Whoever said that being nice to others would make you well liked couldn't have been to college. I learned this the hard way. I learned this two years ago.
I don't know if it was my quietness, friendliness or just the whole simplicity of my looks that somehow got me branded ad s 'queer' by fellow students.
I entered college with a determination to succeed, to maintain my straight A status but I was to be surprised.
There were students who laughed in my face and others who said it behind my back--the gay word.
I was labelled without a chance to speak for myself. The evidence, they assumed was all there. It wasn't enough to accept that I was just a quiet reserved guy who wanted to concentrate on my studies. I wasn't interested in dating girls regularly, after all I was only 20 with just one year left in school, I could wait.
This was too strange for them to understand -- it wasn't normal for a man. So they persecuted me with their words.
I soon became a target for homosexuals. It got worse when two of my male lecturers expressed their attraction for me. One backed off when he saw that I was not into his slackness, but the other threatened to defame me by telling people that we'd had a sexual relationship.
I was in a sticky situation, my grades were at stake as were my reputation and morals. I was so afraid that my friends and schoolmates would believe that I was really into homosexual activities that worrying became my best friend. I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't function at school. It was as if my whole world was crumbling. For one semester I, usually a brilliant A student, failed all my exams. I resat them and passed but all that could have been avoided.
Today, I'm a different person. I guess my persecutors won. I'm no longer the quiet easy going person I once was. I live life in the fast lane, getting lots of girls and more. I don't mind having a serious girlfriend, but the one burner business naa go work.
However, I still think about that experience sometimes. I can't put it out of my mind. My whole being was tarnished by their cruel actions and lies.
-from an interview with someone wrongly accused of being a homosexual by youth writer Kerry Lee Dixon.
It happened to me
Althea, 17:
The girls at school and everybody in my district thought that I was 'friendly' with this taxi driver who used to take me home. It got so bad that everyone whispered that I was a whore as they said that I was the only one in the class to lose my virginity. I became so fed up. Today he does take me home and gives me stuff and even though I don't sleep with him, I don't even care anymore what they think.
Alvin, 22:
In primary school everyone branded me as the class thief. Whatever went missing, they would search my things, even the teacher would go through my bag to find the missing items. Even though they never found anything, the name 'tiefing Alvie' stuck. I could never prove that I hadn't taken anything, and even today I get wary everytime someone reports something missing at school, I just assume that they think it's me and get really depressed.
Kara, 15
When I started to get fat last year everyone said I was pregnant. I didn't even know that they were talking until a friend came up to me and asked me. I got self conscious and lost weight and it got worse. They started saying that I had an abortion and even today some people won't talk to me and I know they think I did that.
When rumours fly, Reverend Aaron Dumas cautions:
-You can't stop it. If people decide to lie, it's difficult for you to prove otherwise.
-It would be very silly to try to prove the contrary to the rumours and rebel. Try to lead as normal a life as possible, and time will tell whether they are true or not.
-If you know the rumours are false, for example, if the college fellow knows he doesn't have gay tendencies, but has effeminate tendencies, he should seek professional help. He may have grown up hearing that he acts like a girl, which could be true, and he now needs someone to help him be told how to 'act like a man'.
-Regardless of what happens, you have to stand your ground. There's a course in the law, (in the case of the lecturer) where he could sue for slander.
-There's no way to ensure that this doesn't happen. People lie. You just have to know yourself and don't allow such things to get you down.
