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Journal of LGBT Youth

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Young, queer, and Catholic: Youth resistance tohomophobia in Catholic schools

Tonya D. Callaghan

To cite this article: Tonya D. Callaghan (2016) Young, queer, and Catholic: Youthresistance to homophobia in Catholic schools, Journal of LGBT Youth, 13:3, 270-287, DOI:10.1080/19361653.2016.1185758

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2016.1185758

Published online: 05 Jul 2016.

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Young, queer, and Catholic: Youth resistance tohomophobia in Catholic schools

Tonya D. Callaghan

Werklund School of Education, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 2 September 2013Revised 3 June 2015Accepted 18 August 2015

ABSTRACTDrawing from the author’s 5-year, multimethod qualitative study,this article argues that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, andqueer students in Canadian Catholic schools are not inherentlymentally ill, passive victims in need of special Catholic pastoralcare; instead, they are activists who strongly resist homophobicoppression in school. This article concentrates on three youthactivists, whose stories are analyzed through narrative inquiryand are contextualized in the larger study’s methodology. Thearticle concludes that antihomophobia education efforts shouldnot overlook potential student leaders in Catholic schools.

KEYWORDSActivism; Canada; curriculum;educational policy;homophobia; qualitativeresearch; schools; religious;students; LGBT

Introduction

In many Canadian Catholic schools1, teachings about nonheterosexuality cast gen-der and sexually diverse youth as victims of overly liberal social and cultural condi-tioning who are in need of special pastoral care. This pastoral care involvesredirecting such youth toward the more morally acceptable sexual expression ofheterosexuality. For example, Catholic bishops who are involved in preparing cur-ricular and educational policy documents on the topic of persons with same-sexattractions emphasize that “suicide rates among homosexual students are higherthan those of their heterosexual peers” and call upon teachers, counselors, andchaplains to reach out to such youth and encourage them to adhere closely to theteachings of the Catholic Church regarding nonheterosexuality (Ontario Confer-ence of Catholic Bishops, 2004, p. 4; Vatican, 1986). For those who are unfamiliarwith these teachings, they can be distilled down to the colloquial Christian expres-sion, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” This irreconcilable concept underlies curricu-lar and policy decisions regarding gender and sexually diverse individuals inCanadian Catholic schools. It is also at the root of the association of sexuallydiverse youth with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicidalideation (B. L. Love & Tosolt, 2013; Reygan, 2009; Rutter & Leech, 2006).

CONTACT Tonya D. Callaghan tdacalla@ucalgary.ca Werklund School of Education, The University ofCalgary, Education Tower 1302, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 Canada.© 2016 Taylor & Francis

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This article concentrates on three lesbian-identified high school studentsinterviewed as part of a larger study (Callaghan, 2012). I chose to focus onthese three student participants because of their exceptional activism againstreligiously inspired homophobia—a level of activism that undermines thenotion commonly held among Catholic education leaders that lesbian, gay,bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students in Canadian Catholicschools are mentally ill, passive victims in need of special Catholic counselingand prayer. These three lesbian students are unique among the study’s partici-pants because of their willingness to overtly resist homophobia at their Catho-lic schools. Their activism is mirrored by the media accounts that the largerstudy also documents, connecting them to a growing trend of LGBTQ youthwho use media as a form of “social artillery” to combat religiously inspiredand institutionalized homophobia (Venzo & Hess, 2013, p. 1540). The specificdetails of their stories also show the particular ways that publicly fundedCanadian Catholic schools continue to discriminate against sexual and genderdiverse individuals despite the protection against discrimination on the basisof sexual orientation and gender identity that is provided by the equalityrights provision (Section 15) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms(1982). Although Catholic education leaders continue to deny that religiouslyinspired homophobia exists in Canadian Catholic schools, others are becomingincreasingly aware of their Charter rights and expect them to be upheld inpublicly funded Canadian Catholic schools. Canadians may intuitively knowthat Catholic schools are not safe spaces for LGBTQ students, but these dataillustrate clearly just how unsafe they can be. The stories of these lesbian highschool students are analyzed through the method of narrative inquiry(described in an upcoming section of this article) and are contextualizedwithin the conceptual framework and methodology.

Conceptual framework

Many 21st-century studies reveal oppression and discrimination toward sexualminorities in school settings (Chesir-Teran & Hughes, 2008; Kosciw, Greytak,Palmer, & Boesen, 2014; Meyer & Stader, 2009; Taylor & Peter, 2011; Walton, 2004).One observation that has implications for this study is that those who are able tocome out of the closet (that is, be open about their LGBTQ status) are doing soalmost exclusively in nonreligious schools. Faith-based schools are not usually safespaces to address the needs of sexual minority groups, and those who have tried haveoften experienced negative repercussions (Callaghan, 2007; Ferfolja, 2005; Grace &Wells, 2005; Litton, 2001; P. G. Love, 1997; Maher, 2003; Maher & Sever, 2007). Reli-gious faith is increasingly cited as a legitimate rationale for institutionalized discrimi-nation against nonheterosexuals and gender nonconformists (Baird, 2007).

