Gay Camps and Passing

I've been watching But Im A Cheerleader, and I've found myself rather surprised by the lack of intelligence in the design of the camp, its activities, and the extremely unreliable and counterproductive ways they used to ensure compliance from their wards and to evaluate their progress. The more the story went, the more I thought to myself, "someone who actually knows something about gender identity, gender expression, and sexual preferences, could actually make a useful camp; not one to 'turn you heteronormal', but one to 'teach you how to handle being GLBT'".

So there would be some theoretical formation on what gender roles mean, on the clusters of tastes and traits and skills associated with them, on how to dissociate and modularize said characteristics so that they can be learned and appropriated on their own... It would also include guidelines regarding how to find appropriate partners, how to keep their private life as private as they want it to be... how to manage the many problems that can arise from their characteristics and tastes, And, of course, teaching them about how and where to find support groups that can help them in situ with their problems.

At the end of the camp, the youth would be able to go to college or to join the work force, reasonably confident of their own identity (with special emphasis on getting rid of Internalized Categorism), and reasonably able to manage and, if need be, conceal it.

Of course, the main problem remains; how to get the sort of parents who send their kids to "gay camp" to send them to this kind of camp instead? One could tell them that "gay camp" just doesn't work, and this camp may not provide the ideal result ("my kid is straight"), but the next best thing ("my kid is equipped to be happy"), but what if they're irrational and don't want to hear it? Perhaps "your kid might actually be at least a little bisexual; if so, we can teach them how to have an easier time fitting in the closet, until and unless they decide to abandon it"?

edited 1st Nov '12 2:36:28 PM by TheHandle

I'd give it less than five minutes before "They're making schools that teach kids to be gay!" hysteria kicks in and ruins it.

No, this kind of stuff should be taken care of in competent sex education programs in schools while this "sexual correction" camp bullshit should be outlawed.

• You can't outlaw that stuff in constituencies where most of the electorate approves of their existence.
• For the same reason, conversely, you can't make it mandatory in school.
• Even if the parents/voters were okay with it, knowledge about how to handle the unique complications that being gay brings is too specialized to make it part of every kid's curriculum, and making it an elective or extracurricular might be conductive to segregation and stigmatization. Summer camps or saturday/sunday school would be more appropriate.
• The main problem many people have with gays is the unwholesomeness of their lifestyle. Bathouse culture. Porn cinemas. Sexual disease. That kind of nonsense. It's not just wanting their kids to fit in, it's also that they don't want them to be unhappy, lead miserable, unhealthy lives, and commit suicide. Not all parents will be realistic enough to accept such a compromise, but I'm fairly certain there's plenty of them who simply want the best for their children.

You won't solve a problem like segregation and stigmatization by packing gay kids off to a special summer camp which both segregates them, even just temporarily, and will become a prime target for stigmatization in itself. Homophobia comes to an end when people realise and accept that gay people are just, well, people. Good people, bad people, funny people, boring people, horny people, sexless people. You can't do that if you say "all the gay kids go here because you're different". That's just emphasizing barriers and making them worse, not breaking them down.

If you want gay kids to turn into healthy, functioning human beings (as most of them not born in Bigotsville tend to do) then treat them like the rest of humanity. Whether they're heterosexual or not shouldn't make a difference to how they're raised or educated and if it does then that is the problem you need to solve.

And, for what it's worth, I'd argue that these sexual correction camps and their "gay is wrong and I'm going to make you a worthy person" message is both psychologically abusive and dives right into hate crime territory. So I can see plenty of reasons to ban them, the wishes of crazy bigots be damned.

Actually, I'd say that the gay camps are part of a larger problem that is the troubled teen industry.

At the root of it, it's a bunch of unaffiliated schools that use "tough love" to reform troubled kids into upright members of society. It ranges everywhere from "my kid is gay, and that needs to change" to "I found porn under my son's bed, and this is unacceptable" to "my daughter is talking back to me and she needs to learn her place". Some of them are religious, some aren't.

This is one example of what I'm talking about.

That is... distressing. "Horror Stories", indeed. I can't even think in something to add here. It is just too horrifying for thoughts.

