based on their sexual preference maybe saying things to them that were off-color or singling them out.”

Littleton said he asked the students what the function of the club was, and the group told him that they wanted to try to make a positive difference and get that [name calling, etc.] to stop.

“I said ‘Don’t you think that that’s good for all students and not just the group that you are representing?’ And they said, ‘Certainly,’” Littleton recalls. He said the high school’s tolerance training initiative called Move to Stand already deals with bullying of all sorts.

“The idea was to try and train some, about 100, of our kids to do just that, to try and help spread the message that, ‘Hey, it’s OK to be different; as a matter of fact it’s your given right as an American. Everybody gets to walk these halls. It’s our job to get them an education,’” he added.

Hall said it was a nice idea but not one that was particularly effective.

“It’s unfortunately common that if a teacher sees that a student who is being bullied because of sexual orientation, they will treat it as if it were any other bullying thing which gets over looked anyway a lot,” she said. “I do have close friends who are of alternate sexual orientation, and I am really close with them, and I felt like they were kind of getting thrown under the bus.”

Unique platform

Hall, who had been “thinking about it for a long time,” said she believed the sponsor was not comfortable with the name. Nonetheless, the group wanted a “more unique platform” because they believe the bullying efforts in place at the school were too broad to be effective to deal issues such as gays and lesbians being targeted.

“We kind of settled on Students Against Hate, but it just didn’t carry the same sort of punch that we wanted, and then we started looking for other teachers, and that’s when I started hearing discussions about making it countywide also to include Creek Wood [High School] with it,” said Hall.

The countywide organization, she said, could include not only students in the region but also adults who may feel the need to be supportive of gay and lesbian issues, as well. Hall said their meetings have been productive but it was hard for the group to gain traction as it was difficult to get students to meetings on the weekends.

Littleton said those efforts are already in place even efforts to specifically stop the bullying of those of different sexual orientation.

“I told them, ‘If you are just trying to highlight the group that you represent, that’s one thing; if you are trying to really right a social injustice or try and get intolerance out of the school for everybody, here’s your opportunity.”

They are the same thing, said Hall.

“We want to establish not just a support group but also a social group where people can feel safe in being themselves that will continue on and not just fade away with the controversy.”