Crowded doesn’t begin to describe it.
Walking into Etcetera’s “safe space” on the second floor of Dawson’s D building is sensory overload. I stand on one leg to avoid crushing fingers as I try to make it to the mismatched sofas across the room, stepping over backpacks, books, and dozens of legs and arms. This is difficult; my eyes are drawn to all four walls at once, awash with rainbow flags and posters of gay and lesbian couples kissing.
Etcetera is Dawson College’s gay-straight alliance. This room may as well be in a different universe from the one where Jamie Hubley lived.
Last month, Hubley killed himself at the age of 15 due to the torment from his peers because he was openly gay.
Across this country, suicide, depression and mental illness are staggeringly common amongst queer teenagers.
Politicians in the House of Commons have been calling for a national suicide prevention strategy that has, thus far, amounted to nothing. Conservative MPs took to Youtube to send a "It Gets Better" message to LGBTQ teens, to the chagrin of many. Funnyman Rick Mercer ranted, calling for all closeted gay people to come out. Kids In the Hall star Scott Thompson told bullied teens to “grow a pair.”
But, surrounded by smiling faces in Etcetera’s space, that all seems rather distant.
“I myself had absolutely no intention of every coming out in my life and then my first semester at Dawson,” said Zynor Majeed, co-president of Etcetera. “It just came out all at once. So I guess it’s a unique atmosphere.”
The rest of the students nod their heads.
“Where I live, it’s a really closed-minded community,” said one student who didn’t want his name published out of fear that his father might read it. He commutes several hours to Dawson every day, just so he can feel safe.
Dawson isn’t immune to homophobia; most of the students have stories of one or two of their classmates’ reluctance to accept the group.
But Etcetera is working on it.
“We have new members every day. We got more new members this semester than Etcetera has ever had,” said Majeed.
A sign-up sheet posted on a bulletin board boasts somewhere between 50 to 75 names. That might sound like a small number, with Dawson boasting around 10,000 students, but there are likely many more who are in the group who do not sign their name.
The group is looking to find new ways to communicate and do outreach with the students. They run a Facebook group and a Tumblr blog that gives readers the opportunity to ask anonymous questions. Majeed said this helps those who don’t want to be "outed" by showing up in the space.
The room gets more grim when the conversation turns to their experiences before coming to Dawson.
“Even the teachers were extremely homophobic at my high school,” said Majeed.
Virtually everyone in the room experienced some form of homophobia in high school. Some of the students who had classmates who were barred from going to prom with their same-sex partner. Other students had classmates who were beaten up for being gay.
This is the world Jamie Hubley lived in, a world that appears to exist in Montreal high schools, too.
One report, released in 2008, (pdf) by Le Groupe de Recherche et d'Intervention Sociale de Montreal (GRIS) asked Montreal students to fill out questionnaires about queer issues in their high school. The stories range from queer students having food thrown out them or having to change schools to the more gruesome – tales of attempted suicide and self-mutilation.
One girl told the story of what happened when someone outed her friend to the whole school. “She mutilated herself because her mother and father knew … her father [lost control and] choked her.” There is story after story of abuse and violence.
GRIS brings in lesbian, gay and bisexual speakers to high schools around Montreal to run workshops that aim to “demystify homosexuality and bisexuality,” said executive director Marie Houzeau. According to their website, they did over a thousand of these workshops last year.
Houzeau said that sometimes school administrations can be hesitant and obstructive, while students are occasionally outright hostile. The answers can be filled with threats and violent imagery.
“Sometimes it’s very tough,” said Houzeau.
But she said the students are, more often than not, respectful. In fact, some of the students who do the GRIS workshop later on end up volunteering with the group.
A few of the members of Etcera did the workshop.
“In my second year of high school [GRIS] came by. I’m ashamed to say that in the mentality I had in my second year of high school, I thought that was completely ridiculous,” said Majeed. “But it started me thinking.”
As Etcetera’s members packed up their bags to head to class, they started talking about going into high schools themselves to talk to students about homophobia.
Walking out of the room, into the crowded and loud hallways of Dawson, you have to wonder if this is what Jamie Hubley had in mind when he tried to start a gay-straight alliance at Jackson Secondary School.
That dream will continue on in his memory.