In the case of Canadian Catholic schools that are publicly funded in the provin-ces of Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, safe spaces for LGBTQ individuals are

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difficult to achieve because contradictory Catholic doctrine forms the basis of cur-ricular and policy decisions taken in such schools. The fear of experiencing repri-sals for acting on their sexuality forces many sexually active LGBTQ individualsinto a type of Foucauldian self-surveillance during their time in Catholic schools.The few studies on the experiences of nonheterosexuals in Catholic schools arepredominantly American or Australian (Ferfolja, 2005; Litton, 2001; P. G. Love,1997; Maher, 2003) and may not apply to publicly funded Catholic schools in Can-ada, where the political and cultural climate is somewhat different, largely becauseof the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Thus, a qualitative study thatexamines policy and curriculum documents related to sexual minority groups—and that includes interviews with LGBTQ individuals associated with publiclyfunded Catholic schools in Canada to determine the effect of such policy and cur-ricula on their lives—can make an important contribution.

This article has an emancipatory focus, connected not only to critical theory, butalso to the traditions of critical pedagogy and antioppressive research in education(Giroux, 2001). Antioppressive educational research exposes how racism, sexism,classism, and other forms of oppression operate in schools and proposes ways toredress discrimination and domination in school settings (Brown & Strega, 2005).This critical approach emphasizes the potential of human agency to changeoppressive structures into productive systems that thrive on diversity and differ-ence. The central question driving this paper is “How does power operate in Cana-dian Catholic schools?” To answer this question, I consider the Foucauldiannotion of the “micro-physics of power” (1975/1995, p. 139) or the very minuteoperations of power that can occur from the bottom up or among and between dif-ferent constituents within a school.

The stories of the three students illustrate concrete resistance to the doctrinaldisciplining of nonheterosexuals in Canadian Catholic schools in curriculum andeducational policy. The stories exemplify, for example, the phenomenon of the“null curriculum” (Eisner, 2002; Flinders, Noddings, & Thornton, 1986; Posner,1995) in which mainstream curricular materials actively omit references to nonhe-terosexuality, coupled with the “panoptic” (Foucault, 1975/1995, p. 201) power ofCatholic doctrine that emboldens Catholic education leaders to attempt to observeand correct the behavior of nonheterosexuals that they deem to have deviatedfrom the values of the Vatican. These points are explained in greater detail in theupcoming Discussion section. The goals of critical, antioppressive research alsoinform the methodology and the methods used to collect data.

Methods and data sources

This study involved semi-structured interviews with these three former students,which are represented as vignettes using the qualitative mode of inquiry known asnarrative analysis (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Note the term analysis here—themethod of narrative inquiry is itself a form of analysis. Although narrative inquiry is

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much more than just telling stories, this form of qualitative analysis has been criti-cized for being solely about description rather than analysis. This is a problem thatmany narrative inquirers have encountered and have subsequently written about,most notably leading scholars in the field Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly. Intheir book, Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research, Clandi-nin and Connelly (2000, p. 184) characterized narrative inquiry as a “fluid inquiry, akind of inquiry that challenges accepted inquiry and representation assumptions.”The authors located narrative analysis on the boundaries of what they called “reduc-tionistic and formalistic modes of inquiry” (2000, p. 184) and underscored that nar-rative inquiry is a form of data analysis. More on this form of analysis is explainedin an upcoming section, but, in general, the methods of analysis for this comparativecase study (Yin, 2009) can be classified as inductive and grounded in the data.

Demographic details about the participants

Martin and Meezen (2009) pointed out that LGBTQ populations are particularlyvulnerable to exploitation and harm as a result of their participation in a researchstudy because of their marginalized and devalued position in the greater commu-nity. For this reason, I do not offer any identifying details of the participants such astheir names, the names of their schools, or the names of their cities or towns. Thethree participants highlighted in this article are older than 18 years of age, and theyall have had some experience in a Canadian Catholic school as former students.These three students’ stories were selected from the stories of 13 recent high schoolgraduates because their activism stood out among the majority of the student partic-ipants who did not reveal their sexual orientation or gender identity while attendingCatholic schools and who were too fearful to take any action about the homophobiaand transphobia they experienced on a regular basis while at Catholic school. Forthe purposes of this article, I define young people or youth as people between theages of 18 and 24 years. The term student refers to the young people’s role in theirCatholic school before graduating. These three participants self-identify as lesbian.The fact that the most activist-oriented student participants in this study all identifyas lesbian is simply a coincidence and should not be generalized into universalnotions that lesbian youths are more activist than are gay, bisexual, or transgenderyouths.