But, yeah, I think you are right. This goes far beyond being a "gay issue". It is more universal than that.

edited 2nd Nov '12 8:54:24 AM by Heatth

See, you don't even need to start talking about that kind of psycho behaviour (although we absolutely should). The whole concept has a creepy reeducation camp vibe to it (mostly because that's exactly what they are). But for some reason, there seems to be some kind of acceptance of these psycho'd up Magdalene Asylums so long as you stick a cross on it and emphasis its "no g'uv'ment involved" nature.

edited 2nd Nov '12 8:55:07 AM by TheBatPencil

Heck, they're not always religious in nature, they're just unregulated. The problem is that there are literally no laws against this stuff, due to Loophole Abuse.

This. Theyre pretty much a product of some i9nsane idea Americans have that if a child is unruly, it isnt your fault, and all it requires to bring them back into line isnt addressing their issues, its packing them off to be brutally brainwashed.

Brutally brainwashed in the name of "discipline" and "tough love" nonetheless.

The major problem here is that most of the kids aren't actually troubled or anything, they're just acting like normal teens.

It's almost always stuff like "acting out" or "got caught drinking with friends" and never anything that's actually cause for concern.

The other problem is that these schools practically prey on uninformed parents, distributing pamphlets through churches or other social events geared towards parents. They put on a good face and get some students to talk about how they used to be drug addicts or prostitutes, and how the school turned their life around. And instead of looking into it, the parents just take it at face value.

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:48:49 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

So, main problems that have been raised;

• "Isolation and boot-like camps are"... unethical? Worrying? Distressing? Because they look on some level like the sort of brainwashing centres where POW and political prisoners had their will broken, then reshaped to fit what the breaker wanted? Can I get anything more concrete here, please? Like, worry about what the camps actually do rather than what they seem to resemble?
• "Gay kids don't want to be segregated or treated as different. They want to be treated as people and human beings." I don't see how a one-time summer camp could count as segregation any more than going to a convention or a summer course would; these too are times where people with unusual and sometimes socially disparaged interests get together to have cultural exchanges about stuff they have in common.

Still, these points were raised, so let's address them: how about instead of a camp, making it a sojourn? Study centre + guest house in the middle of a gay-friendly city or town? You know, so they actually get to experience being treated like normal people, like being able to do Public Displays Of Affection without drawing more ire than any other Make-Out Kids, or being able to go to gay clubs that aren't creepy underground Where Everybody Knows Your Flame deals. That's stuff they probably aren't going to get if they stay in non-friendly towns, and it's a different experience from a camp.

• Advantages of this solution; no isolation (and thus no silly suspicions of brainwashing), ability to mingle with the local population (no segregation), more entertainment value.
• Disadvantages: it's probably going to be a lot more expensive, especially if the gay-friendly city happens to be San Francisco.

Given this fact, that these parents are willing to toss their children into a potentially harrowing experience with little information... is it even unethical to "fool" them into sending their kids to this kind of camp instead of the type they intend? Nothing illegal, the same sort of weaseling used in average marketing. Specifically, I am thinking of an Exact Words kind of pitch:

If they're that hasty and misinformed, such a presentation would be doing everyone a favour, wouldn't it?

edited 2nd Nov '12 2:06:38 PM by TheHandle

DG, I can't read stuff like that without thinking of these: the Magdalene Asylums. They should be outlawed. Be it under new types of names, all these kinds of "tough love", religious schools mainly sound like reinventions of these and the Bethanies.

To say the idea lives in the C19th is no understatement.

More like the first half of the 20th when homosexuality was considered a mental illness.

As for the OP, not a bad idea in principal but the first season wouldn't be over before it got burned to the ground.

edited 2nd Nov '12 2:36:17 PM by tricksterson

@Handle: Except I could see that backfiring badly in the "See, they are evil agenda-pushers who will stoop to any level to brainwash our kids into thinking being gay is okay" sort of way when they figure out that the kids aren't going to be straight when they get out.

