RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

OK, I'm absolutely at the brink of destruction with a few numbnuts in one section of my English class. I have an openly gay student there. The kind of openly gay student who has a particular kind of tone to his voice. He was a cheerleader in high school (which doesn't automatically make him gay, no, but it feeds into the stereotype some idiot 18 year olds have). He wrote his first paper on the murder of a gay man in his community. He is out, and it is obvious. He's not flashy, or anything. He's just...himself.

Apparently, there are a few students in my class who don't quite know what to make of this. Whenever he answers in class, they have the tee-hee section going on. It's subtle. They smirk at each other when he talks. I caught the ring leader doing a limp wrist motion to his other followers, which sent them into giggles. The first day of class when we played two truths and a lie (where you tell people two true things about yourself and one lie and they have to guess which one is the lie), one of his statements was that he was a cheerleader in high school. When a student asked him if it was the truth, one of the girls said, "What, you think he's a fairy?" I didn't catch it right away--at least, I thought I hadn't heard right, otherwise, I would've tossed her out of class on her ass that instant.

This makes me so incredibly pissed off. El Hijo pointed out that at their age, they might not have encountered an out gay person before, and they're not sure how to react. Which is true. It still makes me want to shake the hell out of the three or four who are responsible and say, "Good God, would you grow up? So the man is gay? So fucking what?" What business is it of theirs, anyway? It's all so fourth grade. I think if I have to say something to them as a group, I will simply say, "Yes, the man is gay. What, exactly, is your problem?"

I debated at first whether to ignore it or not--maybe I shouldn't even dignify it with a response. But then I realized what really pissed me off about it, and that's the atmosphere that such behavior creates. Don't they realize he can probably hear them and see them? It creates a hostile environment for him, and that simply isn't fair. They can be idiots in their own heads, if they want to, but they can't create an environment that makes it unfriendly for certain students to state simple opinions just because of the tone in which it will be received. That is most certainly not their right.

When I first noticed the giggling, I managed to catch it in progress and shoot the main offender the dirtiest look I could manage. That stopped it for a while. A little later, the limp wrist thing happened. When it did, I pulled the perp aside as he was leaving class, and I told him that he was never to do that sort of thing in class again. He acted at first like he had no idea what I was talking about, but when I raised one eyebrow and said, "Don't bullshit me, this is serious," he copped to it and said he would stop. It did for a little while, but now some of the giggling is back. I'm thinking about keeping the whole crew after class and giving them a pungent little lecture on what happens to people who create problematic environments for other people. Or, I'll simply target the leader like the Spanish did the Aztec warrior chiefs with obvious headgear and axe him on the spot.

But this has *got* to stop. It's ridiculous and it's infuriating.

-- Virgil