The narrative inquiry method of data analysis

Qualitative educational researchers have long been concerned with striking theright balance between the three strands of quality criteria known as legitimation,representation, and praxis. These quality criteria are akin to the three pillars ofvalidity, reliability, and generalizability known to the quantitative or scientificresearch tradition. Denzin and Lincoln (1994) identified a “double crisis of repre-sentation and legitimation” (p. 10) for qualitative researchers, which is that anyrepresentation must be able to claim legitimacy in terms of criteria that will enable

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researcher and reader to make connections between the text and the world aboutwhich the text is written (Mulholland & Wallace, 2003). Narrative inquiry, alsoknown as narrative analysis, is a form of qualitative research that involves tellingstories, often called narrative vignettes, which are a form of data analysis. The storyform holds promise as a method for qualitative researchers because it is particu-larly suited as a linguistic form for expressing human lived experience (Ricoeur,1986/1991). In their discussion of interpretive and analytic considerations involvedin the practice of narrative inquiry, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) noted thatother qualitative researchers have erroneously disregarded narrative analysis asshallow and offering nothing more than simple description:

Although in some people’s minds, narrative inquiry is merely a process of telling andwriting down a story with perhaps some reflective comment by researchers and partici-pants, the process of moving from field texts [i.e. the transcript of the research interview]to research texts [i.e. the narrative] is far more complex. A narrative inquirer spendsmany hours reading and rereading field texts in order to construct a chronicled or sum-marized account of what is contained within different sets of field texts. Although the ini-tial analysis deals with matters such as character, place, scene, plot, tension, end point,narrator, context, and tone, these matters become increasingly complex as an inquirerpursues this relentless rereading. (p. 131)

In response to other researchers’ requests that they systematically demarcatedtheir analysis process, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) stated:

It would be tempting to view the overall process of analysis and interpretation in themove from field texts to research texts as a series of steps. However, this is not how narra-tive inquiries are lived out. … The move from field texts to research texts is layered incomplexity in still other ways. There is no smooth transition, no one gathering of fieldtexts, sorting them through, and analyzing them. (p. 132)

According to Clandinin and Connelly (2000, p. 133), a narrative inquirer’s anal-ysis and interpretation of field texts involves “the search for patterns, narrativethreads, [and] tensions … that shape field texts into research texts, [which] is cre-ated by the writer’s experiences as they read and reread field texts and lay themalongside one another in different ways.” This study focuses on the pattern of howpower operates on a day-to-day, personal basis in and around Canadian Catholicschools. Narrative vignettes are the tools that life-narrative researchers use totransform educational practice and contribute to theory building (Chase, 2005;Ellis & Bochner, 1996; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998).

The following section showcases three narrative vignettes of three student par-ticipants who identify as lesbian and whose overt attempts to combat the homo-phobia of their Catholic high schools make them excellent examples of howstudents are leading the revolution against homophobic discrimination in theseschools. Each has been given a Biblical name as a pseudonym. Further analysis ofthemes and messages that come out of these three narratives immediately follow inthe Discussion section.

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Esther

Growing up in a small town in northern Alberta, Esther attended two Catholicschools: one from Kindergarten through Grade 8 and the other until she graduatedin 2010. She said that in elementary school, her classmates thought she was “weird”and that they teased her a lot for what they regarded as her “being different.”Whenshe got a short haircut to begin her new high school life, the teasing turned tohomophobic slurs. She was called “dyke” and “faggot” constantly from Grades 9through 11. The only reprieve from the homophobic bullying came when sheentered Grade 12, which Esther believed was because she was in her senior yearand at the top of the school hierarchy.

It is not that Esther did not try to get help about the bullying. Shortly after arriv-ing at the high school, she told the vice principal that some girls kept calling her a“dyke.” The vice principal told her he would speak to the people involved, butEsther does not know whether he ever did because according to Esther, “nothingever changed.” She managed through that year by mostly ignoring the perpetra-tors. When school started up again in Grade 10, so did the bullying. Esther contin-ued to try to ignore it, but there were times when she got “really mad” about it.Once, for example, in chemistry class, the teacher explained how two bonds cometogether similar to “a male and a female bond.” One of Esther’s bullies, as well assome of her bully’s friends, turned and glared at Esther, saying, “Yeah, like a nor-mal male-female bond, dyke!” Esther spoke to the principal about the incident, butshe never saw any evidence that he took any action against the perpetrators.

The last event that finally caused Esther to feel as though she could not continueto accept the ongoing bullying came in Grade 11 in an incident on the school buson the way home. Esther sat in the front of the bus with a female friend who wasnot her girlfriend (Esther did not have a girlfriend while in high school). Esther’sfriend was somewhat tired, so she leaned on Esther. Esther responded by puttingher arm around her friend. Immediately, many of the students in the bus eruptedin laughter and jeers, stating, “Look at the lezzies at the front of the bus makingout!” Then, many of the students on the bus threw apple cores and juice boxes atthem. There were no adults on the bus, except the bus driver, who did not do any-thing about the bullying. When Ester and her friend went to get off the bus, thedriver turned to them and said, “If you guys do that again, I’ll kick you off thebus!” Astounded that they were being blamed for the bullying they were subjectedto and that the bullies were not reprimanded, Esther and her friend filed a com-plaint against the driver; first with the bus company, then with the school.

This time, when Esther spoke to the principal about homophobic bullying, heseemed to take it more seriously because an adult employed by the school board wasinvolved who further victimized the students by blaming them for the incident. Theprincipal promised Esther that he would talk to the bus driver, but Esther neverfound out what happened because he did not update her. The principal then referredEsther to the school counselor whom Esther found to be ill-suited to the task. “She

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wasn’t the greatest counselor,” Esther said. “No one really talked to her about any-thing, and it was super hard trying to talk to her about this. She just didn’t seem likethe counseling type.” Fortunately for Esther, the counselor recognized her own limi-tations and called upon the town’s human rights coordinator for guidance.

