(Just ONE of) New London’s Issues
I have just recently realized the shocking amount of bigotry and discrimination in New London. I am a student at New London High School and I would like, if I may, to explain to you my views and points as to why I feel this is an issue, (though the vast majority of people that may read this won’t listen, take to heart or even understand what I’m trying to say, thus proving my point.)
I will start with a generalized issue of New London. It seems that being the small town that New London is, of course, things will get around. Everybody knows everything about everybody, which is never a good thing, and not always a bad thing. And this is just the adults.
Unfortunately, the adults that I speak of have procreated and produced children much like themselves. They have raised them to be intolerant and pick on, tease, and even torment people that are different and don’t share their exact beliefs or ways. As an incredibly quotable shirt I saw once reads, "Bigots are not born, they are made." That is bad. As a person who likes to be classified as different, this is a problem for me. My girlfriend and I are lesbians and therefore we are considered immoral, hardcore victims and favorite targets of bigots. We, my friends, are different and (it seems) diversity is something completely unheard of in New London.
For this fact, we are treated differently and discriminated against by our peers, parents, teachers and administrators; basically the whole community. That is highly unfair to us. We would like to share with you a rather disgusting story about how the New London school administrators are just as discriminatory as their students, and will share this with you as an example.
Okay, we ride the same school bus and of course we sit together. Or at least we did. There are these really immature guys that also ride our bus. They would see us sitting together and immediately would say things. ‘Ew, lesbians, that’s gross.’ and the like, but it was okay, you know? We’re used to incredibly immature people like that; it’s happened a lot in the five months that we’ve been dating. Anyway, these guys gradually became harder to ignore, throwing things at us and yelling obscenities, and all because we were different. It started to really piss me off, so I filed a complaint with the bus garage. The complaint went through to the school and my girlfriend and I were called into an administrator’s office during fourth period and spoken to.
More or less we were told that it was our fault that we were being ridiculed and harassed to no end and that "Something" was going to happen to make them stop picking at us. Oh, and something DID happen, oh yes. She and I were informed upon boarding the bus that afternoon that we were no longer allowed to sit together and a seating arrangement was established. This was all supposedly so the guys would stop being immature..
We were SO angry, you have no idea. First, they tell us it’s our fault for them picking on us, (Because we’re lesbians,) and then they punish us and refuse us the right to sit together because it bothers the guys! HOW DOES THAT BENEFIT US?! WE ARE THE ONES THAT FILED THE COMPLAINT ABOUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! Isn’t that pathetic? We have to sit on opposite ends of the bus. Total injustice. And if it were anyone else, they most likely wouldn’t have gotten crapped on like that, but us, just because we’re different.
That isn’t even the worst of it.
Just last week Wednesday I went home from school to a phone call from my mother. My mother didn’t know that I am dating a girl. I get on the phone and she starts going off on me about "What’s all this business about the bus?!" and blah blah blah and whatnot. I was mortified and shocked because my mother knew. She had received a letter from the bus garage therein stating that I was almost suspended from the bus and other various disciplinary matters had been taken care of. Why? The letter said that I was in trouble for "showing too much affection to another girl on the school bus." My girlfriend’s father received one also. I didn’t know what to do. My mother was absolutely livid with me (for being a lesbian) and evidently still is. She will barely talk to me. My own mother, and all because the repugnant bus garage director sent her a letter telling her that I was kissing a girl before I could come out to her on my own. He had no right to do that and I know for a fact that the guys that were harassing us received no such letter saying that "Your son was almost ejected from the bus because he was sexually and verbally harassing two girls on his bus." That’s bull, and I could tell you a bunch of people that would tell you the same. I also believe that a lot more school officials than would be thought of are homophobic to a certain degree. It’s just the way they act to and around my girlfriend and I.
I am absolutely revolted. The blatant obviousness of it, is that we were, and are, victims of discrimination. Hmm, isn't that some sort of crime? If not, it definitely should be. I know the right to self expression is in the constitution, and to discriminate against one who is different or expresses themselves differently is a violation of it. I know there’s a lawsuit in this somewhere.
Another reason we were discriminated against? Bigots. Chauvinist pigs. New London is so full of closed minded, pig headed, voyeuristic ignorant individuals that it makes me sick. Not to directly insult you, the reader, but you know who I’m talking about. It’s sick, it really, really is.
If I am just realizing this at sixteen, how long before the children of New London see this town for what it really is? A Chauvinist pigpen. A cesspool.
If you wish to contact me, my e-mail address is
