<p>Just curious. For some reason, it just feels more so than average schools.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine how that would be possible. Not at Exeter at any rate.</p>
<p>No, just the opposite. I believe BSs aim for inclusion, at least my son reports that all students are accepted for their individuality.</p>
<p>Like the above posters said, I doubt it. There is probably the same percent of LGBT people there as there are in regular public schools.</p>
<p>No, not everyone at BS is staight, in fact, P.E.A seems to be the most accepting towards them, because Exeter even has a club called Gay/Straight Alliance…</p>
<p>No offense, but so does Andover, Deerfield, Hotchkiss, etc. Exeter isn’t the only one…
I’m not trying to put Exeter down, I’m just saying it isn’t necessarily “the most accepting”.</p>
<p>Of course it isn’t the only one, but does Andover, Hotchkiss, etc… have a Gay/Straight alliance club? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so</p>
<p>^No, that’s what I meant. Andover, Hotchkiss etc. DO have a Gay/Straight Alliance Club; I looked on their websites.</p>
<p>Ok… I didn’t know that. Besides, im not applying to either Hotchkiss or Andover</p>
<p>Middlesex has one too… I think most bs do.</p>
<p>Answering the question: There is only one out non-straight person at my school. Now statistically, roughly 10% [36 people] of the student body is not straight. </p>
<p>My guesses are either:
a) Fewer LGBT students apply, though I’ve no idea why that would be the case, so this sounds implausible.
b) something goes wrong in admissions. Since I highly doubt that the AO’s are raging homophobes, I will postulate that, in this scenario, gay applicants don’t seem to bring as much to the table. In this case, there would be some sort of characteristic that out gay students have [correlated, not causative, mind you] that makes them unappealing as applicants.
c) the most plausible explanation: most people just don’t come out at boarding school. This is likely for two reasons:
*<em>there seems to be a proliferation of “Type A” people at BS, a smaller percentage of really open people. Lots of very traditional people. That’s not to say that the student body is [openly, obvs i don’t know what people think] homophobic, it’s just not as welcoming and open an environment as my public school was. The norm is generally encouraged by the student body, as I think it is in all high schools, but perhaps more so at bs.
*</em>There are far more problems associated with attending a boarding school and being gay [especially, i would imagine, for boys]. You live in the same place, use the same bathrooms, change in the same locker rooms, etc. as many people of the opposite gender. Let’s face it, many people would not feel comfortable with changing in front of etc. homosexual people of the same gender. i think that perhaps a closeted student would be acutely aware of how awkward being out at a boarding school could potentially become.</p>
<p>That’s weird, I always thought that people can choose to be gay when they’re 16 and before that you’re straight. At least, that’s what my teachers told us so that we wouldn’t call other people gay or anything.</p>
<p>Izzy’s experience does not hold true at Exeter: my kid says that he knows lots of GLBT kids and says that he thinks it would be hard to be intolerant at Exeter. It’s much more open and welcoming of diversity than our local public school.</p>
<p>This is an important discussion to have, I think. I’d hate to see a GLBT teenager head off to a school that would make him or her feel pressure to stay closeted; I can’t even imagine how lonely and isolating that would feel. Wouldn’t want my straight teenagers in that situation either, actually; having grown up around two married aunts, their comfort zones are in a completely different place, and the silence would bother them a lot, I think.</p>
<p>Yonga: Being gay is not a choice for the vast majority of people–it’s just who they are. I suspect that what your teachers were telling you is that before they’re sixteen, many kids don’t yet have a fully determined sense of their sexual orientation. That is: they are who they are (H,G,L,B, or T) but they may not fully realize who they are until they’re 16 or so–which, again, is a reason why an accepting environment can obviously make a crucial difference at bs.</p>
<p>A little while ago, all the people in sibling’s Confirmation class received a flyer on “straight camp.” I mean, those things are really not good ideas. Most homosexuals say that being gay isn’t a choice, and these camps have high suicide rates. I was actually pretty surprised when I found that this camp was run by the Catholic Church, I thought we were better than that!</p>
<p>But, back to the issue of homosexuals in the dorm. I wouldn’t mind having a homosexual roommate, as long as they didn’t do anything that made me uncomfortable. I go to an all boys school, and I know some pretty obviously closeted people. And, it makes me REALLY uncomfortable when someone you’re 99% sure is a homosexual, gets physical with you. (Not in the sexual way, I mean like a push or something) So, I wouldn’t mind, as long as nothing that made me uncomfortable happened.</p>
<p>Btw, which school has the most LGBT friendly environment? I’d guess Hotchkiss b/c its supposed to be very liberal.</p>