As an outsider, the human rights coordinator was not steeped in the Catholicschool ethos. She made suggestions to the school counselor that no one in the schoolsystem had ever proposed before. In discussions with the school counselor, thetown’s human rights coordinator learned that Esther had been experiencing homo-phobic bullying since she had arrived at the school and had reported it to the viceprincipal and the principal, to no avail. The human rights coordinator determinedthat the school climate was systemically homophobic and if the school administra-tors did not plan to actively make the school safe for LGBTQ youth, then one moresubtle way to increase these vulnerable youths’ perception of safety would be to pur-chase LGBTQ -affirming books for the school library. Consulting with librariansfrom the town’s public library system, the human rights coordinator presented theCatholic school counselor with 20 titles of age-appropriate books that the Catholicschool library should purchase for the school as a way of enabling LGBTQ youth inthe school to learn about themselves and feel less isolated in such a homophobicenvironment. Having no alternate solutions of her own, the Catholic school coun-selor quietly purchased the books for the library. Esther knew that the books wereon their way to the school, so she regularly checked in with the school library to seewhether they had arrived. She was pleasantly surprised one day to find that they hadnot only arrived but were on full display on the tops of bookshelves.

Another welcome surprise came in the form of a gay/straight alliance (GSA). Asmuch as the town’s human rights coordinator tried to convince the Catholic schoolto allow Esther and her friends to start a GSA, the school administrators were ada-mantly opposed to the idea. They finally offered a false compromise, stating Esthercould start a GSA as long as it was not on school property, which is, of course, nota bona fide GSA if it is not associated with the school. The town’s human rightscoordinator found a space for this quasi-GSA in the basement of the town’s publiclibrary, and she convinced the Catholic school counselor to display postcardsadvertising the students’ group in the counseling office. Although these are majorvictories for Esther, she wishes teachers and students could be better educatedabout the plight of LGBTQ people in Catholic schools.

Abigail

Growing up in a Catholic family in northern Ontario, Abigail attended Catholicschools from Kindergarten until she graduated in 2007. When religion teachersbegan to address the topic of human sexuality in the upper elementary grades andcontinued through to high school, they discussed only procreative heterosexualintercourse between a married man and a woman. Looking back on what shelearned in religion class, Abigail observed, “I think I could have come out as a

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lesbian a lot earlier if it had occurred to me that I could be gay, but it just wasn’ttalked about.”

Apart from the guidance counselor, whom Abigail suspected was a closeted les-bian, Abigail did not know of any other LGBTQ people in her high school. “Hon-estly, I felt, like, lost,” she said. She frequently visited the public library and readevery LGBTQ -themed young adult novel on the shelves. She went online andlearned about GSAs and then e-mailed an American young adult author she par-ticularly liked to ask for advice about setting one up. When the author discoveredthat Abigail was in a Catholic school, she told her not to get her hopes up and thatit might be better if she called it “equality awareness.” Using the information shereceived from the author, Abigail designed a club that respected diversity andcountered discrimination of all kinds—sexism, racism, classism, ableism, and het-erosexism—and successfully pitched it to a teacher sponsor. Much to Abigail’s sur-prise, a core group of about 10 members decided to regularly attend the club.

They discussed “stuff that, like, nobody would bring up in the school.” One stu-dent talked about how he was not allowed to wear part of the girls’ uniform (thekilt) to school and together they discussed freedom of expression versus socialorder. Along with the equality awareness club and her reading and writing, Abi-gail’s “main outlet was pretty much the Internet.” Online, she learned about theDay of Silence, a student-led action in which students refuse to speak for a day atschool to draw attention to the need to make schools safer for sexual and genderminority groups.

Abigail drafted a poster for the Day of Silence and brought it to the principal forapproval. The principal told her the club was becoming too “gay centric” and thatshe needed to “tone it down.” As a compromise, the principal said she could putup some posters as long as she changed the name from Day of Silence to “Oath ofSilence” and removed the word “homophobia” from the draft sentence that read“Fight against sexism, racism, and homophobia!”When Abigail asked the principalwhat was the problem with the word “homophobia,” the principal simplyresponded, “You know the Catholic stance: It’s okay to be gay, as long as you don’tact on it.” In recounting this story, Abigail observed, “It was really bizarre becauseCatholics—they’re so, like, sympathetic to you. So she wasn’t mean. But, they don’tunderstand that what they are saying is incredibly hurtful.” Abigail’s poster finallyread: “Equality. Oath of Silence Day. Fight.” She made sure students knew whatthe day was about through word of mouth.

