(07-21-2019 06:51 AM)Rice93 Wrote:  

(07-21-2019 12:35 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(07-20-2019 10:24 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  

(07-20-2019 11:34 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(07-20-2019 11:13 AM)Rice93 Wrote:  I'm sorry to hear that.


You are a big fan of telling me what I think. If you want to know the truth, I think that neither side is pure.


I know what you mean by cowboy. You would probably say that a great percentage of my aunts/uncles/cousins are cowboys. It's sad that you think that a massive swath of people holds congruent attitudes that are completely alien to your experiences and point of view.

Did you grow up urban, suburban, or rural 93?

I think there is a major difference between the former two and the latter, 93. And, at least in Texas and the Southwest, it may not be in a way that I think that you and lad would expect.

Caring and fostering? Nope.

More laissez fair? My guess would be that.

We know that lad is colored by his suburban (apparently) upbringing and those bad experiences that he endured at his high school. How about you?

Squarely suburban.

I was talking to my parents earlier today. Both were in high school in the early 1960's. Dad in San Antonio and Mom in rural New Mexico. Both solidly right wing today FWIW. Neither of them knew any gay people who were "out" in high school. Both mentioned having one boy in the class that everybody "knew" was probably gay. Neither of them recalled any overt harassment towards these individuals but acknowledged that "nobody would really have anything to do with them".

Seems the common thread in rural/small town schools in the time pre-1995 kind of rings as a laissez fair attitude towards gays.

Dont know where your father's San Antoio/60's would fit.

Not a huge sample size, but the observation of the rural/small town schools 1960s - 1990-ish, South or Southwest being libertarian re: gay students certainly has zero outliers in the group of those who directly experienced them here in this thread/direct relatives.

I think "laissez fair" makes it sound more positive for gay high schoolers than it probably was. According to my parents, suspected gay people were treated as if they were radioactive. Not an especially healthy was to get through your teenage years. It was actually quite similar at my east coast suburban high school in the late 1980's. We had one male student that was pretty clearly gay but he wasn't out yet (he is now). Nobody was outwardly hostile towards him but none of the guys in my class actually made an effort to befriend him or include him in our activities. He mostly spent time with the girls in our class.

Lad, was that similar to your brother's experience in the 2000's?

I'm not sure that the treatment of gay high schoolers in the Southwest in the early 1960's was that different from other times/other regions. I would guess that it was much less likely for gay students to be out of the closest then as compared to these days.

At my high school there wasn't really any sort of intentional radioactiveness to the guys who were suspected to be gay, but none were out of the closet publicly and most weren't really welcomed with open arms into the male social circles. As you said, most gay guys were closer with the girls in school than any guys.

Kids were ****** as high schoolers can be, and would make homophobic comments in passing or when in private to each other, and wouldn't think twice about casually dropping homophobic slurs. Maybe the general ******-ness is a sign of the times?