Rationale: Most people in our culture have not taken the opportunity to reflect on the results of the overt and covert oppression of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals. This exercise works well as an icebreaker and gives audiences a chance to "feel" the hurt and injustice before moving on to some factual information about sexual orientation.

Objective: To create awareness of and sensitization to the impact of hurtful words and behavior directed at people who are, or perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

Audience: ages 12 through adult

Length: 15-30 minutes

Materials: Individual slips of paper with quotes and incidents related to oppression. (See attached list, educators may add local examples)

Procedure:

• Prepare numbered slips with quotes and incidents.
• Hand out slips to individuals randomly within group.
• Audience should be encouraged to listen carefully and pay attention to what they are feeling as each slip is read.
• Ask the person with number one to start, to speak clearly and loudly.
• When all slips are read, pause for a moment and then ask for reactions or request a fast go around with each person expressing a feeling or emotion using one word.
• Use this opener as a segue into the topic of sexual orientation.

Procedure: Cut each numbered quote or incident separately.

1. "I would like to give some advice on how to tell your friends about being gay. First of all, don't tell just anyone. You have to really trust someone in order to tell them. It is best not to tell people who are prejudiced, overly religious, or immature."
—from Deborah, age 18

2. "God did not heal or cure Bobby. It is obvious why He did not. God has never been bothered by His child's genetically-determined sexual orientation. I did not know that every time I called him sick, perverted and a danger to children, that his feeling of self worth was being destroyed. Bobby ended his life at age 26."
—from a speech by Bobby's mother

3. A gay high school teacher had been acquitted of charges, that many thought were trumped up by a politically-hungry prosecutor. Now parents are demanding that he be fired because he presented a health risk to students and would influence young boys.
—from the Grand Rapids Press

4. "I desperately wanted to have friends, but the guys called me a sissy. I hated myself so much, I drank a bottle of turpentine and almost died."
—from Aaron, age 15

5. Several groups of students from different schools divided band instruments by gender. One boy offered the opinion, "If a guy plays a flute, he's a fag."
—from MI Dept. of Education

6. "It is against my religion to treat a man I know is homosexual. Besides, they ask for sexually transmitted infections with their promiscuous behavior. Frankly they give me the creeps."
—from a Public Health nurse

7. "The day I told my parents that I was gay, I was 18. They yelled and screamed. They put all my belongings on the sidewalk, took away my car keys, cut off my college tuition and told me to change my last name."
—from Brian, age 20

8. My brother was 16. Everyone loved him. He was a football star and an A student. He was gay in a world that couldn't deal with the subject. He thought there was only one way out. He blew off his head with a shotgun."
—from Katie, age 14

For additional resources, check out: "Filling the Gaps: Hard to Teach Topics in Sexuality Education," available from SIECUS at http://www.siecus.org/. "Filling the Gaps" is a teacher's manual on eight hard-to-teach topics in sexuality education-abstinence, condom use, diversity, pregnancy options, safer sex, sexual behavior, sexual identity and orientation, and sexuality and society.