Abigail avoided the pressure to date boys by excelling in her classes and writingin her journal. Sometimes she would express her thoughts and feelings in simplediary entries, and other times she would create polished poems about alienation,isolation, and feeling different. She became so practiced at writing poetry that herninth-grade English teacher asked her whether she could share it with the class.Hearing a teacher she respected read the poems she created aloud to the class wasan instant boost to Abigail’s self-esteem. She developed an immediate bond withthis teacher and went to see her occasionally before class, after class, or at lunch to

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talk about her creative writing throughout the first three years of her high schoolcareer. It is not that Abigail needed a new friend—she had lots of friends, just nonewho appreciated poetry. “Poetry, for me, was really, really important,” says Abigail,“because that was the way I expressed myself. Like, that was the way I carried on.”Abigail trusted this English teacher so much that one day she decided to confide inher about her lesbianism. Before that school day was out, Abigail’s mother hadbeen called into the school for a discussion with the principal and the Englishteacher about Abigail’s sexuality while Abigail was directed to wait in a chair out-side the principal’s office. “I definitely was not ready to tell my mom,” Abigailremembers clearly. It turns out that she did not have to tell her mom because theschool already did that for her. Thinking back, Abigail remarked, “It was just a ter-rible time. It was bad for mom, too. It really wasn’t great to find out your kid’s gayfrom the administration of the only Catholic high school in town. It really wasn’tcool.”

After her school forced her to come out about her sexuality to her mother, Abi-gail lost faith in her school, developed a cavalier attitude, and devoted her finalyear of high school to actively combating her school’s homophobia. She knew shewould be out of high school soon and that the school’s faculty could not do muchmore than they already had to hurt her, so she defied her principal who had toldher, “It’s ok if you are quietly a lesbian. That’s fine.” Now that she was forced out,the last thing Abigail was going to be was quiet about it. She thought, “I can’t notbe myself.”

Abigail stealthily convinced her school principal that the school should have abenefit concert along the lines of the American Idol Gives Back charity fundraiser.Originating in 2002, American Idol is a televised American singing competitionthat attempts to find new solo recording artists, which are determined by the vot-ing viewers. American Idol Gives Back is this show’s charitable campaign to give topeople in poverty. In selling the idea to the principal, Abigail said, “We have a lotof talented students in our high school—a lot of great singers and musicians. Wecould have a benefit concert like the American Idol one, but simpler. It would beanother form of education. We could get an article in the local paper.” The princi-pal nodded her head in agreement and said, “Yeah, that’s a great idea. So, go ahead.Do it.” With only a few days remaining before the event, the principal asked Abi-gail what organization would be the beneficiary of the money. Abigail smiled andreplied, “Oh, the local AIDS committee.” The principal’s smile disappeared fromher face and she responded coldly, “Oh. Ok.” Later, when the AIDS committee rep-resentative came to pick up the check, he remarked to Abigail, “Yeah, you couldjust feel the tension of the place as soon as you walked in the door. I felt like I wasgetting death glares being from the AIDS committee.”

Abigail’s last act of resistance was in the final semester of her graduating year. Inher 12th-grade English class, students had to pick one classic novel, complete anindependent study on it, and present it to the class. Abigail chose Virginia Woolf’s

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novel Mrs. Dalloway and emphasized all of the references to homosexuality in it.She was surprised that the teacher did not shut her presentation down.

Abigail is hopeful that more people will tackle homophobia in Catholic schools.She said, “The resistance is already starting to happen. People are starting to getupset, and not just gay people. It upsets a lot of people, like my mom. What hap-pened to me upsets her. Same with my friends. It’ll change one day, but we have tochange it.”

Hannah

Born in 1991 into a tight-knit Catholic community in southern Ontario, Hannahwent to Catholic schools from Kindergarten until she felt compelled to drop out ofhigh school after 11th grade because of her “being gay.” By the time she got to10th grade, Hannah knew she was a lesbian. In 11th grade, she started dressingeven more like a boy—wearing “the guys’ school uniform, but with the girls’shorts”—and she began skipping school. This behavior drew the attention of thevice principal and the school counselor. In a meeting with the two of them over aforged field trip form she had made to get out of attending class, Hannah blurtedout, “I’m gay, and I don’t know what to do.” The guidance counselor responded bysuggesting that they call Hannah’s mother in to discuss it. Hannah protested, say-ing that was not a good idea because she had been trying to tell her motherthroughout the summer between 10th and 11th grades, but every time she broughtit up, her mother shut her down saying, “No, it’s just a phase. It’s the friends you’rehanging out with. Gay people go nowhere in life. You’ll end up killing yourself.”

Impervious to Hannah’s warnings, the school guidance counselor called Han-nah’s mother into the school. Hannah remembers, “I sat in the guidance counseloroffice while my guidance counselor and my vice principal were in another roomwith my mom talking about [my being gay] and they came back and they’re like:‘So, your mom knows now, but she’s not very accepting of it,’ and I said, ‘I tried totell you this one!’” Sitting in silence in the car with her mom on the way backhome, Hannah thought her mother would eventually say, “You’re an abomination!Go to church. Pray more; pray at home even. Go to church every Sunday. You’rein deep crap!” Instead, she found that her mother had something else planned forher: Hannah’s mother decreed that not only was Hannah not allowed to go back toschool, but she would be confined to her room and would be denied any outsidecontact whatsoever. Hannah was not going to be home-schooled—she was justgoing to be at home, period.

