Paso Robles LGBTQ students lay out demands for district after homophobic Pride flag incidents
More than 300 people showed up Wednesday evening to hear Paso Robles High School students share their experiences of being LGBTQ youth in the North County.
People squeezed into rows of plush chairs, sat on the floor, stood along the walls and peered in through the entryway to Paso Robles High’s performing arts center.
The event came days after homophobic incidents at the school made international headlines.
In one incident in late September, a rainbow Pride flag was ripped off a teacher’s classroom wall and apparently defecated on, as shown in a video posted to social media network TikTok.
In response, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District implemented a policy limiting the size of flags allowed to be displayed in classrooms to 2 feet by 2 feet.
That flag policy, which was later amended to allow Pride flags measuring up to 2 feet by 3 feet in classrooms, sparked outrage and disappointment among students and faculty in the district — and prompted Wednesday’s community forum.
A second homophobic incident happened Tuesday morning at Paso Robles High, when a face mask with a Pride flag pattern was “desecrated” by an unknown student or students, according to the school’s principal.
Wednesday evening’s event, titled “Coming Out Against Hate,” featured more than a dozen student speakers, a dance performance, a screening of a short film and a reading of an original poem by a student.
Students also answered questions from the audience.
At the end of the event, the Paso Robles High Unity Choir sang “Love Is Love Is Love Is Love.” They were joined by members of the audience, as the song reverberated around the performing arts center for more than three minutes.
Paso Robles school officials attended forum
Two students — Eve Barajas and John Seden-Hansen — served as masters of ceremonies for the event and gave opening remarks that highlighted why they felt compelled to put on the event.
“A hateful act directed at the LGBTQ community compelled us to act,” Barajas said at the beginning of Wednesday’s event. “This is not just about a flag or the size of that flag. Throughout our high school’s history, LGBTQ+ students have had to navigate bullying, aggressions, intimidation and outright violence. The emotional and mental health tolls have been staggering.”
“We gathered here this evening to push back, demand better, make ourselves known and demand a safe place in our own school,” said John Seden-Hansen, another student at Paso Robles High. “We’ve come together because it’s time for the voices of LGBTQ students to be acknowledged, heard, understood and celebrated.”
Residents from across San Luis Obispo County were in attendance.
District Superintendent Curt Dubost and Paso Robles High Principal Anthony Overton were at the forum as well as some district school board members, including Chris Arend and Tim Gearhart.
What LGBTQ students want to see at Paso High
During the event, Barajas laid out three demands.
“First, we demand the district issue a public apology for their timid response to hate,” she said. “Moreover, the district must clearly and forcefully condemn anti-LGBTQ hate on campus.”
“Second, PRHS students demand the district enact a zero-tolerance policy regarding hate and hate crimes on campus, as well as enact other policies to protect marginalized students after a consultation with stakeholder clubs in order to protect students’ rights and identities,” Barajas said.
“Third, the new flag policy must be repealed and the district must recognize the importance of Pride flags in creating safe spaces for LGBTQ youth,” she concluded.
Near the end of Wednesday’s event, Seden-Hansen announced that 14 teachers at Paso Robles High would hang large, 3-by-5 feet Pride flags in their classrooms, despite district policy prohibiting such displays.
Dubost told The Tribune Thursday morning that he didn’t want to directly address the three demands from the students quite yet as he was still processing them and wanted to meet with stakeholders before making any final decisions.
“I hope that we can find common ground and solutions that we can all live with,” he said. “I was happy to go (to the forum) and see the level of support for the students. I hope to meet with them soon.”
Students share their experiences
During Wednesday’s event, 13 students stood at a podium in the performing arts center and gave short speeches on their experiences coming out as queer, the difficulties they faced at school and their disdain for the school’s administration for implementing the flag policy.
Students detailed the hate, disgust and anger they’d faced from strangers as well as their families and friends for being gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual or gender nonconforming.
Some of the students said they wish school was a safe space for them but added that the blatant homophobic culture allowed there made them feel scared and lonely at times.
One student, Sprout Aragon, spoke about how they’d been verbally attacked and questioned at school for being transgender.
“I thought, ‘If I don’t pass as a woman, maybe someone will know I’m trans and I will be killed,’ ” said Aragon, who uses both “they” and “she” pronouns. “These several microaggressions and bullying affect my mental health because it scares me, it hurts me and makes me feel worthless. I don’t know if I’ll get beaten up or if my life will be taken or threatened because I am transgender.”
Aragon said they were afraid to speak during the forum because “I don’t know if I’ll be beat up for speaking out about this tonight.”
“There used to be Pride flags at Paso Robles High School that made me feel safe and made me feel accepted,” she continued. “I was disgusted when I heard about the Pride flag incident. I also felt scared, and my school, Paso Robles High School, rather than saying ‘We are sorry this has happened,’ has decided to limit the Pride flag size ... because they are afraid that it is causing issues.”
One Paso Robles High student, Nicole Rogers, said that until the forum event Wednesday evening, she’d only been out as queer to her close friends and sister.
“I, fortunately, have a loving family,” she said. “So, school is the cause of my internalized homophobia in hearing the constant homophobic discourses at the school.”
She said that the district’s policy limiting the size of the Pride flag “shows that you side with the oppressor and not the oppressed.”
Forum included questions from audience
After all the student speakers had taken the podium, they took questions from the crowd.
The first question asked how the Pride flag differs from others such as the so-called Thin Blue Line and Black Lives Matter flags.
Barajas said the main difference is that the Pride flag is not political — it represents love.
Other audience members asked whether students were taught about LGBTQ history and how to be sexually healthy in non-straight relationships. Students, in short, answered that they are not taught much, if anything, about those subjects.
One person asked about the students’ plan if the district did not change the new Pride flag policy.
“We’re gonna keep on fighting,” student Quinn Calvo shouted in response. “Keep fighting until we get what we need, what everyone needs, to feel safe.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 12:36 PM.
