For Sake of Solace, Support

Sodas and Doritos in hand, club members amble into the journalism room at Fountain Valley High School and perch on desktops. They gab about a member’s new Old Navy peacoat (consensus: very cool), grouse a little about after-school jobs (the holiday rush is the worst) and chart weekend plans (a party’s on tap).

Where is everybody? the copper-haired president wonders aloud, wrinkling her nose at the almost-finals-time dip in attendance.

OK, this lunchtime meeting is officially called to order. Seeking volunteers for a debate with another club next week. Also need to arrange food for next week’s annual holiday bash: chips, pasta salad and Pepsi, check, check, check.

“I’m going to bring my video camera,” President Kaeti Humphrey offers.

Judging from the banal teen chatter, this meeting could be the student government, the mock trial team or any other club. But it’s not. It’s Fountain Valley’s Student Alliance--a group in which gay and straight teens support each other and just hang out.

The alliance’s weekly meetings draw little notice now. But six years ago, the prospect of a gay support group sent Fountain Valley into a whirl--at one point some 150 students walked out of classes to protest the group. Some students donned “No Gays” T-shirts around town. Nonetheless, school officials decided that a federal equal access law meant they should open their doors to the club.

The same issue is being debated in nearby Orange, where school trustees earlier this month voted 7 to 0 to bar a similar club from meeting at El Modena High School.

The activities at the Fountain Valley club--and at unauthorized meetings of the Orange group--offer a window into why gay and straight teens seek out these organizations. Some adults’ responses to the meetings shed light on their fear that the groups will encourage homosexuality among teens whose identities haven’t fully jelled.

And the groups’ activities--participating in the annual AIDS Walk, hosting poetry readings, watching PBS documentaries--also throw into question a legal justification that the Orange Unified School District used to bar a gay-themed club at El Modena. The Orange trustees prohibited a gay-straight alliance from meeting on campus in part because the club’s discussions could cover sexual education topics highly regulated by the state Education Code.

So, do discussions of new clothing and weekend plans constitute sexual education? How about tales about the pain of coming out or commiseration about anti-gay harassment? Or is there more to it?

The Orange trustees won’t say, according to a district spokeswoman. That’s because they’re being sued by the club’s teenage founders--backed by two national civil liberties groups. However, the trustees have encouraged the club founders to reapply if the group is renamed a tolerance club and any references to sexual orientation or sex are deleted from its mission statement.

Parent Donna Sigalas, who opposed allowing the Orange group on campus, thinks the clubs can’t be evaluated on outward appearances alone.

“If you think they’re going to do what they do privately [in the club] when you’re around, you’re nuts,” Sigalas said. “They’re on their best behavior when someone’s around. They paint things the way they want you to see them. . . . These are teenagers. Everyone says, ‘No one talks about sex at the club,’ but the whole thing is based on sexuality or homosexuality.”

Sigalas fears that the group may encourage what she terms “harmful” sexual activity among minors. Furthermore, she believes the students are being used by a larger network of gay groups to increase political power.

“This isn’t just a few kids wanting to get together,” said the mother of eight. “It’s about a national organization wanting to set up clubs throughout Orange Unified and Orange County. This is about a group wanting to change the mind-set of humanity.”

At Fountain Valley meetings, the kids do wish they could change minds--those of the seven Orange trustees who won’t allow the kids there to form a club. Discussing the situation in Orange is the only time the kids mentioned sex or sexuality at one recent meeting.

During the meeting, the teens don’t identify their sexuality one way or another. Humphrey, 18, guesses that half to two-thirds of the regular attendees are straight but want to support their gay friends.

The club, monitored by English and journalism teacher Michael Poff, has helped Humphrey--and others--through some rough patches.

It’s a group, the teens say, in which no one has to worry about snickers from the back of the classroom, hissed slurs in the hallway or threatened fights. The meetings are a half-hour of solace.

“I think there’s an enormous amount of power in having a safe place to go,” Humphrey said. “It lets people know that they’re normal, not monstrosities.”

A gathering of the Orange Gay-Straight Alliance--held off campus near El Modena High School--is part support group, part protest, part hangout session and a smidge of performance (ever since the club was rejected by the school district, Time and USA Today have come calling).

Eight kids sit on the grass or lean up against the fence and talk.

“A guy in the quad called me a she-male today,” deadpanned one girl in Army pants and a plaid thrift-store shirt. “. . . It was very exciting.”

Name calling, to Orange club co-founder Heather Zetin, 16, is one of the many reasons her group is necessary. Sure, the group members could meet elsewhere, but she thinks they deserve access to the school just like the juggling club or a Bible group.

“These experiences happen at school, . . . hearing the phrase ‘That’s gay’ 8,000 times a day” or being subjected to epithets, she said. “The things that cause so much self-hatred and fear that often accompany being a gay teen all occur at school.”

Orange resident Suzan Wilson has twin daughters--one straight, the other bisexual--who are members of the club. She thinks opposition to the groups comes from fear of the unknown.

“I honestly don’t understand the problem,” Wilson said. “Maybe some parents think their kids will get an idea. But who goes home and says, ‘This sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll be gay’?”