Not one to be easily confined, Hannah broke the new rules within days, and hermother responded by kicking her out of the house. Hannah went to live at afriend’s house and acquired a part-time job a local coffee shop to pay for expensessuch as toiletries, bus passes, and lunches. Initially, she enjoyed her time awayfrom her mother and attended school regularly. With no one directing her courseselection, Hannah signed up for an option with one of her new-found lesbian

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friends by the name of Jane. One of the assignments for the option class wasreporting on a local community association. The students were told to work inpairs, and Jane and Hannah worked together on a project about the local LGBTQcommunity.

While working in the school’s computer lab, the two girls discovered that all thewebsites affirming sexual minority groups were blocked while opposing websitessuch as those of various Christian reform groups with messages such as “Homosex-uals should burn in hell” were fully accessible. Jane and Hannah approached theirteacher and said, “Ummm… hello! We’re trying to do our project and we can’t doit because everything that [is gay] positive is blocked and everything that says ‘gaysshould go die and burn in hell’ we can access.” The teacher referred the matter tothe school administration, who referred it on to the computer support personnel,who then started to block and unblock certain sites from the school system. Hannahdoes not know whether it was just a temporary fix so they could work on their proj-ect, or whether the changes are still in place, but she and Jane felt “triumphant …like Rocky…we were like: ‘Yes! Yes! Projects! Queers are good!’”

Another change Hannah tried to make in her school before she dropped outinvolved opposing the removal of the only gay-positive book from the school’slibrary. The parent council wanted to remove the book from the library and makeit a teacher resource only because it discusses homophobia. Hannah found outabout this plan from the school guidance counselor, with whom she had been inregular contact since “all hell had broken loose” and her mother kicked her out ofthe house. Hannah says the guidance counselor might have felt a bit guilty: “Shewould come and talk to me every single day and pull me out of class and be alllike: ‘What’s going on? Are you safe? Is there anything we can do?’” One day, theschool counselor came up to her and said, “Hey, hey! There’s a meeting going ontonight for the board to take out this book that promotes homosexuality …” andtold Hannah how she could get involved. Hannah remembers, “I went to thatboard meeting and I put up my hand to speak … and they looked at me and said:‘Oh, well, I guess if there are no more questions, we can close the meeting.’”

Disappointed with being dismissed in this way, Hannah turned to the Internetwhere she discovered another outlet she might be able to use to express herself atschool: The Day of Silence. When she tried to observe it at her school, however,she “got in trouble.” From what she read online, Hannah knew that observing theDay of Silence might provoke resistance from teachers or school administrators.She prepared for this, though, by asking for advice about it in advance from theschool’s guidance counselor, whom Hannah believed to be a closeted lesbian. Theguidance counselor advised Hannah: “You can do it, I’m just not telling you thatit’s approved or anything, and it’s off the record, as in, you can do it as an individ-ual, but you have to follow rules, and, if a teacher asks you to speak, you shouldprobably speak. It’s not worth the fight.” When Hannah participated in the Day ofSilence, her teachers asked: “Why aren’t you talking? Why aren’t you answeringquestions?” Hannah explained that she was trying to observe the Day of Silence, to

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which her teachers responded, “This is not approved by the administration, so youcan’t do it.” Hannah was frustrated by her teachers’ resistance to her peaceful pro-test because she was “just one person” and was not causing any trouble.

On her outlook for less homophobia in Canadian Catholic schools, Hannahsaid, “I’m hoping that things are getting better and students are trying to get theirvoices out more because it needs to be done. But, there’s been no change … fearholds everybody back.”

Discussion

Esther, Abigail, and Hannah are 3 of 13 students originally interviewed who experi-enced religiously inspired homophobia in two predominant ways: (a) feeling afraid tocome out about their sexuality while still in school; and (b) being outed to theirparents by school personnel, or being forced out of the closet by bullies. Even thosestudent participants whowere able to be out about their sexuality of their own volitionwhen they were students in their Catholic schools still did not feel entirely safe aboutbeing out in such an environment. Most of the student participants felt too closetedto be able to take any action against the homophobia around them. Esther, Abigail,and Hannah are unique in that they were able to take their anger over being outed atschool by bullies (in Esther’s case) or by school personnel (in Abigail and Hannah’scases) and transform it into positive action to combat homophobia in their schools.

Even though Esther’s story is ultimately a victorious one of defying homophobicbullying and seeing concrete action taking place, Esther’s success is largely due tothe dogged involvement of an official not associated with the Catholic school—thetown’s human rights coordinator. Catholic school personnel consistently misman-aged the homophobic bullying that Esther endured. First, the school vice principaleither did not act, or did not act effectively, to quell the homophobic bullying thatEsther reported to him upon first entering the school. Second, the bus driveremployed by the Catholic system not only did not do anything to stop the homo-phobic abuse hurled at Esther and her friend on the bus but actually tried to blamethe two girls for their own victimization. Third, rather than take decisive steps toreduce the homophobia in his school, the principal decided Esther was the prob-lem and referred her to the Catholic school counselor. Last, the Catholic schooladministrators missed an important leadership opportunity when they refusedEsther’s request to start a GSA in the Catholic school.