The way it is currently, the kids are threatened and beaten into submission, so they appear to be not-gay when they get out. From a parent's perspective, it works, and it's pretty easy to not believe allegations of abuse.

@Euo: Yeah, pretty much. They're definitely cut from the same cloth.

edited 2nd Nov '12 2:38:19 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

Well, it is true, isn't it? I mean, besides the "evil" part, that's exactly what it'd be doing.

But, well, if that's an important objection, it can be countered too; instead of teaching kids that "being gay is okay", they'd be taught to understand all that being gay entails, for better or for worse, without any value judgments implicit or explicit, and they'd be left to make their own opinion about what kind of path they wish to follow. With that and being taught how to "pass", there's no agenda being pushed; it's purely the interests of the child that are being served.

edited 2nd Nov '12 2:42:54 PM by TheHandle

Now you're making it sound outright abhorrent.

Yes, but parents who enroll their kids in these sorts of programs don't want their kids to be comfortable with who they are, or even taught more about who they are.

They only care about their kid coming out "cured", because they believe that being "cured" is the only way their kid will ever be happy.

It's the same sort of people who believe that drinking lemon juice will stave off diabetes (as an example), despite absolutely no evidence backing it up outside their own preconceived notions.

edited 2nd Nov '12 2:49:11 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

... But what can you do when a majority of voters are insane? Raising awareness doesn't work if people refuse to listen! I mean, look at this clip:

It's an anti-Dawkins clip. Yet it keeps telling the viewer they should listen to people with more knowledge and wisdom than themselves. It does that sarcastically. How can one do that sarcastically? How does one wrap one's brain around that?

And it sounds abhorrent because...?

edited 2nd Nov '12 3:07:40 PM by TheHandle

Camps that treat kids in a manner that would get one charged with war crimes if they did the same to PO Ws shouldn't be allowed to exist. The people operating those hell holes by and large belong in prison.

... What ways are those, precisely? Name three. And why should the same standards be applied? It's one thing to force propaganda on an adult from another country, it's another to force your own values on impressionable children when you're a parent or are obeying a parent's wishes; that's, after all, the entire point of education/training/raising/etc.

edited 3rd Nov '12 4:08:50 AM by TheHandle

Yes, but there's a marked difference between torture and teaching. That some people have, for years, mixed the two up is no excuse to continue the practice.

edited 3rd Nov '12 6:01:00 AM by Euodiachloris

Nothing. That's Democracy

Also I think that anti-Dawkin clip was mocking Dawkins as a pseudo-intellectual who thinks he is smarter than everyone else because "he studied biology" and "has a science degree"

edited 3rd Nov '12 6:22:06 AM by DeviantBraeburn

About Dawkins: ... Problem is, given the average and median education levels in the US, it's a pretty good bet that, given that he's a professor of biology, he is at the very least more knowledgeable than "you" when it comes to how living beings work (how that correlates with "smart" or even "wise" depends on what definition of those words you're using). Hence why the sarcasm falls flat and sounds more like a genuine, legitimate boast, if a rather rude one.

About democracy: My point exactly. It was a rhetorical question, as a gentle nudge to those saying camps should be outlawed, encouraging them to suggest solutions that are actually practical.

Education is about achieving compliance from youth, and causing them to believe what you want them to believe, and act in the way you want them to act.

Doing that without beating them up and using other forms of terror and pain is a challenge; not accounting for the times where you're asking too much of them, or the times in which you're simply wrong, often, youth are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

Doing that without unethically manipulating them when they are permanently scanning you for subtle cues on what is approved and what isn't, is even more of a challenge.

Doing that while actually teaching them the right thing in the right way takes a highly trained professional, and a somewhat trained parent.

There was a study once that found a way to improve children's happiness and how well they do at school by a very large margin, much larger than, say, giving them vitamins. It involved training the parents in parenting. Despite the indisputable results, the study has faded into obscurity. There seems to be a lot of parents who recoil at the very idea that they should be taught how to raise their kids. Do you see where I'm going with this?

While I disagree with you on Dawkins (I find the man incredibly annoying), I agree with you on education.

Alas, annoying and stupid are not necessarily synonymous.