When Gen Kasprzyk decided three years ago to come out of the closet and openly declare that she is a lesbian, she encountered various reactions from the people she knew. Her stepfather supported her because he has a relative who is gay, her mother insisted she was going through a phase, and her friends ostracized her. But for Kasprzyk, the revelation was liberating.
“I was hiding who I really was and putting on a front for other people,” said the 18-year-old graduate of Mundelein High School. “When one of the high school football players would walk by, I’d say, `Oh, he’s cute.’ It was killing me because it wasn’t him I was looking at, but the cheerleader standing behind him.”
Sue Razbadouski is a licensed clinical social worker who sees many homosexual teens in her practice at the private, not-for-profit Family Consultation Services in Rockford. She said gay teens face a social pressure cooker in high school that prevents them from being honest about their feelings.
“The biggest thing is that there is a lot of fear,” she said. “Kids are afraid that they are not going to be accepted. And that’s a time when teens want to fit in. A lot of kids’ families do reject them,” cutting them adrift at a time of life that already is turbulent. “A lot of them feel like they can’t come out to their families, and they can’t share it with their friends. They have no role models. And teenagers can be pretty cruel to anyone they perceive as different.”
At first, Kasprzyk worried about what other people would think of her once she revealed her true sexual orientation. “But once I got into my first (lesbian) relationship and realized how happy I was and how `me’ it was, I said if other people put me down, that’s their problem.”
Psychologist John Jochem, director of behavioral medicine at St. Therese Medical Center in Waukegan, said his own view is that one’s sexual orientation is not really solidified until early adulthood. “There is a lot of homosexual experimentation going on among teens. I wouldn’t want teens struggling with their sexuality to read this and think they’re doomed (to be homosexual).”
Kasprzyk is a student at the College of Lake County in Grayslake and co-president of the Spectrum Club, the school’s new gay, lesbian and bisexual student organization. Formed in January, the club has about 20 active members who meet weekly not only to support each other but also to discuss ways in which to promote better understanding and awareness among the student body and the Lake County community regarding homosexuality and bisexuality.
Although the club’s executive board members are required to be enrolled as students at the college, general members are not. In fact, most of Spectrum’s members are non-students from Round Lake, Gurnee, Grayslake and Zion. Several of the members are Grayslake High School students.
According to Kasprzyk, the club arrived at its name because the word spectrum refers to a beam of light that, when refracted by a prism, presents a rainbow of colors. The rainbow flag has become a symbol of the gay and lesbian movement and gay pride.
“We cover the whole spectrum of sexuality,” explained the club’s other co-president, Chad Parsons, 20, of Round Lake Heights.
Parsons, who is bisexual, realized he was attracted to boys and girls by the time he reached junior high; by high school, he was trying to overcompensate for these feelings with machismo, he explained.
“If there was a sexual joke to be made about a female, I’d make it,” he said. “People in my high school (Round Lake High) thought I was a pervert.”
Parsons’ parents already suspected he might be gay or bisexual because he didn’t seem able to form a stable relationship with a girl, so when they found “unsuitable material” in his room that gave his secret away, they were more disappointed than surprised.
“They thought that someday their son would marry a beautiful woman, but now that may not be the case,” he said, adding that they have been very supportive of him despite their initial disappointment.
The college’s administration also has backed the club 100 percent, agreed both Kasprzyk and Parsons.
“There was no hesitancy on the part of our administration (to allow the club to organize),” according to Ed Snyder of Grayslake, director of student activities. “We’re a forum for open discussion and the free exchange of ideas. As diverse a college as we are, there’s a wide variety of opinions here, . . . and I think that for the most part, the student body has been respectful (of Spectrum members).”
To further its visibility within the community, the club kicked off its first-ever Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Pride Week on CLC’s Grayslake campus in April. The event featured four days of movies, coming-out stories, an AIDS fundraiser and an open public forum to discuss alternative lifestyles. About 70 people attended the forum, which had seven panelists, including Kasprzyk, Parsons, another bisexual man and woman, two heterosexual gay activists and a Lake County Health Department staffer, fielding comments and questions from the audience.
“I think society has become a bit more welcoming of (gays and lesbians) than it has been in the past,” Kasprzyk said before the evening began. But based on comments made by some audience members during the forum’s open-mike session, it became apparent that many in society still view homosexuality as either a sin or an aberration.
Although Rev. Kerry Doyal, pastor of Lake Region Bible Church in Round Lake, asked the panel’s forgiveness for offenses carried out against homosexuals by hateful, fearful and self-righteous Christians, he emphasized that the apology “does not mean we agree with or condone homosexuality.”
A Libertyville grandmother said she could find nothing normal about homosexuality.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” said Parsons’ mother, Phyllis. “These kids were very brave to get up and answer the questions they did, and they did it very tastefully. I think it’s so sad that so many of those kids could not tell their parents (they were gay) or were rejected by them once they did.”
“The truth of homosexuality is that it is not something to which people convert,” said Martha Butler of Waukegan, a health educator with the Lake County Health Department’s HIV program.. “This is something that most of these people feel they were born with.”
She said gays, lesbians and bisexuals are not at greater risk of catching and transmitting sexual diseases.
“Sexually transmitted diseases have nothing to do with your sexual preference and everything to do with the sexual behavior you’re engaging in,” Butler said, adding that at least 80 percent of the patients treated at the health department’s Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinic are heterosexuals. In fact, she said, recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have shown a tremendous increase in the rate of infection among heterosexual women, specifically African-American and Hispanic women.
The audience reactions did not surprise Beverly Brock of Mundelein or Terri Berryman of Grayslake, who serve as the club’s faculty advisers.
“Lake County is traditionally very conservative,” Brock said. “Gays, lesbians and bisexuals have not found it easy here.”
“Whether you know it or not, they’re your co-workers, friends and loved ones,” said SuLyn Foust, recalling her own gay friend who died of AIDS contracted through a blood transfusion. The Gurnee resident, a heterosexual gay activist and editor of the college’s student newspaper, hopes Spectrum will educate the community to become more tolerant of homosexuals and bisexuals.
“They’re everywhere, but people’s ignorance is what keeps them in the closet,” she said.
Parsons’ mother agreed. “One of the panelists said that when people hear the word `homosexual,’ they only think of the sexual part,” she observed. “I think I was guilty of that, too. But when (Chad) said it was as much emotional as it was sexual, if not more so, that opened my eyes.”