Standing up to homophobic bullying and changing the school for the betterrequired two things: A vocal student who refused to take “no” for an answer, and astrong ally who held a completely different worldview than that of the Catholicschool administrators. Esther was fortunate that the Catholic school counselorsought guidance from an outside source. If she had not, Esther very likely wouldhave received the same homophobic message steeped in Catholic doctrine (that is,“love the sinner, hate the sin”) from the school’s counselor. In Esther’s case, resis-tance—buttressed by outside forces—was effective.

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Unlike Esther, Abigail had no allies who could intervene on her behalf at herschool. Abigail sensed some closeted lesbians worked at the school who shouldhave functioned as natural allies or even role models, but to Abigail’s great disap-pointment, these women were completely unsupportive and avoided her. Abigail’sCatholic high school seemed to be doing everything within its power to ensurethat none of its students fell into the clutches of what the school administratorsregarded as a “disordered gay lifestyle.” Abigail’s story reveals this homophobicworldview not only in educational policy but also in curricular decisions. It beginswith a description of Abigail’s experience learning about human sexuality in reli-gion class from textbooks that solely addressed procreative heterosexuality. Thisglaring omission of sexual minority groups contributed to Abigail’s feeling that shewas an outsider, and to her profound sense of alienation and difference as thoughshe did not belong in her own school like the rest of her peers.

Mainstream curricular materials do not normally address sexual minorities(Bickmore, 2002), and this kind of omission is a phenomenon that curriculum the-orists refer to as the “null curriculum”—a marked absence that shows what isactively not taught is just as important and revealing about a culture as what isovertly taught (Eisner, 2002; Flinders, Noddings, & Thornton, 1986; Posner, 1995).In Abigail’s case, not seeing any representations of people like her (namely les-bians) in the school curriculum or culture had the effect of making her feel terriblyalone and lost at school.

In addition to homophobic curricular omissions, Abigail experienced a form ofdoctrinal disciplining by her Catholic high school in terms of educational policy.The most profound example is the school administrators’ decision to relay Abi-gail’s disclosure of her lesbianism to Abigail’s mother. Most Catholic schools oper-ate under the belief that the parent is the primary educator of the child and, inrevealing Abigail’s lesbianism to Abigail’s mother, the school administrators’ goalseemed to be to nudge Abigail’s mother to take action at home to direct her daugh-ter to a more morally acceptable sexuality. This is a dangerous school policybecause the school administrators do not know how the parents of a nonheterosex-ual student are going to react to this disclosure of their child’s sexual orientation.Some parents accept this news while others reject their LGBTQ child and eveneject him or her from the family home. In Abigail’s case, even though this forcedrevelation severely strained her relationship with her mother, Abigail came toregard being outed by the school to her mother as a catalytic moment that spurredher to take action against the sanctioned and institutionalized homophobia of herCatholic school. Abigail managed to reframe her fear, frustration, and anger intopositive forces and a revolutionary call to action in the manageable ways availableto her within the confines of her Catholic school.

Hannah’s story is a prime example of how the Catholic school boards’ policiesof revealing a student’s hidden sexual orientation or gender identity to the stu-dent’s parent(s) can go horribly wrong. Abigail had a difficult time with hermother once her school decided to disclose Abigail’s lesbianism to Abigail’s

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mother, but the extent of that difficult time did not include expulsion from thefamily home. Hannah was not so fortunate. Catholic school boards’ policy ofinforming a parent of a student’s previously hidden sexual orientation or genderidentity is dangerous because the school authorities cannot predict how this newsis going to be received in the student’s home. A wide spectrum of families sendtheir children to Catholic schools, ranging from not Catholic at all to devoutlyCatholic and, without canvassing the families for their thoughts and feelings onthe topic of sexual and gender diversity, it is not possible to know how this sensi-tive information will be handled in the student’s home. The Catholic school policyof informing parents about their child’s new public expression of their sexual ori-entation or gender identity puts sexual or gender diverse students at a tremendousrisk of abuse or neglect by their parents in the home environment.

Suddenly confronted with nowhere to live, 16-year-old Hannah proved to bevery resourceful: she stayed with friends and found herself a part-time job to coverher living expenses while she continued to attend the Catholic secondary schoolfrom which her mother had removed her due to what she perceived to be “gayinfluences.” All of Hannah’s friends attended her Catholic school, includinganother lesbian she had recently befriended, and these people were an importantsupport system for Hannah as she struggled to fend for herself away from her fam-ily home. Basking in the newfound confidence that living on her own and earningher own money afforded her, Hannah decided to take on the homophobia that shesaw everywhere around her in her Catholic school environment, with mixedresults. She was successful in changing the Internet filtering system that did notallow students access to positive information about sexual and gender minorities,but she was thwarted in her attempts to stop the ban of a book that discusseshomophobia, and also in her attempt to observe the Day of Silence.

The stress of coping with being rejected by her family because of her lesbianismand also actively combating the institutionalized homophobia of her Catholic sec-ondary school was too difficult for Hannah to manage and she eventually droppedout of school.

Conclusion

An analysis of the participant interviews through the method of narrative inquiryfound that all of the participants in the larger study experienced some form ofhomophobia in their Catholic schools and none described a Catholic school envi-ronment that was accepting and welcoming of sexual and gender diversity. Overall,the teacher participants in the larger study experienced greater degrees of doctrinaldisciplining regarding nonheterosexuality, and fewer opportunities to resist thiskind of discrimination, than the student participants.

A meta-analysis of the three narrative vignettes through the lens of critical theo-ries shows that the Vatican is able to assert a dominant and hegemonic power withinCatholic schools through the dissemination of Catholic doctrine about “homosexual

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persons” (Vatican, 1986, p. 1) that informs both curriculum and policy. The Vati-can’s power is “panoptic” (Foucault, 1975/1995, p. 201) and operates by means ofdiscipline, surveillance and self-regulation. In his book, Discipline and Punish, Fou-cault draws upon the work of 18th-century British utilitarian philosopher JeremyBentham (1748-1832) who describes the Panopticon as an architectural device thatcan be used in institutions such as prisons to observe all the prisoners without theobserver being seen. Prisoners never know if they are being observed or not, andtherefore must act as though they are always being observed. The power of the Pan-opticon is its ability to cause those being observed to discipline themselves and to“induce [within them] a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures theautomatic functioning of power” (Foucault, 1975/1995, p. 201).

Even though the stories of the three lesbian students highlight their notable actsof resistance, they too were subjected to the long reach of the Vatican’s panopticpower. In reporting the homophobic bullying she regularly endured to her highschool vice principal, Esther drew his attention to her difference. Instead of devis-ing a plan to put a stop to the homophobic bullying, the vice principal took theeasy way out and sent Esther to Catholic counseling where she could be guided tochange her behavior so as to not bring on the bullying so much. The Catholic doc-trine on nonheterosexuality is panoptic in the sense that those who fully believe inits message can use it as guide when scanning the behavior of others to determineif their behavior conforms to the expectations of Catholic doctrine. If an individu-al’s behavior is found lacking, such as when lesbian students Abigail and Hannahunapologetically disclosed their lesbianism at their Catholic schools, then the doc-trine functions as a kind of “law” that can be enforced by disclosing the girls’ lesbi-anism to their mothers. In this way, Catholic doctrine about nonheterosexualityfunctions like a panopticon that enables Catholic education leaders to observe andcorrect any sexual or gender diverse behavior that they deem to counter the valuesof the Vatican.

Although the Vatican’s power is clearly a dominant force, it is not entirely suc-cessful in achieving total domination over sexual minority groups. As Foucaultpoints out in The History of Sexuality, Volume I, “Where there is power, there isresistance” (1976/1978, p. 95) and student resistance is certainly occurring in pub-licly funded Canadian Catholic schools. The condensed narratives of participantsEsther, Abigail, and Hannah are particularly vivid examples of the varied and sun-dry ways that some LGBTQ students are able to lead the resistance to the reli-giously inspired homophobia of their Catholic schools. Because Catholic doctrineabout nonheterosexuality from the Vatican informs curriculum and policy relatedto sexual minorities in Catholic schools, these particular stories from the CanadianCatholic school context have broader implications for Catholic schools around theworld that tend to regard Catholic doctrine as the only authority in publicly fundedCatholic schools.

The implications of Esther, Abigail, and Hannah’s activist, grassroots struggleagainst religiously inspired homophobia can be translated into multiple contexts

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such as other faith-based schools, and other publicly funded institutions outside ofthe school context that choose to adhere to religious laws about sexual minoritiesrather than the secular law of the country.

Although homophobia in publicly funded Catholic schools may be a phenome-non taken for granted by the wider public and suicide rates among LGBTQ youthare significant, some students are able to resist the doctrinal disciplining of theirCatholic schools and these students have the potential to lead more organized actsof resistance to homophobic oppression in Catholic schools. Antihomophobia edu-cation efforts should therefore concentrate on reaching student leaders in Catholicschools as well as student leaders in non-Catholic schools who wish to assist theirpeers in various acts of defiance against religiously inspired homophobia.

Note1. In Canada, Catholic schools have a long and somewhat complicated history having to do

with Britain’s victory over France for the colonies of North America in the early 1700s. Thetwo main faith groups at the time were Catholics and Protestants. As a concession to thefaith group in a minority position in any given community, a separate school system wasestablished to ensure that Catholic families could send their children to Catholic schools ifliving in a predominantly Protestant area and vice versa. Publicly funded separate schoolscurrently have constitutional status in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.These separate schools are operated by civil authorities and are accountable to provincialgovernments rather than church authorities. Religious bodies do not have a constitutionalor legal interest in separate schools and, as such, Canadian Catholic separate schools arenot private or parochial schools as is common in other countries.

Notes on contributorTonya D. Callaghan is the author of the book That’s so Gay! Homophobia in Canadian Catho-lic Schools. She has over ten years teaching experience in national and international, rural andurban, Catholic and non-Catholic environments. Her award-winning doctoral thesis HolyHomophobia: Doctrinal Disciplining of Non-Heterosexuals in Canadian Catholic Schoolsexplores Catholic resistance to anti-homophobia education in both curriculum and educationalpolicy. She is currently an Assistant Professor with the Werklund School of Education at theUniversity of Calgary.

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